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Show wouldn't be able to make it," says Tulane sophomore Chris Hall, a double major in biochemistry and mathematics. "You're putting 18,000 bucks a year on the line, and you want to do well." The heavy financial freight, in turn, ratchets up worries about landing a good job after graduation. "There is a high value placed on money and making money," says Bradford King, director of the USC counseling center, "and students e feel a great pressure to measure up." Given today's yearnings, meanwhile, measuring up at many an acquisitive campus means landing not merely a rewarding job, but a lucrative and prestigious one that promises a vacation house by the beach and a Jaguar to get there. "Students today," says John Corazzini, director of counseling at Virginia Commonwealth University, "want what it took Mom and Dad 20 years to get, and they want it now." Emotional rescue: Colleges have been known to take a Darwinian attitude toward stress, figuring that the strong students would always muddle through somehow. But far more institutions today have developed health services that treat students' emotional as well as physical problems. Confronted with a horrific 75 percent minority attrition rate before graduation, for example, the University of Maryland this fall began training residential advisers to be especially sensitive to the problems of isolation these students may face. At Tulane, the counseling service runs a telephone "warm line" staffed by students every evening from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. And such schools as Notre Dame offer courses in time management, relaxation technique mechanisms for dealing with stress. and other low-ke- y tensions tend to follow certain patterns, the exCollegiate Freshman perts say. year, of course, is rife with separation of fears anxieties and the unknown. Sophomores endure their notorious slump because they "don't have the excitement and plans they had as freshmen," says Tom Crady, associate dean of students at Iowa's Grinnell College. Many may also feel abandoned by the resident advisers who lavished doting support and attention on them as freshmen. Juniors go through a make-or- - -- iff UvH - ' Yup-scal- ini.rir-,- l , .,,r.nrimir,T. Lock, stock and over the barrel: 1ffnii,i.r... m Trying to make the grade break year, trying to establish their academic credentials. And seniors, says Crady, "start to realize there isn't much time left. They start thinking about what the future holds." But while all students may experience these sources of stress, not all, obviously, suffer burnout and depression. Burnout remains a somewhat inexact label for a range of unhealthy g reactions to stress, but counselors have identified behavsignals. One commonality: an abrupt shift in normal ior patterns, such as the onset of either insomnia or sleeping too early-warnin- much; suddenly skipping meals or bingeing; becoming more withdrawn andor irritable. Shrugging it off: An overstressed student also tends toward reclusiveness, despondency and unexplained apathy. "A big shrug of the shoulders" in response to questions is a tip-of- f for the Rev. Thomas Heger, who counsels many students at Oregon's Campus Interfaith Ministry. He also looks for "exaggerated responses to seemingly little problems, like 'I can't believe my roommate left her socks on the floor'." Should any or all of these signs persist for more than two weeks, experts say, it's time to suggest to a roommate or yourself that help be sought. In its more severe manifestations, burnout can lead to clinical depression, which displays its own characteristic symptoms. Besides undergoing changes in eating or sleeping habits, a depressive lacks motivation and cannot get involved in the usual daily routines, cannot handle even slight stress e and depends for his on the approval of others. He is and feels and hopeless, fatigued and worthless moody weepy, listless. He is unable to enjoy anything. As one recovered depressive put it, "It's the feeling that you can never smile again." In a significant minority, probably about 20 percent of these cases, depressives also go through "hypomanic episodes," bouts of uncontrollable eating, spending, exercising or other frenetic activity. What differentiates those who survive from those who succumb? There are many factors, including biology. Medical researchers increasingly link clinical depression to a genetic self-imag- Lost in emotion: 6 NEWSWEEK ON CAMPUS Romantic tensions can be most traumatic OCTOBER 1987 |