When Your Major Starts Feeling Like Your Identity
A major is supposed to describe what you study. Somewhere along the way, it can start describing who you think you are allowed…
PROJECT SEMICOLON / THE BLOG
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Mental Health Awareness Week Is Not a Mental Health Strategy
Posters, panels and green ribbons can start conversations. A campus mental health strategy has to change what students can actually reach, expect and…
What a Healthier Campus Drinking Culture Could Actually Look Like
A healthier drinking culture is not one where everyone suddenly makes the same choice about alcohol. It is one where safety, consent and…
How to Build Belonging for Students Who Never Find “Their People”
Not everyone finds a perfect friend group, club or dorm family. Belonging can be built through smaller, repeated connections that do not require…
What First-Generation Students Carry That Other People May Not See
First-generation students may be learning college while also translating it for themselves and their families. The pressure is often structural, not evidence that…
College Doesn’t Have to Be the Best Years of Your Life to Matter
College can be meaningful without being magical. You are allowed to have lonely semesters, change direction, make ordinary memories and still have a…
Drinking Culture and the Pressure to Keep Up
College drinking culture can make alcohol feel less like a choice and more like an entrance fee. You are allowed to notice when…
When “Everyone Drinks” Stops Being Harmless
“Everyone drinks” can make consequences easy to explain away. The useful question is not whether your friends drink too; it is whether alcohol…
Vaping, Nicotine and the Stress Loop
Vaping can feel like stress relief while nicotine dependence quietly creates more stress to relieve. Understanding the loop makes it easier to stop…
Cannabis, Coping and Knowing When It Isn’t Helping Anymore
Cannabis can be social, recreational or something a student reaches for when sleep, anxiety or stress gets loud. The useful question is not…
The Morning After: Anxiety, Regret and Alcohol
The morning after drinking can bring physical symptoms, missing pieces of memory and a brutal replay of everything you might have said or…
Why Pulling All-Nighters Can Wreck More Than Your Grade
The all-nighter is treated like a weird academic rite of passage. Your brain, unfortunately, did not sign the tradition agreement. Sleep loss can…
Sleep Is Not Optional, Even During Finals
Finals culture treats sleep like an optional luxury you can borrow against. Your brain is less impressed by the tradition. Protecting sleep is…
Eating Disorders Can Hide Inside “Healthy” Campus Culture
College wellness culture can make harmful eating and exercise patterns look disciplined, clean or aspirational. Eating disorders do not have one body type,…
Gym Culture, Body Image and the Pressure to Optimize Yourself
The college gym can be a place to feel stronger, clear your head and build routine. It can also become another room where…
Food Insecurity Is a Mental Health Issue Too
It is hard to concentrate on a lecture when part of your brain is calculating whether the groceries need to last until Friday.…
How to Check on a Friend Without Becoming Their Crisis Plan
Being a good friend does not require becoming someone’s 24-hour therapist, emergency service and reason to stay alive. Peer support works better when…
When a Friend Says They Don’t Want to Be Here
“I don’t want to be here” can mean different things, but it is not a sentence to casually file away. You can ask…