{"id":43441,"date":"2020-12-10T15:59:50","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T20:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/?p=43441"},"modified":"2020-12-10T16:48:14","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:48:14","slug":"u-of-t-is-listening-the-launch-of-a-new-mental-health-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2020\/12\/10\/u-of-t-is-listening-the-launch-of-a-new-mental-health-website\/","title":{"rendered":"U of T is Listening: the Launch of a New Mental Health Website"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is 2017, I am in my final year of high school and the University of Toronto is my first choice on my university application. I had extended family rooting for the school and encouraging me to work hard, \u201cIt\u2019s the number one university in Canada!\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s the Harvard of the North!\u201d. Then we had the internet, begging me to choose literally any other school. \u201cEveryone here is stressed 24\/7\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ll spend four years with no friends and a depressed GPA\u201d. Of course, we can\u2019t forget the ones also applying to universities, saying \u201cDon\u2019t you need a high 90 to get in?\u201d \u201cIsn\u2019t it impossible to have a good GPA there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Flash forward to 2020...I\u2019m in my third year now at U of T and I can say I\u2019ve seen a lot of things at this school for myself. My mentality when applying for university is that your experience is what you make of it. But as I talked about before with the pressure to be extroverted in campus life<\/a>, there are certain things that propel us to have the experiences we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, mental health at U of T has continued to be a hot topic and persists as a setback for the student experience here. When I talked to my friends at different universities, it was clear that their workload, faculty expectations, campus life, differed greatly from my own experience at U of T. I almost hate to admit that when U of T students emphasize the stress they endure as students from this school and the toll it takes on their mental health, it\u2019s not the slightest bit of an exaggeration. When the stakes are so high and the pressure weighs us down, the reminder that we are part of a prestigious university can only do so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was precisely what was going through my head before I even opened the link for U of T\u2019s new mental health website<\/a>. I\u2019ve had the privilege to access Health and Wellness resources during my years as a student. But without the help of my residence don, I can imagine the process to be a little complicated. That said, I went into this website hoping for a clear breakdown of what I needed to do if I wanted access to any resource offered at the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I must say I was quite impressed with the design and layout. On the first page, there was a scale describing different mental health needs and it implied to me that there was support available for anyone in any situation<\/strong>. I used to be someone who was afraid to go to a support service for fear that I was taking the time of someone else in an urgent situation who needed it more<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n