College is a beast unlike any other. It is also something you cannot fully prepare yourself for until you are really here, staring at the ceiling of your small, dull dorm room. The mental, emotional, and physical toll it can take is not to be understated. Sometimes simply checking on those around us may improve their wellbeing by leaps and bounds.

Upon crafting my interview questions I thought to myself, “What do I really want to know? How can I ask meaningful questions in a way to give me true and accurate insight into how the physical and mental health of my peers was progressing?” After lots of careful consideration I settled on three intuitive questions.

I wanted to ask each person I interviewed the same questions, in the same order. My sample group would be my floor mates, and from this sample I would randomly pick 5 of them. This way, I would have answers that could be generalized to the broader population.

The answers to my first question, were mixed between those I interviewed. I asked, “Do you struggle to find time to do things completely unrelated to school?” After a long pause from almost everyone I talked to, the general consensus was yes and no. Specifically one response from my floor mate Breno was, “Well everyday I do something school related and it can feel like it’s constant. But there are lots of times during the day where I spend hours on my phone because I want to take a break.” His response was interesting to me because it suggests he does not give himself allotted times for a break and rather uses his phone and takes breaks intermittently between completing work.

My second question veered towards health in a more physical way. When asked if they had ever brushed off physical symptoms because there was no time to deal with them, the answer from all 5 participants was a quick yes. I asked my floor mate Brianna to elaborate, and she said, “Yes all the time. Living in dorms makes me feel sick almost all the time. But there’s not much you can do about a runny nose and sore throat so you have to just keep going.” Her response perfectly encapsulates what I am going through right now. I have been sick since the second week of school, and it has lingered because I simply do not have time to deal with it.

My last question was the most interesting to me. I wanted to know how many days of the week my participants felt stressed. The range of answers was unsurprising. All of them answered at least 5 days a week, with more than half answering all 7. When I asked Maya she said, “Easily all 7, every week of the semester. Then I stress about next semester.” I think her answer really sums up the findings of this assignment as a whole. College is a very stressful entity for students, and often we struggle to balance our schoolwork with all aspects of our health.