STUDENT PERSONAS
Fictional representations of real student data
RACHEL
She/her
1st year undergraduate student studying sciences
Has ADHD, anxiety, and a learning disability
Lives with parents and commutes from Oshawa
“I sometimes feel like I’m causing my own problems and I’m getting more and more anxious about how I’m going to find success at U of T.”
Lately I’ve been having a rough time making friends at U of T. Even though I am so grateful for my parents for letting me stay at home rent-free, I feel like having to commute every day from Oshawa has been making my social life a little harder. I used to have such a big friend group in high school. But now the people I grew up with have all started at different universities, I feel like it’s been difficult balancing my day-to-day responsibilities and making friends along the way.
When I started at the university, I was really thinking this would be my time to meet “my people,” but felt like my disabilities made me a little bit more reserved. With my ADHD it can be difficult to keep my attention focused on specific tasks, since I find myself zoning out and losing track of time in loud environments. Reading already takes a longer time for me because of my learning disability, and I can get so distracted and just keep fidgeting, something that makes me anxious about bothering other people. The fidgeting gets worse with my anxiety, since when I’m nervous around a group of people, my breathing gets more rapid and I feel dizzy like I can’t get enough breath in and I start to feel faint.
Today I really wanted to go to a club event to try and make some more friends. But when I got to class this morning, there was this super awkward moment where everyone had turned in a big paper and was talking about how it went. Since I got an extension because of my accommodations, I hadn’t finished it yet, so I tried to stay quiet. Then someone sitting next to me made a comment that it wasn’t fair that some people get extensions and others don’t. I took the comment personally and got frustrated with myself too. I always put pressure on myself to try to work at the same pace as my classmates.
After class I went to the library to try to work on the assignment a bit before the event, but the library was busy, and I kept getting distracted by students chatting around me. Before I knew it, time had flown by, and I hadn’t made any progress. In the end I decided to skip the event just to get more work done. I kept working until I needed to catch the last train when I realized that I had spent the whole day alone working on assignments.
I really want to connect with people, but it’s just so hard to organize my schedule and tasks and add events and a social life on top of everything. I was disappointed with myself today and wish I had managed my time a bit better. I sometimes feel like I’m causing my own problems and I’m getting more and more anxious about how I’m going to find success at U of T.
