MyWork

Struggle of a University Freshman

Introduction

Embarking a new journey in university is one of the best and worst things in my life. Same as many first year university students, I joined a number of societies, took up some part-time jobs and also juggled with some new interests at the beginning of the semester. When there was a clash between my lessons and other commitments, I would skip lessons as I thought I could still handle the academic requirements by myself. Sadly, I started feeling overwhelmed before the mid-term Examination. I found I did not understand anything taught in some courses, and finally I did not do very well in a few examinations. In my panic, I started to sweat more, eat less, and feel exhausted even after sleeping more than usual. I have been struggling a lot about whether I need to discuss with anyone, but I did not want my “positive” image would be ruined in front of them.

In this essay, I will explain my experience with McClelland’s need theory and analyse what and how stressors influence me by applying Lazarus’s cognitive-mediational theory of emotions.

Need for affiliation, Power and Achievement

According to McClelland’s need theory of motivation, it says that human beings have three needs which are not inborn but learned through culture, age and experiences, the three needs are: need for achievement, need for power and also need for affiliation. Moreover, human’s behaviour will be triggered by the “need” which acts as an “inner drive”. (Verma, 2017, p.63) When I first started my journey in the university, I found I was filled with these three needs as I wanted to establish an image of myself that would be liked and respected by people whom I just first met. Particularly, I demonstrated a strong need for affiliation as I had a strong social motive of meeting more friends and a great desire for a larger social circle. Because I was new to the environment, and had no friends from my secondary school with me to study in this university, I appeared to be anxious about making friends and was eager to look for different types of social support which include “intimate relationships, networks of friends, and institutions and communities.” (Verma, 2017, p.107). This can explain the reasons why I joined a number of societies and sports team like Mathematics Society, Sports Association and Basketball Team in order to gain more popularity among my new friends without thinking carefully about the commitment and time that I needed to put in afterwards.

Apart from the need for affiliation, I also demonstrated a strong need for power and achievement in front of my peers and family. As I was a school leader and Basketball Team Captain when I was in my secondary school which always made my parents proud of, I had a strong motivation to keep succeeding and possessing a leadership role in the university so as to thrive in the spotlight. Because of this, I strived my best to engage in the social gatherings in different club meetings and tired to take a active role to organize activities for the club members in order to show my leadership attributes. In the Basketball team, I sometimes skipped lessons in order to put in more time in all the trainings so that I could be picked to represent the University Team to take part in the inter-school competitions. I even showed off my basketball skills in front of the other team mates and coach hoping they could recognize my role in the team. On the other hand, I could still manage to work for part-time jobs as I wanted to be financially independent and show my parents that I had the ability to get control of my life. All these could explain the reason for my effort to attain the goals that I set for myself (2017 Verma, p.63) and which is the drive for me to have success and power.

An abrupt U-turn of my life

Unfortunately, because I was over-confident of my ability to handle the academic pressure in the first semester, I was hugely overwhelmed by the assignments and mid-term examinations started in October and I started facing tremendous stress in my life which triggered me to have a number of physical and emotional problems.

Mental Health and Psychological Well-being

Obviously, I faced two main stressors. The first stressor being perceived as a “threat” is the academic pressure. I did not do well in examinations because I was over-occupied with the engagements in the university activities and part-time jobs. Another source of stress is related to my personality as I have a high self-esteem of myself and I did not want to show my weakest side to the others. For example, no matter how apprehensive I became, I did not want my “good image” would be ruined in front of my parents and friends as “role factor” is one of the stressors. (Hargrove et al, 2011, p.267). I perceived that my parents and my friends might have certain kinds of expectations on me and they might look down upon me if I did not do well in my life.

Due to the new responsibilities and expectations, and my inability to deal with the problems properly, the distress I experienced gradually turned into chronic stress from acute stress. Even worse, the physiological changes occurred in my life routine and body reaction were quite alarming. Owing to the overwhelming engagements at the beginning of the new term, I entered another stage of distress in which I experienced extreme anxiety and worry. According to Selye, (1956) he believed that stress is a “nonspecific response of the body to any demand upon it.” (p.156) In my case, the feeling of nervousness brought a number of physiological changes in my body owing to the influence of hypothalamus which will affect different glands of mine, i.e., the pituitary gland and adrenal gland which will secret some “stress hormone”. When the level of stress is optimal, this can act as a “protection mechanism” (Hargrove et al, 2011, p.282). However, when people suffer from prolonged stress, it will bring harms to their physical and mental health. This can explain the reason of my loss of appetite as well as the abnormally excess sweating of my body. Moreover, when I was overwhelmed by the pressure of having too many engagements in life which I found myself not being able to handle, instead of choosing to have a “fight” response, I rather chose the “flight” response in which I tried to escape from facing the reality. For example, I chose not to tell anyone as I did not want my “self-image” being ruined in front of anyone. The more I hid myself from the reality, the more I felt frustrated. Therefore, I experienced burnout. The feeling of fatigue and not willing to face reality explained my lust for prolonged sleep.

Physiological changes aside, I also suffered from a range of negative emotions like anxiety, worry, and particularly guilt and shame. In Lazarus’s cognitive-mediational theory of emotions, he suggests an individual’s appraisal of a stressor is a major factor in determining how stressful that stressor becomes. From his theory, there are two appraisals, namely, primary and secondary. For primary appraisal, it includes potential subcomponents like goal relevance and type of ego. If an individual has a “stake” in an encounter, an emotion will occur. (Schulz & Lazrus, 2012, p.19) From my experience, I perceived my disappointment in the examinations as a stressor and threat rather than a challenge. As I possessed a strong desire for achievement at the beginning of semester, however, when I found I could not fulfill the academic requirements and then did not do well in the mid-term examinations, an immediate feeling of anxiety and fright emerged in my mind. The reason for having the these two feeling is because I had to face an uncertain threat of whether I would get a very low GPA and whether I would be blamed by my parents or gossiped by my peers. More importantly, I felt tremendous guilt and shame after I encountered failures in the university because I found I could not live up to my ego-ideal. As my personality characteristics consist a strong belief about myself, for example, I wanted to be a “leader” in front of my peers and a “good child” in front of my parents, when there was a huge difference between my expectation (having achievement and power) and final consequences (disapointment in examinations and loss of self-esteem), I experienced an unexpected stress in my life.

Conclusion and Afterthoughts

Looking back at my painful experience as a freshman, it is clear that the reason for my problem largely lies on how I failed to preserve my self-image that I wanted to create at the beginning of the semester. As I had a high expectation on myself and wanted people to recognize me as a leader in a new and unfamiliar environment, I had a strong desire for securing achievement, power and affiliation when I first started my university life. Nevertheless, the inability for me to cope with the academic pressure afterwards totally destroyed the image that I wanted to create in front of my friends and family. At the same time, my loss of self-esteem negatively affects my reaction to stressful events and ability to cope with them. Therefore, if I had sought advice from my parents or university counsellors about my problems at an earlier stage, I think I could have not experienced the painful problems brought to my mental and physical health.

References:

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