In my job at NTNU, it amazes me that neither we as a university nor the Norwegian authorities are more concerned with prevention than repair. The students are calling for better health services, but in my opinion something completely different is also needed. The students’ health and well-being survey shows this year, as last year, that one in three students struggle mentally. We will soon have to face the consequences of the fact that young adults have an entire upbringing in their baggage, and it does not disappear just because they have entered a course of study. A significant proportion of young people have experienced bullying, abuse, violence or other neglect. Some have been subjected to violence from their boyfriends or other peers. It is still entirely up to them themselves to understand that they need help and to seek help. Some also have undiagnosed mental disorders, which they may not be aware of. We who teach them can help students by being more curious about their lives. I regularly supervise master’s students and doctoral students. They come to me with their lived lives, for better or for worse. The majority manage well, but there are some who struggle to complete their studies. I am open about the challenges I have had in my life, and the consequences it has had for my mental health. Thus, they open more easily. Here I am probably the exception rather than the rule among my colleagues at the university. A student with panic disorder came to me with all his sleeping pills because he was afraid of killing himself. Another was exposed to physical and psychological violence from her boyfriend and struggled with post-traumatic stress. A third was investigated for ADHD at the very end of the study. It was good for him to finally get an answer. For several of the students, the problems only become apparent when they take a year at a university abroad, alone. Then they are without the support and routines they have at home. All of these students have good abilities and have done well academically despite their struggles. My own experiences with mental health care have come in handy. I know who they can contact for help. We professors can help students who struggle mentally, if we dare to open up ourselves. I still wish they had been caught while they were in elementary or high school. New thinking is needed in the way we prepare young people to become safe and good adults. They must perform according to their potential and not be limited because they are not captured. When the children are small, they are followed closely by the health center and through primary school. From secondary school, it seems that there is no system to catch those who are struggling. If the children and young people are lucky, they have parents who understand and provide help or they have teachers who fill that role. If they don’t have someone to pick them up, they themselves have to both realize that they need help and find it. Very few teenagers and young adults manage this completely on their own. Why don’t we have 15-, 18- and 21-year-old checks in the same way as we have regular checks until the children start school? Why are the children only weighed and measured physically and not mentally? Why isn’t growing up and life lived something that is mapped out when young people are about to enter adulthood, both those who are going to study and those who are not? The first leader of the Student Association in Trondheim, Edgar B Schieldrop, said around 100 years ago: “The university wants to make you students, we, the Society, want to make you students. It is blind that does not see the gap between the meaning of these two words. He who is merely the first without being the second, he will not be a man, not a complete human being – he can at the height drive it to a professor.” I think the quote for the next 100 years should be: “NTNU will make you whole people, with both body and emotions”.
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