How Can Parents Help Their Students?
The college years can be a time of both excitement and stress for students and their parents. Students face numerous challenges while at college, such as choosing and preparing for a career path, developing peer and romantic relationships, and learning about their own unique values and identities. Sometimes these challenges can lead to difficulties.
Problems that students sometimes experience while in college include difficulties with depression, anxiety, stress management, substance abuse, eating/body image issues, or relationship concerns. Learning or attention-related problems also occasionally arise during the college years. If these problems are not addressed, they may result in emotional, academic, or social difficulties for the student. The Counseling Center can often help students resolve their concerns so they can feel better and get "back on track" with their academic work.
Often, parents are among the first people to notice when their student is experiencing difficulties. If this happens, parents are encouraged to contact the Counseling Center to discuss strategies for helping their student. Such strategies may include encouraging the student to take advantage of on-campus resources such as the Counseling Center.
Services Offered at the Counseling Center
The Counseling Center is a confidential service available to MSU students. We provide a variety of services to help students achieve their academic and personal goals while they are at MSU, including individual and group counseling, psychiatric referrals, and outreach programming. In order to meet the demand for our services, the Counseling Center uses a short-term therapy model for individual counseling.
Counseling Center staff may also facilitate referrals to other on-campus or off-campus service providers when appropriate. Referrals are made when the student's concerns are better addressed elsewhere, or when the student's concerns are beyond the scope of the services we provide.