The Kelly Center sponsored a T.I.G.E.R. Series workshop titled “Tame the Conflict Within” on September 17 at 5 p.m. in the Memorial Union Stouffer Lounge. The workshop covered myths of stress and stress management skills along with other important aspects of stress and how it affects health.
The combination of academics, athletics, and personal issues may become overbearing and stressful for college students. Stress has become so ubiquitous in human life that, at times, individuals are unaware of the impact of stress on the mind and body.
Dr. Kenton Olliff, assistant vice president for student affairs and director of the Kelly Center, has worked at the Kelly Center for 14 years and will be leading the workshop.
According to Olliff, in the transition from high-school to college, newly gained autonomy along with expectations of college-life can become difficult to manage for incoming freshmen.
“We live in a society that creates a lot of stress with all these expectations, so they can become difficult,” Olliff said.
Although stress is a fact of life, there is no universal cause of stress, nor does a common solution to stress exist.
“What may work for you to manage your stress may not work for me,” Olliff said.
Olliff added that individuals sometimes focus on the negative aspects of a problem when feeling overwhelmed, and this focus is an aspect of stress of which one should be cautious.
“When we are feeling very overwhelmed and stressed, it is human nature to focus on the negative aspects,” Olliff said. “It is something to be watchful for.”
One reason students are encouraged to attend T.I.G.E.R. Series workshops is because the stress management skills offered there can be employed in the future.
“Managing our stress can help us better our lives,” Olliff said. “The reality is that we all deal with stress, and if we are talking about academic issues, a student may not be having issues now but may run into a class they struggle with next semester. The things people learn in the Tiger Series workshop are not just for those who are struggling now, but also for teaching skills that can be used in the future.”
The T.I.G.E.R.S (Tie Into Great Educational Resources and Strategies) Series was created in 2002 with the goal of helping students manage their academics, personal life, finances, and other important life aspects.
“The main goal is to give students ideas on how to be successful in college,” Olliff said. “We want students to be successful, so we want to provide them opportunities to learn about things that will help them be successful.”