At a university like Waterloo, being a very high performing school famous for producing high performing graduates who often have ideas that change the world, the stakes are often very high. It is often seen students having 3–4 assignments and midterms all due at about the same time (or in my case, 2–3 paper reviews, marking for classes we help to run, papers to research for and write up all coming together at the same time). Because of our nature of not giving up and giving it all we have in everything we do, sometimes we push ourselves way beyond our limits — and in some cases, by the time we realise it, it is too late. You are just burnt out.

Arguably, it is high time we see more effort by the school administration in addressing mental health issues. Statements that express sympathy and concern but no action every time something like this happens does not help. It’s common knowledge in the Waterloo community (and confirmed based on the experiences of my own friends) that wait times for counselling at the UW Health Services can get extremely long, and between counselling sessions, there is often up to a 7 week wait to get a follow up appointment — think about this, assuming a student visits counselling services in week 1 of university, they are likely to end up with a follow up visit in week 7 and in week 14 — which is midway and the end of a term, respectively. That’s just too long, in my opinion. Also, I would also like to see more effort being put on campus to let students and staff know, it is okay to be not okay sometimes, and taking a step back and a breather is necessary in life. The high pressure nature of being in Waterloo can get overwhelming when the going gets tough and it is often that we tend to get so occupied in the moment with work that we don’t know what to do when we get stressed, and it doesn’t help when all you see are academic posters or posters of some successful startup entrepreneurs (not that I have anything against that), that seems to portray an image that everyone else is super successful and you just suck, for the lack of a better term. A simple example to solve this would be Ryerson’s approach to having uplifting lines chalked onto the walls of the landings in their Student Life Centre (I personally discovered this one late evening I decided to check out the architecture of their Student Life Centre). Just simple things like “You made it half way, good job” when you are walking up the stairs on a bad day, or “#champ” just emit good vibes. There are some efforts on campus right now, like the PASS Mental Health Kit and the EngSoc’s Mental Health Awareness team (shout out to my friends in EngSoc for this!), in trying to break the stigma but it is not enough.

As a TA myself, I always tell students whom I meet personally in my classes that at anytime they do feel concerned about their progress, be it in their classes or their degree or just life in general, or they just need someone to talk to, I would always be there for them, even beyond my tenure as their TA with no judgement and the utmost confidentiality. And honestly I am happy to say that quite a few have taken up on my offer, and I can’t think of a single person who didn’t say “I thought I couldn’t do it but now I actually did because I took a step back and a breather after talking to you”. And there’s nothing like a better feeling than that, being able to help someone out when they felt lost, overwhelmed and confused.