How TMU students overcome mental health challenges in university

I realized all of the different and helpful techniques used to cope with mental health challenges after talking to Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) students about their struggles. From managing their time to dealing with the overwhelming stress of workloads, keep reading to receive tips and advice from TMU students on navigating mental health!

As a fifth-year Biomedical Sciences student, Usman Ali said that it’s challenging when his workload gets in the way of other commitments such as spending time with family or friends. 

To overcome this challenge, Usman said that he’s “a big believer in taking action.” He continued to say that he tries not to stay down too long when he could be productive with his time. He said, “At the end of the day, as long as you flip some sort of plan and take action. I don’t see the point in staying down — although for people sometimes that’s what they need. For me, I organize myself and make a list of things I have to get done.”

Julia Lako is a third-year Child and Youth Care student. While commuting to school four days a week, having a part-time job and completing assignments, anxiety about managing everything is a challenge for her. “Just remember to try and balance your life. Don’t just focus on school and don’t just focus on parties, although it’s important to take [the university experience] all in while you have the opportunity.” 

Julia likes to create a schedule and said, “For me, I’m only downtown three to four times a week and the rest of the days I try to relax at home.” When she’s on campus, she said that she focuses on her workload and getting it out of the way, and while she’s at home, she likes to unwind by playing volleyball. 

Tanisha Desai is a first-year Computer Science student at TMU and says a challenge she faces is maintaining her grades and managing her time throughout the process. “Being in Computer Science, there are a lot of courses to take all at once. I do need to maintain my grades to reach a certain goal,” she said. Tanisha also said that she has not mastered time management in schoolwork just yet, but is confident that everything will turn out fine. “If you feel like you’re lagging behind, at the end of the day everything always works out.” 

Tanisha said that learning multiple things at once throughout her courses gets stressful sometimes, so she likes to distract herself with activities when on campus. She has been playing table tennis downstairs at the Student Campus Centre (SCC) and recommends it as a break between studying.

“There’s a lot of work in my program, so it’s easy to get stressed and anxious sometimes about the way things will turn out,” Noor Allahham said. As a fourth-year Biomedical Sciences student, she tries to take one thing at a time. Noor also likes to rely on her family and friends when needing to calm down and plan out the rest of her workload. Her best method to manage her tasks is by using the calendar accessible right on her phone. 

When Noor was applying to TMU, she said that she always knew what her interests were. Although, she still gives advice for future students and said, “Know that you’re not fully restricted in your choices when applying, and that you can always change [your mind].”

Sharvi Saini is a first-year Computer Science student and struggles with understanding the coding content in her program. She perseveres through these challenges and says to always practice your skills and get help from search engines such as YouTube where you can watch videos for more clarity outside of class hours. “I also ask upper-years how they went through [the program] and I follow their steps,” she said. The best advice Sharvi has received from an upper-year student is to ask professors for help and go to their office hours as much as you can.

I hope you were able to take away some helpful tips on navigating mental health from university students! The biggest thing I learned from leading these conversations was seeing how nobody is ever alone in what they’re going through. We all have stresses and anxieties for what the future brings — but it’s a nice reminder knowing that we’re still here and things always work out one way or another. 

Talk with you later,

Hadiqah

Thumbnail image: Breakingpic via Pexels (external link, opens in new window)