Ashland University student Zach Moyer, a senior computer information system major, has struggled with stress and anxiety all throughout his eight years as a college student. After being in college for so long, Moyer knows all too well the struggles of trying to maintain mental health.

Moyer first began college at Ohio State’s Mansfield campus before transferring to North Central to pursue an associate’s degree for his current major. That is when he decided to pursue a four-year degree at AU.

“I’ve been stressed out the whole time I have been in college,” Moyer said. “You just put so much pressure on yourself to do well that it can get out of control.”

It is an all too familiar feeling that many college students may experience to some degree throughout their educational careers.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, at least one in five young adults will experience a mental health condition during college.

This issue is very prevalent at AU. According to an anonymous google survey conducted on mental health at Ashland, out of 103 students, 91.2 percent have experienced a mental health issue while in college.

Matthew Bartuccio, professional counselor on campus, explained some of the more common mental health conditions that he has seen in students.

“Anxiety and depression would be the two most common conditions,” Bartuccio said. “Stress can also be an issue and catalyst leading to the other conditions.”

Bartuccio said he has seen the trend of those with mental health conditions go up compared to the past. There is an increase in terms of volume and consistency.

According to Bartuccio, “at least sixty” percent of students have recurring mental health conditions that he works with at AU.

Moyer is not one of those students. He prefers a different way of coping if his stress or anxiety gets bad enough.

“If I’m having a mental breakdown, I only go to certain people for help,” Moyer said. “I tend to talk to my parents or friends to help cope.”

This makes perfect sense for Bartuccio as a counselor. All students are individually different when it comes to coping mechanisms.

Professor of the AU psychology department, Curtis Ickes, agreed with Bartuccio on the most common conditions students face. He expanded upon how he does not really see a gap between students of different academic levels related to mental health issues.

“It’s a wide variety of conditions students face although anxiety is one of the more common ones,” Ickes said. “I think that these issues are common throughout all academic levels and classes.”

Even though Ickes did not see a gap, he noted some of the common challenges beginning college students faced that could lead to a mental health condition.

“Students have more academic demands when they begin,” Ickes said. “They have to adjust to the fact that they need to organize their time and this can lead to anxiety.”

Moyer remembered how anxious he felt when he first started out as a student at the Ohio State Mansfield campus as an accounting major.

“I had a lot of pre-anxiety coming into college about studying college level material,” Moyer said. “I wasn’t that great of a student in high school and had no idea what to expect.”

Sophomore AU student Anthony Brown, an entrepreneurship major, also resonated with this issue when he first began college at Ashland.

“I had immediate anxiety coming into school,” Brown said. “I had never been a straight A student in high school, so I wanted to do well right off the bat.”

Brown recalled the first time he was majorly stressed out as an AU student when he did really poorly on one of his first college exams, and it “made me anxious about my future.”

Bartuccio also said some of the problems incoming freshman face that could lead to a mental health condition.

“Being away from home for the first time can produce a lot of anxiety and stress,” Bartuccio said. “Just trying to fit into this new college lifestyle can be nerve-racking for some students.”

When Moyer was at Ohio State, he was constantly worried that he would not fit in. In high school, he really liked to just keep to myself, so he said he was pretty stressed about finding ways to be more outgoing and make friends.

Now as a senior at AU, Moyer feels the social stress has gone away. However, that has been replaced with the pressure of his upcoming graduation in the spring.

“What will happen after graduation has been on my mind constantly,” Moyer said. “People sometimes don’t understand what I’m going through.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 25 percent of adults with mental health issues believed that people are caring and sympathetic to people with mental illnesses, though Bartuccio believes the stigma is passing.

“I don’t believe there is a stigma to getting help anymore,” Bartuccio said. “The age we live in allows people to be more open than ever with their mental health.”

Brown believes that it is easier to be open with mental health problems compared to the past. He said he thinks people can now openly talk to someone and get help easier.

“I don’t think there is a stigma attached to these issues anymore,” he said.

Although the stigma is seemingly passing, many students at AU still feel uncomfortable reaching out for help with mental health.

Taken from the same google survey, out of 103 students, 50.5 percent responded that they still do not feel comfortable enough to get help on campus should they need it.
If it was needed, Brown would be comfortable getting help on campus. However, he feels uninformed on the current help services on campus.

“I did not know about the counseling center here,” Brown said. “I had no idea.”

He believes the counseling center is not advertised enough compared to other services on campus.

For instance, tutoring services are advertised on a daily basis. Brown believes if the university advertised the counseling center like that, more students would know about it.

Moyer agrees with Brown’s assessment of students not really knowing about the counseling center.

“As a senior, I had no clue that AU offered those kinds of services,” Moyer said. “If I would have known, it could have definitely helped get me through some difficult times.”

Students can visit the counseling center on the second floor of the student center, beside career services, during regular university business hours to schedule an appointment with a counselor.