By Dessa Bayrock (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: November 2, 2011
If there’s one thing students are well-acquainted with, it’s stress; juggling work, exams, studying, sleeping, and maintaining at least some kind of a social life is enough to make anyone dizzy and a little bit freaked-out. It’s something, however, that students are expected to deal with on a daily basis, a fact that UFV is well aware of.
Julie Egers, a counsellor on the Chilliwack campus, said that, unsurprisingly, “students identify anxiety as probably the number one barrier to their success,” noting that it is one of the top things she sees students asking for help with during counselling appointments. Egers is new to UFV, having arrived this past August, and works full-time on the Chilliwack campus. At the two other universities she worked for in Calgary, she found that one of the best ways to “offer general support” to students was to hold sessions so that students could learn in a group atmosphere. The UFV version of these workshops takes the form of a “Student Success Bootcamp” series, offered by Egers on the Chilliwack campus.
“When you do group workshops,” Egers explained, “there’s really the advantage of learning from other people. At the same time, it gives the students a chance to normalize their experience and see that other people are having [the same problems].” In her workshops, Egers tackles some common issues, which include the big four: stress, exam anxiety, procrastination, and group work.
The sessions are aimed at Chilliwack students in particular, something Egers said is a bit of a challenge due to the fact that the programs offered on the Chilliwack campus (such as Health Sciences) are typically all-day programs, and don’t leave a lot of free time for students. It’s for this reason that Egers decided on a “lunch and learn” session, where students could drop by on their lunch breaks. So far the model seems to be working – the sessions have been relatively well-attended, which Egers finds unsurprising. The issues at hand are things she sees students asking for help with all the time.
Of course, she said, students may have other needs in addition to the ones she addressed with her workshops – “These are kind of the hot ones or the big ones, but there are others that may be identified as well.” The four issues she covers, however, tend to crop up often enough that they are more than enough to use as a jumping-off point.
This set of workshops is something Egers plans to offer every year. After all, they aren’t the kind of issues to just disappear. Some can be dealt with on an individual basis, as students come in for counselling appointments, but Egers knows there’s more to the job than waiting for students to come in for help. “It’s about being accessible and having students be able to come in and know the service is there,” she said, “but the second part is being proactive and trying to be out there for students.”
For those students interested in attending workshops this semester, “Getting Started: Overcoming Procrastination” is offered November 7 at 11:30 a.m. on the Chilliwack campus in C132/135, and “Succeeding in Group Work” is offered November 14, also at 11:30, on the Chilliwack campus in room D133. Students are also welcome to drop by the counselling centres either in Abbotsford or Chilliwack to book a one-on-one appointment with an advisor.
