There is no doubt that university students experience mass amounts of stress. Over 60% of university students report experiencing above-average to tremendous levels of stress (Naz Böke & Heath, 2020). Based on our own experiences as university students and literature, the four main types of stress university students handle daily are the stress of moving away from home, meeting new people, the pressure to succeed, and financial stress (Learning Centre, 2022).  

Here is what will be discussed throughout this lesson:

  1. To begin the discussion, stress will be defined using easy-to-understand language. Here the signs and symptoms of stress are presented. A review of stress will help ensure a concrete understanding of stress, laying the groundwork for success in the following topics.
  2. The stress of moving away from home will be discussed, and coping strategies will be presented.
  3. Meeting new people can be daunting; therefore, we will discuss techniques for managing the stress of meeting new people.
  4. We will highlight students’ unbearable pressure to do well and succeed in their university studies. In conjunction, strategies will be discussed to manage the weight of the expectations we may impose on ourselves or that others may impose on us.
  5. Lastly, we will explore financial stress and the steps we can take to reduce this stress. 

To aid in your understanding of stress, there is a curated list of content to read and watch before reviewing the content modules.

Upon completion of the Read and Watch materials and the content, there are activities that must be completed for each module:

  1. A true-false quiz and matching activity
  2. The praise challenge
  3. Stepping out of the zone
  4. Think-pair-share
  5. Case study group discussion.

Each activity corresponds to its respective subtopic.

To summarize the lesson, students will complete a blog post responding to a reflection question and interact with another student’s blog post with a substantive comment.

Each task that must be completed can be found in the “To-Do This Week” section. 

Overall, this lesson teaches university students about stress, the signs and symptoms of stress, the most prevalent types of stress university students face, and management techniques. Our goal is to give students the tools to understand and manage stress to prevent long-term issues.