podcast

The podcast discusses the impacts on the health and well-being of college students, focusing on socioeconomic status (SES). It explains that low SES can lead to slower academic and cognitive development, as well as poor income and health in adulthood. The article emphasizes the importance of recognizing and providing appropriate resources for students from low SES backgrounds. It also mentions how parental expectations and definitions of success vary based on SES, which affects student aspirations. The podcast concludes by urging students to utilize available resources and encouraging schools to make them easily accessible. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the College Wellness Nexus podcast. Today I'll be your host, William McCarter, and I will be discussing the many impacts that affect both the health and well-being of college students. The topic we will explore in depth as factors that affect health and well-being will be socioeconomic status, physical activity level, time management, as well as mental and physical health. Today, we'll mainly focus on socioeconomic level, or SES, and how that relates to a student's well-being in college. The other factors will be covered in other episodes of this podcast by Marissa, Bailey, and Victor. Overall, this podcast was formed as a part of our first year writing course at the University of Connecticut, in which we were tasked over the course of the semester to answer one overall question of what does an education do. Going into socioeconomic status, as a college student, you really get to see not only the expenses of college, but just the toll it takes on people. Money is a big part of college. I think even for people that come from a decent background, sending a kid to school is very difficult. Even if you're just sending one, nonetheless, if you're sending two or three or even four, it's a lot of money, and schools don't account for that fact. They account for your income, and not anything about how many kids you're sending to school and a bunch of other factors in relation to that. The article I'm mentioning is by the American Sociological Association, and in this article, it details the role of lower socioeconomic status and education of students. It talks about how low SES, which is socioeconomic status, can lead to a slower development of academic skills and a poor cognitive development. Overall, it just leads to an adulthood with poor income and health, and putting an overall disadvantage coming into college on people from low SES backgrounds. Higher skills, as detailed by this study, are slightly less developed than people from a higher SES family, and that's something that's just going to overall lead to, as it states, adult with poor income and health. These colleges are accommodating for the fact that they're coming in at a disadvantage. They are accommodating for financial resources and income of parents, and they aren't focusing on the effects of coming from a low SES family. Another article, the socioeconomic status in college, titled, How Does SES Affect College Experiences and Outcomes? This article details the parental expectations and definitions of success and how they vary within the social status and mediate student aspirations. An example that they stated was that the lower SES parents are more likely to view a high school diploma as the norm for their children, as higher SES parents, in which a bachelor's or advanced degree is considered the norm. There's already that level of expectation, which is going to affect how the student views school in the sense of going into college. One student is looking to obtain something higher, and one student already feels like he has completed it. That's already going to affect a good amount of how the student views college overall. Parents from a low SES family are at a major disadvantage when coming into school, and it's important for schools to recognize this so that the appropriate resources can be made available. Just me personally, in terms of money, which is a big factor going into school, if you're from a low socioeconomic status, you're going to have a lot of money issues because college is expensive. I know there's things in place such as FASFA and other resources to help with money, but college, unless you do very well in school, which has proven to not be the case amongst a lot of people with a lower socioeconomic status, it's going to be hard to send kids to school. If they don't go to college, maybe they end up successful, maybe they don't. But if they don't end up being successful, it kind of just keeps the trend going. It keeps going in circles and circles of this lower socioeconomic status contributing to a worse adulthood, worse mental health, and worse overall health, and kind of just carries down the generations. A personal experience for me is that one of my friends, who I became very close with over freshman year, I'm currently a sophomore, she has to leave because the person just can't afford it anymore. The major is getting too hard, she has no time to have fun, and she feels she's paying too much money, even though she's already spent almost two years here and has made a lot of friends. I never had to worry about money growing up, but just seeing one of my close friends affected by something like this, it's not easy, and it's obviously very eye-opening. I just think it's important for students to understand, not just students, but everyone to understand that there's so much to go to affect them. SES is just one of the many examples that contribute to added stress placed on students. In terms of SES, it's important to make sure that the appropriate resources are both available and easily accessible. We need to recognize these problems and take greater action to ensure students have every resource possible, especially at a school of larger size like the University of Connecticut. It's easy to feel overwhelmed, and making these resources known to students and having them easily accessible is a very important factor. That's it for today's podcast. Remember, if you're struggling with anything, college do have resources there to help you. Make sure that you are staying on top of it and doing the best you can, and the school is here to help you out. Thank you for listening, and we will see you next time. Bye.