Finding Ways out of Academic Pressure

Reporters: Kareem Abdelhakam & Asmaa Heikal

Editor: Shahd Atef

With university assignments beginning to pile up amid strict deadlines, students are often left with little time to pursue non-curricular activities or even to simply relax.

Social media platforms like AUC Connect, Facebook Groups like Rate AUC Professors are already being frequently used by students citing university responsibilities as persistent factors towards everyday pressure and stress. As more challenges begin to appear, students look for ways to cope.

There are several facilities on campus that assist students dealing with academic stress. The Center of Student Well-being, for example, is made up of experienced staff and qualified counselors, and operates by providing individual and group counseling to students regarding any academic or non-academic issues.

Iman El Omary, Director of the Outreach and Academic Risk Unit at AUC, who regularly supports students dealing with academic stress, said that many experience academic stress due to a variety of issues such as declaration, GPA, and the pressure to achieve more.

Many new students compare themselves to other students who have already declared, have higher grades, or have more extracurricular activities and internships. There are also students who experience pressure from external sources; scholarship students, for example, are under pressure to keep their grades up to maintain their scholarship. Family pressure is also a factorn which can lead to academic and social stress.

El Omary explained that stress can manifest in how students perform in their academic and personal lives.

“The person can be easily irritable, easily cry, maybe arguing with others over the smallest things,” she said.

In order to alleviate such stressful situations, El Omary recommends deep breathing and mindfulness techniques because “relaxation physiologically reverses the impact of stress in the nervous system”. She also highlighted, that students should add exercise on their “self- care to-do lists”.

“Regular exercise 30 minutes a day, four times a week, has been shown to help reduce your anxiety levels, and it improves your mood.”

Marwa Hussein, Senior Counselor in the Center for Student Well-being at AUC, recommends that time management may be a key element in avoiding academic pressure.

“A student needs to manage his/ her time and be realistic about this concept, for instance, one needs to know what tasks are going to be done and at what time,” she said.

Psychology senior Nour Heikal said that organizing her studying was the most useful tool to relieve academic stress.

“I try to read over the syllabi of each course and see what I have to do, then I organize what I’ll do based on how much time it will take to complete. I usually start with the longest, unless the shorter ones are due soon,” explained Heikal.

Students facing academic pressure may also refer to the peer support program for further support. The program revolves around someone in the same major providing guidance on how to navigate and complete assignments and manage deadlines. Economics alum Loay Tarek said that when he was an undergraduate, he reached out to the peer support program and found it to be very helpful.

“I was stuck in an assignment related to the course Labour Economics and I did not really know what to do, then I went to the Center for Student Well-being and I applied for peer support, which obviously solved my problems back then,” said Tarek.

Multimedia Communication and Journalism junior Adham Ahmed said that he finds it useful to work with friends in an attempt to reduce academic pressure.

“There are a lot of ways to cope with academic pressure, but personally I prefer a method that involves some sort of communication with a peer,” said Ahmed.

Engineering senior Adham Saad suggested that every-day quick revision over material learned in the classroom is among the main methods he applies in order to avoid overloading on assignments or deadlines.

“I am enrolled in a significantly difficult major which requires a lot of time to be dedicated to working,” said Saad.

“That is why I have to revise everything on the daily so that when a project is due, my memory does not need to be exercised.”