Fridays
are normally fairly busy for me—8:30 am lecture, volunteering at the
Environment Student Society’s coffee shop in the early afternoon, and later a
Knowledge Integration seminar. Not extraordinarily busy, but hardly a day off.
How fortunate, then, was I that all three of my major Friday commitments were cancelled for the Thanksgiving long weekend? It was certainly cause for joy, especially since I’ve been so preoccupied with studying and coursework lately. (Plus, any reason not to have to wake up for a class first thing in the morning should be celebrated.)
However, just because one is freed of one’s regular commitments does not mean that all else can fall by the wayside. Especially when “all else” includes an honours thesis.
Today I ended up booking myself two meetings: one with the Student Success Office (SSO), and the other with Counselling Services (CS). My goal for each of these meetings is to learn more about how each of these services manages their communication with students. More specifically, I would like to know how they let students know about the mental health-related services they provide—not just to students with mental illnesses, but to the UW student population as a whole—and if/how they provide any sort of “general mental wellbeing advice”, which includes tips on managing stress and healthy living.
I did stop by CS (at Needles Hall) to ask the receptionist for more information, and she mentioned that they do not have anyone specifically “in charge” of communication to students. I don’t, truthfully, find this very surprising. Just yesterday I meandered to the upper level of the Health Services (HS) building and I found a whole area labelled “Mental Health”—turns out there’s an entire division of CS at HS. Who would have known? I also did not know, until digging through the HS and CS websites, that there was a “MATES Peer Mentors” program for any students who are struggling with their wellbeing.
Overall, I think I am well on my way to finding out, from a top-down level, how communication about mental health information is done at UW. What is still missing is an advisor who can help me tie it in with the bottom-up perspective of how students feel about the information that is communicated to them. I meet with a potential advisor next Tuesday, though (with the exception of one rejection email) I still have not heard from any of the other faculty I have contacted. Hopefully things work out with my meeting next week, otherwise I will be in a pretty tight bind as I have to submit a detailed proposal in just over a week’s time.
How fortunate, then, was I that all three of my major Friday commitments were cancelled for the Thanksgiving long weekend? It was certainly cause for joy, especially since I’ve been so preoccupied with studying and coursework lately. (Plus, any reason not to have to wake up for a class first thing in the morning should be celebrated.)
However, just because one is freed of one’s regular commitments does not mean that all else can fall by the wayside. Especially when “all else” includes an honours thesis.
Today I ended up booking myself two meetings: one with the Student Success Office (SSO), and the other with Counselling Services (CS). My goal for each of these meetings is to learn more about how each of these services manages their communication with students. More specifically, I would like to know how they let students know about the mental health-related services they provide—not just to students with mental illnesses, but to the UW student population as a whole—and if/how they provide any sort of “general mental wellbeing advice”, which includes tips on managing stress and healthy living.
I did stop by CS (at Needles Hall) to ask the receptionist for more information, and she mentioned that they do not have anyone specifically “in charge” of communication to students. I don’t, truthfully, find this very surprising. Just yesterday I meandered to the upper level of the Health Services (HS) building and I found a whole area labelled “Mental Health”—turns out there’s an entire division of CS at HS. Who would have known? I also did not know, until digging through the HS and CS websites, that there was a “MATES Peer Mentors” program for any students who are struggling with their wellbeing.
Overall, I think I am well on my way to finding out, from a top-down level, how communication about mental health information is done at UW. What is still missing is an advisor who can help me tie it in with the bottom-up perspective of how students feel about the information that is communicated to them. I meet with a potential advisor next Tuesday, though (with the exception of one rejection email) I still have not heard from any of the other faculty I have contacted. Hopefully things work out with my meeting next week, otherwise I will be in a pretty tight bind as I have to submit a detailed proposal in just over a week’s time.
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