Speaker 1: A few years ago, I attended a conference that brought together faculty members and administrators from universities all over the country. And as a psychologist who works in higher education, I was eager to attend because one of the goals of this conference was to see if we could gain insight into a question that is on the mind of every college administrator from coast to coast, which is, how can we solve the college student mental health crisis? Now, just a year before this conference took place, the Chronicle of Higher Education surveyed more than 100 college presidents, asking them to report their most pressing concerns outside of the classroom. And according to the Chronicle, 66% of these leaders identified student mental health as the top issue, which far outweighed any of the other concerns that made the list. And this finding is not altogether surprising when you consider that in recent years, the proportion of students suffering from depression and anxiety has been skyrocketing. Well, on the second day of this conference, which was being held on a beautiful college campus on the East Coast during a week with lovely fall weather that was sunny and warm, I decided to play a little hooky and go for a walk outside. And as I was making my way around campus, I happened upon the admissions office where I was told an admissions presentation was scheduled to begin just minutes later. So out of curiosity, I joined this group of other campus visitors and we were led to this admissions presentation, which just so happened to be in the exact same building as the conference I was attending. The admissions presentation was upstairs. The conference, where I was supposed to be, was downstairs. But it turns out that by attending this admissions presentation, I wasn't playing hooky at all because it was there that I gained even more insight into the college student mental health crisis than I did at the conference itself. And probably not for reasons the admissions office would have expected. This admissions officer spent 45 minutes telling us what made that institution great. She told us all about the experiences the students were having that were great. She shared stories of students doing internships and pursuing research with faculty. She told us all about the student organizations, the campus activities, the dorms, the rec center, the food, making quite a compelling case that being a college student today is great. But then I remembered the real reason I was on campus that day. And it occurred to me that although this admissions officer may have been telling the truth, she wasn't telling the whole truth. Because while she was upstairs painting this idyllic picture of the college experience, just downstairs were hundreds of faculty members and administrators discussing data sets like those from the American College Health Association, showing that over the last year, 66% of students reported feeling overwhelming anxiety. And 46% of students reported feeling so depressed they could not function, which collectively was a glaring reminder that the portrayals of college that are being delivered to prospective students and the actual lived experiences of students in college are often vastly different from one another. And that stark contrast could provide some insight into what has been fueling the college student mental health crisis. One of the ways that psychologists conceptualize happiness is with a simple formula. Happiness equals what we have divided by what we want. In other words, your happiness as a college student is determined not only by all of the wonderful experiences you will have during college, it's also affected by what you want college to be like and what you expect college to be like. Since 2014, I have been the faculty advisor for WashU's Peer Counseling Center. And at the end of every year, I ask the undergraduate co-directors of this organization what they believe to be the primary driver of today's student mental health crisis. And reliably, the one phrase that comes up year after year is unrealistic expectations. Many students start college without a realistic sense of what the experience is actually going to be like. And it makes sense why. Many of these students spent the latter half of high school attending admissions presentations and going on campus tours, each one with loftier promises than the last. And those messages are compounded by the cultural myths that have been propagated in the movies and on social media and by society in general, all of which have sensationalized college as the best four years of your life. And then those students get to college, and they face inevitable difficulties, and they compare their actual experiences with those lofty expectations they developed. And very often, they are left with no other conclusion to draw than that they are doing college incorrectly, or even worse, that they do not belong there at all. Now, I certainly don't mean to pick on my friends in admissions or to suggest that they are doing anything wrong or that they need to be doing anything differently. In fact, I think it's important that they offer these presentations to get students excited about college. But I also think it's important for prospective students and their families to understand that there's more to the story than just what you see on the college admissions tour or in the movies or on social media. And those other parts of the story have got to be delivered from someone, somewhere. So as a psychologist who has spent the last decade working on a college campus, this is my message to new students. First of all, you absolutely should be excited about all of the wonderful experiences and the classes and the professors and the relationships and the adventures that will fill the numerator of that happiness formula during your college years. But the other thing you should do in the interest of your mental health during college is to be mindful about some of the other expectations you are bringing with you that could be overinflating the denominator of that formula. Because if what you want is for college to be perfect, and if you visit a campus and you leave believing that you have found the perfect place and a destination where you're going to be happy all the time, I hate to be the one to have to break this to you. But if those are your expectations, you very likely are setting yourself up for disappointment. And at some point, you're going to end up disillusioned. Because if you're doing college correctly, there are going to be hard times. You're going to have roommate conflicts. You're going to take classes that leave you feeling disappointed or that you feel are unfair. You're going to pursue extracurriculars or internship experiences that you have your heart set on that you still don't get to be a part of. And that's the case no matter where you go. You're going to face adversity. But one of the things I've learned from studying the happiness of college students over the years is that the happiest students aren't happy all the time. Rather, the happiest students have realistic expectations about the challenges that are in store for them during college. And they have thought about that ahead of time. And they come equipped with the strategies that will allow them to cope effectively. Or at very least, they know who to turn to for help in those moments. Remember, college is great. But part of what will make college great will be the ways that you develop the wherewithal to overcome setbacks that come your way so that you can stay on track toward your dreams and aspirations, not only during college, but also throughout your life. When I think back to that conference I attended a couple of years ago about how to solve the college student mental health crisis, I'm still not sure there's anyone who has the definitive solution. But I do think that if we can be more open and upfront with students about the kinds of challenges they can expect to face during college, along with the behaviors that will proactively contribute to their well-being, then maybe one day when we talk about the mental health of college students, it will be less of a crisis and instead have more to do with their resilience, their well-being, and their flourishing. Thank you.