What does it take for students to feel good at university? According to Mikhail Monashev from the Department of Marketing and Trade students should not treat every grade or deadline as a verdict on their future. In this interview, he explains how everyday teaching and study conditions affect student well-being, what universities and teachers can do to support sustainable academic performance, and what students can do to avoid burnout during their studies.
Well-being is essentially the opposite of burnout. It is a state of mind in which you feel content with yourself and confident about what you are doing. Studying should not leave you feeling emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed. When you are working towards a goal but feel that the result is still very far away, you may begin to doubt yourself. Your well-being partly reflects whether your everyday activities feel manageable and meaningful.
According to academic literature, student well-being has five main dimensions. The first is academic well-being—how you feel about your studies and whether you find them manageable and meaningful. The second is physical well-being. In other words, whether you have enough time to sleep properly, eat well and exercise. The third dimension is relational well-being. It concerns friendships, relationships and the feeling that you belong to a social circle. The fourth dimension is psychological resilience—how well you cope with pressure and stressful situations. The fifth is financial well-being: students’ capacity to meet daily expenses and financial obligations.
Well-being starts in the classroom. Studying should be organised in a way that makes it, if not always enjoyable, at least efficient and manageable. Students should also not have excessively long gaps between classes. The atmosphere in the classroom is important as well. Everyone should feel comfortable, understand what teachers expect of them and have the opportunity to participate without feeling under pressure. Universities can also support physical and relational well-being by creating suitable conditions: sufficiently long lunch breaks, good-quality food, places to spend time inbetween classes, spaces for teamwork and areas where students can meet other people or simply relax.
Exactly. A university can create opportunities, but students themselves have to decide whether to use them. At MENDELU, for example, we have many places where students can meet outside the classroom, but no one can force them to build relationships there. Psychological resilience likewise depends on students’ habits and on how they approach difficult situations.
Well-being helps you maintain consistent performance over the long term. You may achieve very good results throughout your first year, continue at the same pace for part of your second year and then suddenly lose all motivation because you have exhausted yourself. Studying is a long-term project. What matters is not only achieving good results, but also what those results cost you. When you feel reasonably well, you can study and achieve consistent results over the long term. However, if you continually ignore stress and exhaustion, your performance may eventually decline. The aim is to remain motivated and capable of continuing, not to have one outstanding semester and then burn out.
One of the first signals is that you begin to feel tired of something you previously managed without much difficulty. You may lose the desire to continue the studies, or tasks that seemed relatively easy just a month ago may suddenly feel extremely demanding. Another warning sign is that you cannot stop thinking about deadlines, even when you are supposed to be resting. Studying may begin to interfere with your sleep, relationships or basic daily routines. If this pressure continues to build for too long, it can eventually lead to burnout.
It is a state in which you lose the desire to continue and even ordinary tasks begin to feel impossible. That is why we should notice declining well-being early. It does not merely make students feel uncomfortable; it can seriously affect their motivation, performance and ability to continue their studies.
The first response should usually be rest. This may sound obvious, but students often respond to exhaustion by pushing themselves even harder. The simplest advice is to put your studies aside for a while and allow yourself to think about something else. Then return to your work and pay attention to how you feel.
The second step is to talk about the problem. Confide in your friends, family members or someone else you trust. Do not keep everything to yourself. If the problem persists, it is advisable to seek professional help. For intstance, at MENDELU, the specialists at the Psychological Counselling Centre of the Institute of Lifelong Learning can help you manage stress, fear of failure and the pressure you place on yourself.
I think students need to change the way they think about deadlines. As a deadline approaches, it seems extremely important, but immediately afterwards it often ceases to matter at all. Try to remember a deadline that caused you a great deal of stress a year ago. In many cases, you can barely remember it now.
That does not mean you should underestimate your responsibilities. It means that you should not treat every deadline or exam as something that will determine the course of your entire life. Teachers do not want you to fail an exam. They want to assess what you know. Students often put enormous pressure on themselves to pass an exam on the first attempt and receive the best possible grade. But one failed attempt or a lower grade does not define you.
They should actively involve students so that they do not simply sit passively through the class. This helps students feel that they are contributing, learning and creating something rather than merely enduring another obligation. The second area is course organisation. Teachers should think carefully about the amount of work they assign and remember that students are also taking other courses.
Feedback is also important. Teachers should explain what students can improve while also recognising what they have done well. Ideally, feedback should be provided reasonably quickly, while the assignment is still relevant and students can use it in their future work.
Make a list of tasks, choose one of them and focus on it until you complete it. Once you completed one task, cross it out of your list and move on to the next task. Breaking your work down into small steps is one of the simplest ways to reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed and fight procrastination. When you try to hold everything in your head at once, it can all seem even more chaotic than it really is. By writing down a plan and completing one task at a time, you can see your progress more easily and regain a sense of agency and control.
Take breaks, ask for help and break large tasks down into smaller, manageable steps. Most importantly, do not treat every grade or deadline as a verdict on your future. University studies is a long-term project. Success should not mean achieving one outstanding result and then losing the motivation or ability to continue. Aim for a long-term success, and always weight how much the excellence will cost you.