Mental health abroad

Foreword: When I first began writing this post, it was intended to be a comparison of the resources available to students at NYU Berlin vs. at NYU New York. I noticed it slowly turn towards a discussion of mental health, a turn I didn't expect to take here. I started writing this three weeks ago, and it popped back into my mind after hearing the news of a suicide at our New York campus. A few minutes ago, I read an article critiquing NYU's wellness services in New York, and it reminded me so much of what I had already written that I knew I had to post it. Yesterday was also World Mental Health Day, so it's fitting timing, so here it is. It's not my usual fun study abroad content, but feel free to read if you're interested:

(PS enjoy this picture of the beautiful trees here that I took today :) )

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If you'd like to hear me rave about something, ask me about the resources at NYU Berlin. They are actually spectacular for such a small study away location---I think you truly get your money's worth when you study away with NYU. For the 75 of us here this semester, there are free trips (to Hamburg, Leipzig, Potsdam, etc.), workshops, personal relationships with professors and faculty, and so many other resources, including my personal favorite: a wellness counselor.

I've been wanting to talk to a therapist for quite a long time now, but I never wanted to reach out because it was just too scary to consider talking to a stranger like that. What if I finally got myself to reach out to someone, but I didn't feel a connection there? Would that just make me feel worse if I kept searching and searching for someone who I would click with? During orientation week here, our wellness counselor was a part of a few presentations where she made it clear that she was here for us. I got to get to know her a bit and observe what kind of person she was without ever having to talk to her, and I decided that she was a really cool person who seemed like someone I would actually want to talk to. It took me a few weeks before I felt ready to reach out, but I will be forever thankful that I did.

While it may seem from the outside like I'm always having a blast studying abroad, traveling on the weekends, and making a bunch of new friends, that's not exactly the case (and honestly, it's never the case. We tend to share our best side with the world online and keep our struggles to ourselves.) That being said---don't worry! I'm truly having the time of my life here. I absolutely adore being in Berlin, spending time with all of my wonderful new friends, speaking German, and seeing the world like I've always wanted to. My mind has just decided that now is the time to work through a lot of different things, so in the same day I can be intensely happy but also really struggling---and that's ok!

Here's the part where I criticize NYU's main location in New York... Being here, I understand that this is much more of a small university vibe and that this isn't entirely replicable when you have thousands of students on one "campus". Regardless, I am terribly disappointed with the resources available to us in New York. There, they constantly preach about how they hope to de-stigmatize mental health issues---they plaster the wellness hotline number everywhere and often include links to wellness resources in emails. Therefore, I was shocked to hear during my first session with our wellness counselor here that we are only allowed 10 sessions per year (edit: per semester, but apparently it's very hard to get availability with therapists more often than once a month) in New York compared to our unlimited sessions abroad. I find this to be despicable for a school that bombards its students with nearly the highest level of work possible (NYU is rated as one of the most stressful universities). 10 sessions is not nearly enough to start to deal with your problems, develop a relationship with your therapist, or even for the therapist to know you or care about you at all?? Meanwhile, here in Berlin, I meet with the wellness counselor once a week and email her daily, which would be impossible with New York's services. I would think that for my $72,000 of tuition they could stop wasting money on clubs (so many of which are handed thousands of dollars that they don't even need to waste on events that people don't show up to) and instead invest the money in the wellbeing of their students. I would gladly give up our weekly free lunch at clubs if it meant that I had access to quality services. I'm enraged that NYU pretends to care so much but doesn't even go beyond surface level. Ok, I'm sure they do care, but I am at this point just beyond disappointed with this system. I strongly believe that going to a bigger school (and especially in the case of an expensive school like NYU), does not mean that your worth as a student decreases.

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At NYU Berlin, I've learned to be more open about some of the things that I'm going through---so many of us go to our wellness counselor and have daily chats about how it went and how we're feeling (and rave about how amazing she is :) ). We're all here for each other in a way that I don't think everyone is in New York, and that's something I will miss so much when I go back.

To end this post, I thought I'd share an app that I've recently started using again. It's called Headspace, and they have many different meditation podcasts that really help me. There are different topics, like anxiety, stress, and sleep, and you can access the basics for free.