Post By: N. Uras Demir, Peer Mentor 2022
Graduate school is stressful. Why? The work is hard. The pay is bad. The material is endless. The time is short. The standards are high. The work hours are long. The appreciation is little. The future is (often) unknown. The list is endless (in fact, someone listed 100 reasons against going to grad school). Yet here we are!
The international student experience is also stressful, particularly at the beginning of the academic journey. Adjusting to a new institutional, social, and academic environment takes a lot of mental energy. As international students, most of us worry about our visas, try to adapt to the social conventions, and often find ourselves struggling a bit more to read all the books and articles by the deadlines in a language that is not our first. Yet again, here we are regardless!
This stress often lurks in the background and makes our lives less enjoyable. In some cases, it contributes to the imposter syndrome, which is the mental distress that leads us to doubt our skills, talents, and accomplishments. As a result, we often find ourselves in fear of being exposed as a fraud. In other cases, it is a gateway to other conditions related to mental well-being such as anxiety and depression. In worst cases, it exacerbates the preexisting conditions: so *that feeling* that you are feeling might not be just how everyone else is feeling.
One bit of good news is that you are not alone. All graduate students may go through these situations, albeit under different circumstances. Given that the stress is going to be an integral part of the Ph.D. experience, it is vital to know the resources that are available to us before it gets unmanageable. The most valuable one at our disposal in this regard is the UCI Counseling Center.
The Counseling Center is set up for the mental well-being of UCI students, and it is confidential and free. It is open most of the year, and all enrolled graduate students have access to the Counseling Center. In some cases, spouses, partners, parents, children, or friends may join therapy sessions too. The Center is in Room 203 of the Student Services 1 building, which is close to the Student Center (the red pin in the map at the end of this post). They have been helping UCI students with diverse backgrounds since 1970, international students included.
The Counseling Center offers three types of therapy services: individual therapy, relationship therapy, and group therapy. Individual and relationship therapy can be short-term or long-term. In-short term care, the patient and the therapist generally meet between two to eight times, and it is completely free. The patient can revisit the Center in the following years, too, if necessary. In the long-term case (which can evolve from the short-term), a Counseling Center Case Manager assists the patient in finding a therapist outside of the Center. The out-of-pocket expense is about fifteen dollars with therapists who accept UCI’s student insurance (UC-SHIP). Are you living away from campus? In some cases, the Center provides therapy services virtually through TAO. The only catch is that you need to be in California.
Are you feeling overwhelmed? Maybe anxious? Or depressed? I urge you to be nice to yourself, drop everything, and give them a chance to talk to you. Without mental well-being, academic progress can turn into a nightmare. Making an appointment with the Counseling Center is easy. You can schedule an appointment by walking into the Counseling Center during lobby hours (Monday through Friday 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM), or you can give them a call at 949-824-6457 during operating hours (Monday through Friday 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM). The Counseling Center also has a special line for life-threatening emergencies or for crisis care which is reachable 24/7. In such cases, call 949-824-6457 and select option #2.
