Breast Cancer Awareness month is coming to an end and No Shave November is beginning. The weather is beginning to get colder and flu season is coming in full swing. Health is very important and students’ health should be prioritized.

Students face many stresses in their lives, from working jobs to completing coursework to maintaining adequate social lives. However, something else that comes with being a college student is the struggles that come with maintaining personal health. 

Students do not always have time to take care of their health, and the high demand and stress of work that comes with attending college means placing your health on the back burner.

Because of the high demands of most college classes, taking a sick day is not an option. The amount of time outside of the classroom that a student must spend on work is taxing. Oftentimes students do not get a proper amount of sleep to function. 

Students often prioritize their health less than their student activities, academics, sources of income and social lives. When these problems are not addressed, they become much worse for the students who are just trying to make ends meet financially or meet the demands of their class and work schedules. 

Students also have excessive amounts of contact with one another. The seat students sit in during their 2 p.m. history class may have been occupied by several other students that day alone. Needless to say, professors do not sanitize each individual desk between classes, meaning by the time that students come in for class, their desk is covered in germs and bacteria. 

Plenty of hands also touch doors and stairwell railings that students come into contact with throughout the day, as well. 

What complicates things is the lack of hand sanitizing stations around campus. What few stations that do exist are frequently empty. 

Many soap dispensers in the bathrooms of academic halls are also not filled enough to be usable throughout the day, meaning that students are limited in their options to clean their hands during the day.

Personal hygiene is a subject in which many students are not educated. All students come from different backgrounds, and the university should incorporate educational elements to help all first-year students achieve the same level of personal health and hygiene. 

The Etter Health Care Center in Naugle Hall offers free STI testing and free flu shots. However, students do not often use this resource to their advantage. 

The lack of information about the services Etter offers makes it hard for students to know what is available to them. The school should make knowledge about student health resources more publicly available, advertising the different health programs and medical services it has to offer to students.

Some things students can do to improve their health and cleanliness are: having hand sanitizer, avoiding touching door handles and other surfaces, getting checked more often, taking a mental break to help alleviate stress and also just being aware of one’s health.

Share