Taking Your Mental Health Advocacy Online
March 19, 2020 — With most of Active Minds’ 16,000 student leaders prepared to or already transitioned to online learning, it’s more important than ever to continue our mental health advocacy efforts and support our now-remote campus communities during this time. Below are tips from Active Minds to keep your efforts moving, informed in part by our exclusively online […]
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Coping and Staying Emotionally Well During COVID-19-related School Closures
March 11, 2020 — Students at more than one hundred US colleges and universities are preparing to transition to online learning following notices from their schools that in-person courses are ending – either temporarily or for the foreseeable future – due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of a school closure on campuses and students often goes beyond academics: […]
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Meet Our Spring 2020 Interns!
March 9, 2020 — Our Spring 2020 interns have been hard at work so far this semester! You may have met some of them at conference, but if not, here they are! Nithia Akineza Where do you go to school? Bethesda Chevy Chase High School Where is home to you? Bujumbura, Burundi Which team are you interning for […]
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Everyone Deserves Love On Valentine’s Day
February 14, 2020 — It’s that time of the year again. The aisles of your local CVS are lined with pink and red candy hearts , The Notebook is constantly playing on HBO, and of course: article and blog post after blog post is being written about how to enjoy being single. This is not one of those blog […]
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In Memory of Sue Cimbricz
February 13, 2020 — Content Warning: This piece contains mentions of suicide. Last month, Active Minds lost a force. I met Sue Cimbricz just a handful of months after she experienced the most extraordinary loss anyone can endure: the suicide of her oldest son, Sam. From the moment I met her and was let into her world and her […]
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Revamping the Student ID Design with Mental Health in Mind
February 11, 2020 — Since it was established, Active Minds at Occidental College has been an active organization in terms of tabling and programming, and we strive to give mental health a voice on an institutional level. We aim to work with administrators by sharing information about college students’ mental health and relevant policy to strategize ways to ensure […]
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The Epidemic of Bathroom Tears
February 5, 2020 — Content Warning: This piece contains mentions of suicide statistics. Imagine this: You don’t have enough time to get to class in the six minutes you have between periods, so you have to dip out of class to run to the bathroom. You are either in a huge rush, trying not to miss any important instruction […]
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You Will
January 31, 2020 — Content Warning: This piece contains mentions of suicidal ideation. If thoughts come with wings and enter our minds from outside ourselves, conceived and born in a great nameless abyss that holds everything possible, good and bad, within it, that is how and from where my first thought of suicide, at age thirteen, came to me. […]
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Why We Shouldn’t Throw the Phrase “I’m Triggered” Around
January 27, 2020 — For college students all across the country, classes are starting back up, and it can be both an exciting and nerve-racking time of year. New classes, new syllabi, new routines, and new friends/classmates are a feature of this time of year, and adjusting to that takes time. It can also be difficult when you’re forced […]
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Moving Away from Home
January 22, 2020 — I remember when I moved into my first place that was truly my own. It was the beginning of September, and my dad and I had driven 400+ miles to move into my college apartment before classes started. It was hot and muggy. I remember driving and thinking the streets in Davis were too narrow […]
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