With the pressure to make good grades, form relationships, the rising cost of tuition and the assignments college students constantly face, it is no wonder so many students have experienced some form of depression in their first few years of college.

Depression and college tend to go hand in hand. When you come to college, you encounter a drastically new environment, and the resulting stress can lead to depression. A lot of college students are ignorant to the fact they might have depression or depressive episodes, as the common belief is it only happens to “crazy” people.

College has always been pitched as the time of your life, a time for you to grow up, become independent and do things you have always wanted to do. In many ways, college is this time, but perhaps it is a little too much for first year students.

When I came to college, I was not surprised that my classes were much harder than my high school’s classes, or that I was now at a school with more than 30,000 people. But, like most incoming freshmen, I was not prepared for the reality of having all this pressure on my back and trying to find my place at such a large university. For some reason I believed the transition would be much easier than it actually has been.

N.C . State does a wonderful job of making students feel at home through all the programs and the amount of organizations on campus. But since the school is so large, there are plenty of students who get lost along the way.

There is a very welcoming counseling center on campus for those who are having trouble in their lives. Students dealing with issues such as depression are common on college campuses.  A study from the American College Health Association in 2000 said 10 percent of college students have been diagnosed with depression. And the National Mental Health Association quotes a study saying 30 percent of college freshmen report feeling overwhelmed a great deal of the time.

Still, students who deal with feelings of depression will probably never use the counseling center, because to this day the word depression has a lot of humiliation and disgraced attached to it. This is unfortunate for those students who are depressed to the point where they don’t want to get out of bed.

It is natural for students at any college to feel homesick or just have a bad day, but once a bad day becomes a bad week and then a bad month, it is time to do something about it. One of the least talked about issues that many incoming freshmen experience is a sense of being lost and having feelings of depression.

In college you come to a place where you know few, if any, people; you basically have to start over, form a new group of friends and get acquainted with a completely different environment. College is tough. If you or anyone you know is having trouble coping with the stresses of college life, or having feelings of depression, let them know there are places on campus where they can get help, and that there are people there to listen.