College Teaches Anxious Students Not to See Failure as 'Catastrophic'

BloodStripe

BloodStripe

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People should know failure isn't catastrophic. Failure is a learning experience that molds us into who we will become. Kids who have never lost, or have been decent at something their whole lives may have never had to deal with adversity before.

The first time you realize something isn't for you, it can be fucking traumatizing. Maybe that is the medical degree you think you are smart enough to get, maybe it is BUD/S, or that Spanish Minor, or the Green Beret. I'm sure lots of folks in the military who quit or fail have pretty legit depression and anxiety both before during and after events.

Cue people who pretend they have never failed at anything talking about how today's kids are a bunch of pussy ass bitches.
 
NavyBuyer said:
University offers "adulting" program to teach students to cope

" A2015 survey from the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State revealed that half of all students who visit the counseling services at the nation's colleges are experiencing anxiety.

Some say this generation of college students is having a difficult time "adulting" — a slang term for behaving like a responsible adult."

Holy. Fuck.
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I guess I got it all wrong. I was given things to do that increased my knowledge base, and it was broad. Later on, I was required to use the information to think, and find answers on my own. Coping never came up, and those who were just coping did not last out the year; most just a few months. Imagine a surgeon grouping about in your belly, and coping with the problems-V-a surgical repair.

I hate the "adulting" phrase for growing the hell up.
 
TLDR20 said:
People should know failure isn't catastrophic. Failure is a learning experience that molds us into who we will become. Kids who have never lost, or have been decent at something their whole lives may have never had to deal with adversity before.

The first time you realize something isn't for you, it can be fucking traumatizing. Maybe that is the medical degree you think you are smart enough to get, maybe it is BUD/S, or that Spanish Minor, or the Green Beret. I'm sure lots of folks in the military who quit or fail have pretty legit depression and anxiety both before during and after events.

Cue people who pretend they have never failed at anything talking about how today's kids are a bunch of pussy ass bitches.
Click to expand...

I thought the failure and the emotional and psychological woes that follow, was the learning experince?

Everyone has failed, the problem that I see is a lot of people (kids, younger adults) just blow it off, until it hits them square in the teeth and nobody is their to save them from their failures. Normally in taking out stupid amounts of college loans and partying with it, or choosing stupid careers that pay shit, or buying stupid expensive shit they can't afford, living outside of their means, etc.

I think most of us have done something to that degree, but didn't have a coping class, learned our lesson in life and moved on choosing to not make the same mistakes.
 
@Diamondback 2/2 You never had people wiser than you talk to you about your failure and how to move forward? Pretending as if a class is that much different than sergeants time or some good old fashioned ass-chewing is choosing to ignore reality.

Student loans for parties? Do you know how student loans work? Many are paid directly to the institution. You can go ahead and blame kids for making poor choices, but I think I can drive around any base in America and see just as many poor choices. I have been to Secrets enough times to see what 20 year old dudes will do with a paycheck, no matter the source.

The student loan thing is so silly to me. Education is expensive. It is expensive to go to trade schools, it is even more expensive when shitty schools like ITT tech are charging 20+K for an associates. Places like that are driving student loan debt more than partying 19 year olds...
 
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TLDR20 said:
People should know failure isn't catastrophic. Failure is a learning experience that molds us into who we will become. Kids who have never lost, or have been decent at something their whole lives may have never had to deal with adversity before.

The first time you realize something isn't for you, it can be fucking traumatizing. Maybe that is the medical degree you think you are smart enough to get, maybe it is BUD/S, or that Spanish Minor, or the Green Beret. I'm sure lots of folks in the military who quit or fail have pretty legit depression and anxiety both before during and after events.

Cue people who pretend they have never failed at anything talking about how today's kids are a bunch of pussy ass bitches.
Click to expand...

I have learned far more from failing than I ever have being successful.
 
I loved the anxious folks in college, especially the ones afraid to fail. This attitude was often a barrier to efficient learning, which kept them away from me grades and leadership-wise.

This kind of anxiety manifests itself in a similar way in my peers post-college, except the prices paid can be higher when they're in a profession with actual competition.
 
Red Flag 1 said:
I guess I got it all wrong. I was given things to do that increased my knowledge base, and it was broad. Later on, I was required to use the information to think, and find answers on my own. Coping never came up, and those who were just coping did not last out the year; most just a few months. Imagine a surgeon grouping about in your belly, and coping with the problems-V-a surgical repair.

I hate the "adulting" phrase for growing the hell up.
Click to expand...

I think you are missing the point. These classes are for young men and women initially on their own, away from established support structures possibly facing adversity for the first time on their own. Comparing that to a surgeon, who has obviously moved passed those initial obstacles is looking over the point. You learn coping early in life through failures, however some kids simply don't have those failures until later. It isn't weakness, it is that they are behind because our culture and society allow for it. They have to learn tbose skills later.

It is good you never had to have any help learning how to cope, but certain generations of parents have kinda fucked up the newest generation of college aged kids. They did things like remove losing from formative sports, they helicoptered around their kids, and they refused to allow their kids exposure to things that made them uncomfortable. The funny thing is those people are often the ones bemoaning our college age generation as being weak or whatever the hell they say.
 
TLDR20 said:
I think you are missing the point. These classes are for young men and women initially on their own, away from established support structures possibly facing adversity for the first time on their own. Comparing that to a surgeon, who has obviously moved passed those initial obstacles is looking over the point. You learn coping early in life through failures, however some kids simply don't have those failures until later. It isn't weakness, it is that they are behind because our culture and society allow for it. They have to learn tbose skills later.

It is good you never had to have any help learning how to cope, but certain generations of parents have kinda fucked up the newest generation of college aged kids. They did things like remove losing from formative sports, they helicoptered around their kids, and they refused to allow their kids exposure to things that made them uncomfortable. The funny thing is those people are often the ones bemoaning our college age generation as being weak or whatever the hell they say.
Click to expand...


I can see your point, and the leap to surgery was a bit over the top; my apologies. When I was growing up, single parent families were pretty rare. Today the world is different, and the guidance has to come from somewhere. My daughter is a Special Ed Teacher, and it is eye opening just how many kids are relying on schools for even a breakfast.

I guess I was expecting that at the end of high school that the pathway to adult hood had already been opened up. It looks like that is not the case today.

You are right, since the students are entering undergrad with a limited idea of what is expected from adults, it has to come from somewhere. The next chance for that has to be in college. I am wondering about vocational schools, and how they are looking at the problem. Vocational schools are generally goal specific, and the same problem "adulting" will show up there too.

I can't help but think that poor parenting skills, and fragmented family lives run very deep in today's society.

Thanks for your Insight @TLDR20.
 
Diamondback 2/2 said:
I thought the failure and the emotional and psychological woes that follow, was the learning experince?

Everyone has failed, the problem that I see is a lot of people (kids, younger adults) just blow it off, until it hits them square in the teeth and nobody is their to save them from their failures. Normally in taking out stupid amounts of college loans and partying with it, or choosing stupid careers that pay shit, or buying stupid expensive shit they can't afford, living outside of their means, etc.

I think most of us have done something to that degree, but didn't have a coping class, learned our lesson in life and moved on choosing to not make the same mistakes.
Click to expand...

There are high stakes at play, even higher than previous times I would say. My school currently has a lot of young adults (18-22) who have been almost crafted to being leaders in their future respective fields. There are some from different countries who have families depending on them to succeed. They are the top 5% or so of students in the world, and there is enormous pressure from everywhere. Seriously, many have never gotten a B and they break down when they come here and get one.

It seems silly to some of us, but I don't view them as "weak". With college costs rising, being away from home, and fear of failure looming over in a highly competitive environment it's great they are talking to someone about problems. Every day I look at other forums full of veterans, venting over the internet and keeping everything inside. Doesn't seem to help at all.

School just started but, talking to my other freshman classmates has shown me that they really are amazing people. They had the drive and stress management to make it to a school that accepted around 2,000 out of 20,000 applications. They just don't know it yet, which is a message I try to communicate with them. It's really easy to shit on students for being weak, but not many of us made it to top 25 schools at the age of 18.
 
Red Flag 1 said:
I can see your point, and the leap to surgery was a bit over the top; my apologies. When I was growing up, single parent families were pretty rare. Today the world is different, and the guidance has to come from somewhere. My daughter is a Special Ed Teacher, and it is eye opening just how many kids are relying on schools for even a breakfast.

I guess I was expecting that at the end of high school that the pathway to adult hood had already been opened up. It looks like that is not the case today.

You are right, since the students are entering undergrad with a limited idea of what is expected from adults, it has to come from somewhere. The next chance for that has to be in college. I am wondering about vocational schools, and how they are looking at the problem. Vocational schools are generally goal specific, and the same problem "adulting" will show up there too.

I can't help but think that poor parenting skills, and fragmented family lives run very deep in today's society.

Thanks for your Insight @TLDR20.
Click to expand...

At a certain point, the difficulties in learning, "anxiety" and inappropriate social behavior which results from poor parenting will be too far ingrained for schools to "teach" these types of things. They mostly result from firm and fair behavioral and thinking expectations not being imposed much earlier in life.

Besides, unless we're talking military boarding school or something, it really isn't the job of schools to be the primary "teachers" of this kind of stuff.

Society's expectations for how to behave and think reasonably don't just go away because lots of parents fail their children while raising them, IMO. The kids are the ones who pay the price.
 
College students who can't "adult" aren't the fault of the college, but of the other "adults" in those students' lives. Someone failed them long before the Freshman year of college.
 
The lack of coping mechanisms often results in a frighteningly high number of (sometimes successful) suicide attempts amongst college students. This is true of all year levels, though I think it becomes a bit less likely in graduate school.

I've spoken to some other members here about this. I think it's more likely at high stress, high expectation schools but it's also kind of a dirty secret and quantifying the phenomenon is difficult.
 
Lefty375 said:
There are high stakes at play, even higher than previous times I would say. My school currently has a lot of young adults (18-22) who have been almost crafted to being leaders in their future respective fields. There are some from different countries who have families depending on them to succeed. They are the top 5% or so of students in the world, and there is enormous pressure from everywhere. Seriously, many have never gotten a B and they break down when they come here and get one.

It seems silly to some of us, but I don't view them as "weak". With college costs rising, being away from home, and fear of failure looming over in a highly competitive environment it's great they are talking to someone about problems. Every day I look at other forums full of veterans, venting over the internet and keeping everything inside. Doesn't seem to help at all.

School just started but, talking to my other freshman classmates has shown me that they really are amazing people. They had the drive and stress management to make it to a school that accepted around 2,000 out of 20,000 applications. They just don't know it yet, which is a message I try to communicate with them. It's really easy to shit on students for being weak, but not many of us made it to top 25 schools at the age of 18.
Click to expand...

I'm not at such a highly competitive school, but I am in a very competitive major, some students go into absolute freak out mode before exams. You know who else did that? E-7's in CTM in SOCM or before other high stress events in SFMS. I got out most of my stress then, so I have little anxiety in college.

The every child gets a ribbon mentality is a byproduct of multiple generations(starting with everyone's favorite). People shit on millenials but they aren't the ones who fucked everything up.
 
TLDR20 said:
I'm not at such a highly competitive school, but I am in a very competitive major, some students go into absolute freak out mode before exams. You know who else did that? E-7's in CTM in SOCM or before other high stress events in SFMS. I got out most of my stress then, so I have little anxiety in college.

The every child gets a ribbon mentality is a byproduct of multiple generations(starting with everyone's favorite). People shit on millenials but they aren't the ones who fucked everything up.
Click to expand...

I think it's a cop out to just shit on Millennials. After all, they bore the brunt of signing on the dotted line after 9/11, so the entire generation cannot be vacuous and vapid.

That said, for better or worse it IS the generation that has seen the highest degree of entitlement (except for maybe the Boomers). That mixed with having faces buried in electronics and drama played out on social media combined with helicopter parenting, that's all a recipe for...not success.

I also agree that stress, and dealing with it, is relative. You exercised your demons in SFMS or the Q, I did some in the Navy, but more so learned how to handle it being a son of a single parent (dad died when I was 8) with little income, being a latchkey kid, living on beans. I am not bemoaning my childhood, as the wise old philosopher Jimmy Buffett said, "some of it's magic, and some if it's tragic, but I've had a good life all the way." But I learned early on how to be successful while being under stress.

I wonder, and I am just throwing this out, is that part of the problem with these can't-fail-at-any-cost kids have been inundated so often being told how good they are and how special they are that their identity is wrapped up in that "thing." To have an identity that is attached to a "what" (Doctor, SEAL, Green Beret) and not a "who" (solid, moral, ethical man or woman) is going to lead one to have a very shaky foundation.
 
By removing the aspect of failing in a positive light, we are breeding a mentality that is extremely dangerous. One that lacks the drive for innovation and success. I want to know about a person who has ever done something extraordinary in his/her life and did so without an iota of failure. It sucks. It feels like the world is ending, but that is how we grow from it. Teaching a class to cope with failure possibly is the wrong way to approach it. Teaching a class that shows kids how to fail and grow from it should be what's happening. In my limited experience, coping is the same as just dealing with something without the learning aspect involved.
 
FWIW, from the perspective of an employer, I couldn't care less about who didn't do what for you as a kid.

Or what anxiety excuse you have for not learning at an acceptable rate, not using your time to produce, your hurt feelings after being given constructive guidance, reacting badly when things are expected of you, etc.

If you consistently exhibit any of that, you're shit, so hit the bricks.
 
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