Bridging the inter-generational student gap

By Léo Charbonneau. Each year University Affairs offers two internship placements of one or two weeks’ duration to Carleton University journalism students. I coordinate these internships and it is always an enjoyable experience for me to work with the students. Since last week, fourth-year journalism student David Meffe has been with us reporting on and writing stories for the magazine. He was also invited, and accepted, to write the following guest blog post for us on the issue of student stress, which has been in the news recently. We welcome his point of view. Take it away, David!
Despite what shopping mall speakers are trying to make me believe, this is not the most wonderful time of the year, not yet at least. As usual, there’s one giant roadblock standing between students and a winter break filled with spiked eggnog and endless consequence-free procrastination: the almighty and universally dreaded exam period. As per the season, Globe and Mail columnists Margaret Wente and Gary Mason fired shots back and forth last week, debating whether today’s universities are breeding a generation of self-entitled students incapable of dealing with pressure or the inevitable challenges of “The Real World.” This, coupled with hundreds of panicked news stories about record-breaking levels of student stress has once again given rise to the ever-circular debate over today’s lazier-than-ever students and our culture of mediocrity in the face of challenges. Read more...