The Semester Just Ended. Why Are Students So Anxious?

Among life's many ironies, one of the most interesting is that for many of the college students I treat, the period in which they experience the most anxiety occurs shortly after they finish the spring semester of school in May. Though you'd think that completing the spring semester en route to a three-month vacation would be a time of joy, relaxation and peace, paradoxically, for many college students, it is a restless period marked by fear, anxiety and existential crisis.

For some, this anxiety takes the form of relationship drama, e.g., "I think my girlfriend is cheating on me." For others, however, it may manifest as an irrational health concern, e.g., "I think I may have a brain tumor." And yet others may experience restlessness in the form of an idiosyncratic concern that is unique to them, like intensely worrying about the feasibility of their chosen career; spiders crawling in their bedroom at night; or the potential for a mass shooting at the movie theater they're planning on going to over the weekend.

Why Do Students Experience End-of-Semester Anxiety?

To understand why anxiety at the end of the school year is so common, it is important to recognize that a) we all have a moderate level of baseline anxiety, as this is adaptive, providing us with certain evolutionary advantages allowing us to survive and pass down our genes; and b) our baseline anxiety is minimized when we have a plan to address the uncertainties of the future.

For these reasons, many college students are likely to experience a reprieve of their baseline anxiety during each academic semester. This isn't to suggest that college life is not stressful. Of course, the many demands of college — academic, athletic, social, career-building, etc. — can be very stressful, even for the most adept student. However, the structure that college provides — in the form of 16-week semesters, fixed schedules, and each syllabus outlining all assignments with concrete due dates — gives students a framework to keep their anxiety in check.

But this all changes at the end of each semester, especially the spring semester, which is followed by a three-month break. The syllabi that guide students as to how they should structure their work time and their study schedule have all been complete. The framework provided by the rigid class schedule, which dictates each student's activity schedule for the week, has collapsed. And the removal of regular athletic, extracurricular and social activities from one's life, all at once, leaves students with an abundance of time to just sit and think... and worry.

Ghostbusters Headquarters, where the ghost containment units were shut down in the movie.

Source: Diegonzalezochoa / Wikimedia Commons

Essentially, all of the baseline anxiety that was trapped within the structure of the school semester has been released, all at once. It's a phenomenon that reminds me of the scene at the end of the original Ghostbusters movie, when all of the ghost containment units are shut down and legions of ghosts break out to terrorize New York City.

Finding a New Summer Schedule

Fortunately, for most of the students with whom I work, the end-of-semester anxiety they experience usually abates within three to four weeks, which is about how long it takes them to get immersed into their new summer schedules. And as you might imagine, most years this three- to four-week period is when I typically see a spike in college students calling for appointments.

Nevertheless, if you or someone you know is struggling with increasing anxiety at the end of the spring semester over the next few weeks, just know that you have a lot of company and that the best way to rally against it is to immerse yourself into your summer schedule as soon as you can.