SJU Senior Discusses Balancing in a Pandemic

A Saint Joseph’s University Senior shares her struggles with balancing school, work, and her mental health throughout the pandemic. She addresses SJU’s lack of consideration for their students and feels as though the school does not care about their students in the way they say they do.

More videos like this one can be found at http://transition.starttalkingsju.com. You can also see our prior campaigns: Living in Fear, Striving for Hope, Attacked, Belonging, and Mental Health.

This video was co-created with the person depicted who reviewed and signed a consent form granting permission to share this story online.

If you are experiencing any personal or social effects due to COVID and/or a return to campus life, the university has resources that can help, including:

• The Office of Student Outreach and Support
• the SJU COVID website; 
• HawkHub, if you are experiencing food insecurity;
• The Bias Activity Review Group, which connects to Public Safety; 
• Counseling and Psychological Support (CAPS; 610-660-1090)
• TitleIX titleIX@sju.edu
• REPP (*confidential support) 610-733-9650 (24 hr. Peer Helpline)
• SJU Public Safety 610-660-1111.

A complete transcript of the video reads as follows:

I’m a Senior, Marketing and Spanish double major. I had an internship which was like, twelve hours a week and I was babysitting and I was working for Campus Rec and I was so miserable. Like, I literally quit my internship just because I couldn’t handle it. I was just losing it because I was so stressed and so busy all the time so, I definitely had a tough time acclimating and I don’t even think I still am acclimated. Like, I still think I’m like sometimes, like, I don’t know what’s going on. I, and also just with, like, working and everything, and like I’m on an eight-day streak of working straight. With classes, with, like, sorority stuff, and just other stuff that’s going on and I’m like, when’s it going to stop? And it doesn’t stop. And even like Thanksgiving, I don’t have a break. I have schoolwork, I have like, papers and stuff. It’s the same thing with Fall Break like, my roommate had two papers and two exams the week after Fall Break. What’s the point of that? I don’t know. But then, I went, I left work early to go do homework, to go do more work. Like, it’s just like, so when you like, scale it back in one aspect, I feel like you’re like amping it up in another way. Like I can’t think of a time where it’s like a professor or like an administrator or like my advisor or anyone has ever been like, let’s check-in like, how are you doing? Expect for like my one Spanish professor that I just cried in front of but like, no ones, I feel like no one goes out of their way to be like, “how are you doing?” Cura personalis, like care for the whole person, but like, care for the whole person when it’s only convenient to them. But like, Saint Joe’s is like, “but ICARE”, do you? Do you care? Like who do you care about? The donors? Okay. I feel like everyone that I talk to is like, I’m just so stressed, I’m so busy, I’m so stressed, and I don’t know what’s going on. Every week, and like I said my one professor is great about it, checking in on us, making sure we’re all doing okay but that’s the bare minimum, checking in with your students and making sure they are doing okay. We’re suffering because our school is not equipped to handle us.