College students balance complex lives

For the last 20 years, I have had the honor of teaching advertising and marketing to business students at four local universities with varying degrees of curriculum and success. 

There have been years of describing special events marketing and visual merchandising as part of a course of advertising and promotion that had a decidedly retail bent to it. There have been years of advertising and integrated marketing communications study that explains the ads you see, the Internet sites you frequent and the direct mail you receive.

There have been hundreds of students envisioning their futures as small business owners and budding entrepreneurs. But in all of my years, I never met more students working harder than ever amidst an increasingly tough environment than in 2011.

In the last few months, through the miracle of e-mail, I had students explain their disappearances and inability to attend classes, hand in papers or prepare for tests. These are not “my dog ate my homework” scenarios – though I wish they were.

One student explained the decision to enter college without the benefit of an income and its daily impact. It was better to get an education and internship without pay than stay with a paying job that was going nowhere.

Other students wrote of personal illness, helping family members with illness, experiencing paralyzing anxieties while studying, working full-time commission jobs in the midst of holiday deals and final exams - scenarios were critical and not always so temporary.

I mention these stories because students in today’s society are facing a lot more than the decision to occupy Wall Street. They are trying to complete their education against all odds – social, environmental, economic – only to enter a less than rosy job market.

We, as teacher, try to engage them intellectually, but it isn’t easy to concentrate when you have real world worries to attend to immediately.

Fortunately, the colleges and their departments work diligently to promote available on-campus counseling and other important student resources as a first course of action. I hope that by receiving their messages, listening to their concerns and reacting to their requirements I can continue to direct them to these services and find other ways to help in some small measure. I want them to know we, as a community, understand, have their backs and have been in their shoes once or twice.