A few weeks into the fall semester of 2020, Mary Trabue already felt the waves of exhaustion and isolation from online lectures hit her. She was in her third undergraduate year at The Ohio State University (OSU), studying biological engineering. A usually motivated student, Trabue began noticing herself slowly disengaged.
“Every day felt the same: waking up, walking over to my computer, listening to a lecture. Repeat. I saw no end in sight,” said Trabue, who kept drifting through the fall until a new semester neared. “Once the spring semester was about to start, I knew those feelings would come back. I dreaded it. My fears were in a way confirmed.”
Trabue took five rigorous classes in spring 2021, all in STEM. Some were hybrid, which Trabue said helped somewhat with her motivation, but she still was socially distanced from her peers. It remained tough to find a community or ask for help.
“A few other things were going on in my life. I had a big breakup on top of the isolation. I started to have a hard time getting out of bed,” said Trabue, who knew something was wrong. “When I felt disconnected from my academics and from that personal relationship, I reached out to a counselor at Ohio State to talk to someone. I didn’t feel like that driven student I used to be.”
Like many of her peers, Trabue was suffering from anxiety. According to a recently released survey from OSU’s Office of the Chief Wellness Officer, OSU students reported higher rates of anxiety, depression, and burnout in April 2021 compared to August 2020 when online or hybrid learning started.
This spike unfortunately did not surprise the Chief Wellness Officer Dr. Bernadette Melnyk, who is implementing changes on OSU’s campus to better prevent rather than react to mental health challenges like those Trabue experienced.
“Even before the pandemic, surveys by the American College Health Association showed very high rates of anxiety and depression in students. And that was prior to the social, racial, and political tensions we’ve seen on top of COVID-19 and isolation,” said Melnyk, who is also president of the National Consortium for Building Healthy Academic Communities. “We now have a mental health pandemic inside of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
