Life-altering events such as an illness or the passing of a family member, friend, or other types of losses impact our emotional and mental health.
This year, I have friends who have fallen ill with COVID for the second time around. I have friends whose bosses are being less than understanding about employees taking time off due to illness or quarantining. Most of us have dealt with loss and change in our lives over the last couple of years. Life does not stop for anyone, but it does end.
Recently, my aunt shared with me that during her freshman year of college, she was put on academic probation as a result of the grief she was experiencing when her mother passed. In retrospect, she shared that it may have been better to take a semester off from school, but she never even thought of it. I cannot begin to express the amount of pain, suffering, and loneliness that she felt. How can we expect that a person wouldn’t need help while dealing with such a loss and attempting to pass an anthropology class at the same time?
The fact is, we all deal with loss in our academic, professional, or personal lives. Here’s how we can get the support we need as college students with often-limited financial resources?
