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Abstract
In the STEM field, there is a culture that disincentivizes people from speaking openly about issues they face or seeking help due to maintaining social appearances, cultural walls, gender expectations, and stigma around conversations about mental wellness. Having open communication about it is of vital importance to erase the taboo nature of these topics and to find solutions. One solution will not fit all, and we don’t know the extent of this issue at Florida International University (FIU). Our project aims to hear multiple perspectives on what FIU students are experiencing, what helps them, and what doesn’t.
The goals of this project are to create an environment that is more welcoming of conversations about mental wellness, encourage students to use mental health resources they have access to at FIU, and help students feel less alone; we want to form a community at the FIU Engineering Centre. We collected student stories through two sets of online surveys, promoting them through social media posts and posters. We also distributed pamphlets with anonymous student anecdotes linked to our surveys and contact information to gather data. We also conducted interviews with several stakeholders. We also submitted an article to the platform “Medium” (Medium.com) discussing the difficulties of managing symptoms of mental illness as a student.
Our findings include an increased understanding of the mental health challenges among FIU students, participant stories highlighting their experiences, reasons FIU students have for seeking or not seeking mental health assistance, and potential solutions to the mental health challenges they describe. By sharing our findings with the FIU community, our project will help students feel more comfortable utilizing mental wellness resources and it may inspire others to build upon the foundation we have laid.