Help a nervous senior!!

lostaccount
Tue, 15 Sep 2015 01:39:23 +0000

Your schools are all large research oriented universities. Even Tulane has about 8,000 undergrads. You mentioned how depression and anxiety interfered with your academic performance in the past. Naturally it is hard to know if it will figure into your future. Hopefully it won’t.

But you probably also know that previous episodes of depression increase risk for subsequent episodes of depression. You know how important connections and nurturing environments are because you are helping to create one in your school by serving as a mentor. Well, large universities can be the opposite of warm and nurturing. Faculty members are usually evaluated and retained on the basis of their research productivity. Teaching ability and caring about undergraduates is often on the bottom of the priority list. In contrast, at liberal arts colleges and at smaller academic settings the teaching environment and level of caring is the priority. The smaller places are known for nurturing the academic aspirations of their students.

Usually students at colleges mention that their faculty get to know them personally and seem to care about them. That is rarer in the places you list. Given that you titled this “Help a nervous senior”, I wonder if you have considered how the climate of the school may help or impede having the type of college experience you want. Studies that surveyed faculty members, many of whom work in large universities, about where they would like their own offspring to attend suggest that those who know the academic world very well tend to desire small liberal arts colleges and smaller universities for their own offspring. Please give this some thought!