Occupational Therapy Students

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Pages: 7

Rationale Stress, as defined by Hans Selye (1980), is a natural reaction to the demands of living and serves a good and necessary purpose. An individual’s response to difficult demands defines how one will experience stress. The result can either be positive or negative. Students encounter various stresses in their endeavours towards career attainment, one of which is the transition period from college to employment (Nelson & Gary, 2011). College students will go through a series of adjustments brought about by challenges generated by the new environment (Misra & Castillo, 2004). College is the most stressful educational level; it demands higher adaptability from students. Emily and Mary, their real names withhold, are currently fourth year Occupational Therapy students. They are in their last year to acquire and develop the necessary skills needed for internship. They are expected to have passing grades on all their …show more content…
College students are expected to have excellent academic performance despite increased academic standards, and conflicting social, cultural, and temporal contexts. Their academic loads are more demanding, both intellectually and emotionally. They are required to responsibly take note of assignments, class schedules, and test dates and are expected to be disciplined and motivated to attend classes. They are expected to be more adept in interpersonal relations, especially since course requirements entail participation in different classroom discussions and presentations (Tummers, 2013; Dusek, Everly & Giordano, 1997). Overwhelmed by all of these, college students experience stress. Stress is a subjective response to events that are perceived as uncontrollable; it is simply a response to the event and not to the event itself. Stress is determined by how an event is interpreted (Buss & Larsen,