More performance, more speed and that in less time – students today go into a phase of their life with significantly more pressure, which should actually give them the opportunity to try themselves out, to discover goals without worries and to discard them again, to savor their first freedoms. In the 352nd episode of “Today Important”, Wilfried Schumann, Head of the Psychological Counseling Service at the University of Oldenburg, explains what is wrong with the Uni system.
“Study conditions and courses have changed a lot,” says Wilfried Schumann. With the new millennium, the course was very much geared towards more structuring and a shorter study period. For some, this structure was good, for others, the performance system is difficult. So much so that, according to a study, students use psychotropic drugs more often than average. With the bachelor’s and master’s system, more performance and a higher pace have become the zeitgeist, says Wilfried Schumann. “I can’t afford to fall behind,” that’s deeply rooted in the minds of the students. The study is also about not only doing targeted research, but moving your mind in different directions. “I would encourage everyone not only to look at efficiency in order to get through their studies as quickly as possible, but also at the cultural opportunities to use the sports facilities,” says Wilfried Schumann.
But exactly this balance to studying has become almost impossible in the past pandemic years. “The corona pandemic was a real stress test and caused suffering that the public didn’t really notice.” According to Wilfried Schumann, the students lost opportunities to make new contacts and find a new life. “This new life just didn’t exist.” In the psychological counseling service at the University of Oldenburg, he saw every day that isolation and monotony had pushed students to the limits of their abilities: “Some of those who came to us would never have ended up with us under normal conditions.” With Corona, a situation had come that severely shook the predictability and plannability of one’s own life, plans were simply pulverized. Now that the presence on campus is getting stronger again, the students are doing better, says Wilfried Schumann. “But some still carry Corona as a bogeyman and are afraid that it will go on like this for another winter.”
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