U Thrive

Introduction

At its very best, college offers us the opportunity to turn dreams into realities.

College is about possibility. The moment you set foot on campus, you will be in the middle of one of life's greatest turning points, taking your first real shot at being an adult. No matter what your roots, cultural background, or financial status may be, college holds the promise of rich experiences, lifelong friendships, and an amazing chance to pursue your passions. This is where you can find your voice, determine your path, and begin to unlock your true potential. In short: college is a game-changer.

Yet for many, college is more about surviving than thriving. It can be a slog through stress and anxiety. It can be four years spent worrying that you might not be up to snuff, make the grade, or reach the bar set by your parents, your peers, or yourself. For a growing number of today's students, college can be discouraging rather than inspiring, making them feel like they aren't in line for a fulfilling future, causing their dreams to slowly evaporate until poof… they seem completely unattainable.

Every year, more than 4.6 million students begin their freshman year at colleges and universities nationwide, spilling onto campuses with high hopes, overstuffed duffel bags, and a unique mash-up of bravado and bewilderment. As mental health experts and instructors of the largest elective class at New York University, we know that look well. We see it on pretty much all 450 faces in our lecture hall on the first day of school, and we feel you. After all, you just spent the past twelve years busting your humps for this, constantly reminded along the way what a great accomplishment this would be, what a major milestone it is, how leaving home is this magical rite of passage. All of which is true. But you are also leaving behind a lifelong support network of families, friends, and communities for the unknown, which makes this step in your life as scary as it is exhilarating—an emotional bungee jump into the Grand Canyon.

We are going to show you how to minimize the fear and maximize the thrill.

The guiding principle of U Thrive is simple: with proper preparation, you can thrive in college. Period.

Based on our course The Science of Happiness, you might consider this the ultimate study guide. A cheat sheet for the most wonderful, complicated, fascinating, and maddening subject you've ever encountered. The crash course in the one subject you need to master to squeeze the very best out of the years to come.

That subject? You.

We could drop charts right here showing that optimistic freshmen tend to have substantially higher GPAs and better social experiences, graphs indicating that hope results in greater academic and athletic success, and diagrams revealing that positive emotion predicts greater accuracy and speed in the face of stressful situations. We'll get to all that, but first, let's just quote a few of our several thousand students who have been generous enough to give us a 99 percent approval rating:

And a common one…

So we have. And here it is.

U Thrive is meant to be a reference book, a workbook, and even a journal of sorts. Just like in our class, we want you to be informed, entertained, and engaged. The exercises we provide will help you with challenges and make the most of the opportunities ahead.

As a child and adolescent psychiatrist, Alan has spent more than a decade helping young adults deal with their challenges, while Dan's expertise in positive psychology and strengths-based performance coaching has focused on helping people realize excellence and reach their unique potential. It is with these complementary skills that we strive to address both the tough times and the incredible opportunities that abound in college, sharing the theory, science, and application of thriving. Weaving research into story and practical application, our style and our focus on experiential learning seek to both inform and transform, turning fear into excitement and anxiety into possibility.

The education system spent the past twelve years preparing you to get into college, but what about actually being there? Even the most mundane things about school will be radically different: Raising your hand to ask a question in a lecture hall full of two hundred strangers is a far cry from being in a high school English class with a bunch of kids you've known for years. How you are perceived, not to mention how you perceive yourself, can also shift when you enter a more competitive academic arena and possibly slip from the ranks of well above average to just average or even well below average for the first time in your life. Moreover, the toll college takes on your body is as taxing as the one on your brain: most of you will sleep less, eat more poorly, and exercise less often. Oh, and if you don't, people (including yourselves) will think you're slacking.

In high school, you worked incredibly hard to achieve this goal. You built a solid foundation for studying, critical thinking, and test-taking, developing the habits that secured you a coveted spot at a great school. That's something to be proud of, but unfortunately, that awesome tool set isn't enough to guarantee that you'll thrive in college once you've unpacked your bags. College presents a wealth of new stressors—academic and social expectations, a seemingly endless parade of important choices, and the newfound power of autonomy, to name a few. Suddenly, no one will be around to make you go to class. Or to bed, or to dinner. The ability to regulate your sleep and eating habits will be put to the test. Innocuous decisions—Spanish or Russian? Sorority rush or student government?—take on new (and sometimes crushing) weight. The statistics show that the vast majority of students (at least 83.7 percent of you) will feel overwhelmed.

That's the least of it: A study of 16,760 college students in the United States found that in the past twelve months, 79.1 percent had been "exhausted (not from physical activity)," 59.6 percent felt "very sad," 45 percent found that "things were hopeless," and 31.3 percent had been "so depressed that it was difficult to function." Issues ranged from academics (44.7 percent) to intimate relationships (30.9 percent) to personal finances (34.8 percent). One study of over 16,000 students found that psychological well-being tends to be at its lowest point right about (wait for it… wait for it) now—or at least the moment you enter college. While anxiety peaks during the first semester of each year (Whoa! New dorms, classes, professors… again!), the most challenging time of all is your first year, from prepping and packing for campus through the end of your freshman-hood.

These numbers can seem daunting, but they do have a bright side: they show that you are not alone.

During the first class of each semester, we ask our students who, during their time in college, has felt stressed out, or overwhelmed, or has experienced anxiety. As one arm becomes two, two doubles to four, and four becomes a vast majority, the result is not embarrassment for any one student but relief for the group, as head turns, eyes scan, and the truth that they aren't alone becomes easy to visualize. It is a part of the reason that we include polls such as those cited above as reading assignments (and why they are laced throughout this book). Through the good and the bad, you are not alone, and knowing that there are others—many others—who share your experience is the most powerful force we know to help you thrive in college.

We want you to understand how to develop mindsets of growth, success, and resilience so you can nurture inspiration instead of fear. We know you will have a better chance to make the most of these four years if you understand what willpower really is, how it works, how you can strengthen it, and when it is most likely to be tested (dating, eating, drinking, studying, procrastinating, and oh yeah, wasting time on the Internet, just to name a few). We will teach you why choice is difficult, how too much of it can be detrimental, and how you can set yourselves up to make good decisions even when the stakes are high. We want you to be able to recognize bad stress and good stress, and learn how to set a routine that encourages more of the latter and less of the former. Have you ever been "in the zone"? In "flow"? There's a science behind that, and practices that can get you there more often. We want to help you identify anxiety and depression (in yourselves or others), and will offer scientifically grounded ways to reduce the risk of their becoming serious.

We will cover how positive emotions help you be more creative and feel more relaxed, and allow you to perform better under pressure, be it onstage, in class, on the field, or on a date. Why do college students who are optimists tend to get better grades, have a more satisfying social life, and succeed at a higher level in almost all pursuits (and have a higher average salary seventeen years later)? The answers lie straight ahead—including how to muster optimism when things get tough (and yes, we'll talk about why a touch of pessimism can be helpful as well).

Rough roommates? It's in here (Chapter 2). Find out how to cultivate healthy and awesome relationships. Here. Are you dating, or trying to psychoanalyze a Person of Interest? Why is he so quiet, why doesn't she ever stop talking? Why hasn't she texted me back? Does he like me, or was he just being polite? We'll teach you how to handle those kinds of thinking traps here.

Is the Freshman Fifteen real, and does it apply to more than what happens when you eat waffles and bacon every morning for an entire semester? What happens when you take a fifteen-minute nap while studying? Or a fifteen-minute walk? What can fifteen minutes of breathing practice a day do for your grades, your mood, your relationship, and/or your focus (none of these answers are here, but they are here, here, here, and here)? What are the seven things you can do to help you get a good night's sleep, and why does that matter anyway? Here.

We'll walk you through the specific steps to lay the groundwork and develop the mindset for becoming an expert in your chosen field while you're pursuing your degree. How do you find a mentor? Give and receive the right kind of feedback? What kind of passion leads to success in both life and school, rather than burnout and depression?

But enough with the questions, already! Let's get these answers rolling.