Physical and Mental Agony

I kept asking myself one question in my head, “Why does high school and college put people through physical and mental pain?”  I decided to find a couple of my friends and ask them some questions relating to that topic.

The first person I interviewed was my roommate Marc.  He was a 3-sport athlete in high school and loved to do anything that involved physical activity.  Since he has such a huge passion for sports, I asked him, “Have you ever felt like your body was physically damaged from all the activities you took part in?”  Marc stated that, “Unfortunately, my body has been physically damaged, and this really hurt my chances of playing at the collegiate level.”  He goes on to tell me that during his junior year of high school, he had a minor injury to his knee.  His coaches for soccer were pushing him really hard to make a quick recovery, and this ended up making his knee worse.  His first game back from his injury, he felt a pop in his knee, and he ended up tearing his ACL.  This ruined his chances at getting looked at by college coaches and he never had the chance to accomplish his dream of playing college soccer.

The next person I interviewed was my close friend Raj.  He currently is majoring in Mechanical Engineering and has a minor in Economics.  Since, I know how stressful being an engineering major could be, I asked him, “How did your first semester go and was there any moments throughout the semester where you felt mentally unstable?”  The first thing Raj said was, “My first semester felt like a rollercoaster.”  He starts telling me that finals week turned into “hell week” and that he almost mentally crashed.  Since, he was very stressed out, he started talking to other mechanical engineering majors in his dorm.  This was very helpful for him because most of the kids he talked to felt the same way he did.  They ended up having group study sessions, and this really helped him.

Once I finished my interview with Raj, I went back to my dorm and interviewed my two friends Cassandra and Grace.  They both decided to rush a sorority this semester, so my question for them was, “Were you more mentally or physically tired from the whole rush process?”  Within seconds, Cassandra said, “I was definitely more physically drained.”  Grace took a little bit longer to answer, but she ended of saying she was more mentally tired.  This just goes to show you that schoolwork and exams are not the only thing people feel stressed about.

The last person I decided to interview was my other roommate Grant.  He always seems very calm and laid back so, I asked him, “How do you cope with stress?”  With no hesitation he says, “The gym and music.”  This makes a lot of sense now because he is always doing these two things.

College has many bumps in the road, and sometimes you need help to get over those bumps.  There is nothing wrong with reaching out to somebody for advice or to just take your mind off something.  Everybody deals with stress in different ways, but the worse way to deal with it is by isolating yourself from the people around you.