As a university offers a vibrant, creative and challenging environment, students can choose from a variety of activities including academic classes, career training programs and club activities according to their needs and abilities. As a result, they can deepen knowledge relevant to their academic majors and make a change in their campus life to improve its quality. However, some students seem to be dissatisfied with their campus lives and even deeply depressed. According to some newspaper reports, the number of university students who suffer from melancholia without any apparent reasons are more than previously expected, and such symptoms are likely to be worse during May.

How about You in May?
    Until late April, university students have to participate in many activities including welcome meetings for freshmen and returning students and membership training. It is the quickest way to become a part of the university community and to experience new activities linked to your campus life. Many seem to take the pleasure from trying diverse activities on campus and feel they truly are university students.
    As time goes on, they start to get skeptical about such daily activities, contemplate on their lives, and often begin to doubt themselves. On top of that, it seems that the early summer-like weather saps their energy. One student said, “A warm day makes me feel languid. I can’t do anything and don’t know what I am going to do. Sometimes I suspect it is a kind of melancholia.” As a mater of fact, the numbers of students who are absent from lectures are gradually increases after mid-term examinations and some students even stay out of school temporarily in order to repeat a college entrance examination. This phenomenon is regarded as the cause of students’ depression, also called “May illness” because it usually happens in May. As freshmen are particularly prone to this illness it is also referred to as “freshman syndrome.” 
    Then, what is May illness? Reports say that the word originated in Japan. When spring comes, many Tokyo University students are so perplexed and depressed, that they suffer from melancholia. The reason is that they don’t know their own purpose after entering university. In Korea, such symptoms occurs from May, by which time mid-terms are over, till early June when student festivals begin on campus. For this reason, the Korean and Japanese names for this same illness differ from one another.

Do You Know What a Good Campus Life Is?
    CNU offers a vibrant campus life to its students with so many programs relating to a vast range of cultural, educational, athletic and social activities. Students can presently avail themselves of opportunities to enhance their overall educational and social experience through their involvement in such programs as offered by the university. However, CNU staff members who operate the university-linked programs for students pointed out that just a few students participate in the programs.
   Most students, whom The Tribune interviewed, doubted whether or not they lead a proper campus life. Jang Seung-woong (freshman, Dept. of Korean Language Education) said, “After the mid-term exam, students have more free time compared to say, March and April. So they have enough time to look back upon their daily lives on campus and may become confused. Most of them don’t seem sure that their campus lives are good.”
    If this is true, what characteristics of campus life are desirable? It is very difficult to define the quality of campus life because its definition is quite subjective and is based on personal opinions and feelings rather than on facts. “What do you think about a good campus life?” Students The Tribune met pointed out that if possible, university students must do all of the following: they have to improve learning and study skills, increase knowledge relevant to their majors, participate in a variety of activities on campus and make good and wide personal relationships.
    It is obvious that university students must make efforts to improve the quality of their campus life in order to prepare for their future. Many students know what a good campus life is but don’t live it out. In fact, so many students are, quite surprisingly, likely to be suffering from an unhappy life on campus. Jung Wook, a psychological counselor in Overall Human Resources Development, said, “On average 3,000 students a year come to get a psychological counseling regarding personality, employment or personal relationships.”

What Factors Are Associated with Your Campus Life?
    If many students don’t enjoy fulfilling and vibrant campus lives, how can they make a change in their lives? What make students feel depressed and dispirited? Why are they discontented with their campus lives? The main factors may be summarized as follows.
    First, social structures have changed the function of university. A university is not required to focus only on providing practical knowledge relevant to immediate real-world concerns and needs. It has to be grounded on various communities, which provide both a place of reflection and a home for active involvement with the urgent concerns of daily life at the same time. It is true, but generally people have a tendency to think universities are just educational institutions to get popular jobs such as a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, public servants, etc after graduation. Many students, therefore, primarily choose their majors according to their high-school records and results of entrance examinations rather than their aptitudes and talents. After entering a university, they prefer to enhance their English abilities and competitiveness in getting jobs. The changed importance of the function of universities has influenced students’ daily lives and naturally results in students being distanced from the pleasures of diverse activities on campus.
    Second, misrepresentation by the mass media including popular TV shows and movies have influenced students in negative ways. The media have made representation to college life about the poor standard of accommodation. What is worse is that some of those media have made false representations to university students. Mo Noo-ry (Junior, Dept. of Early Childhood Education) said, “The misconception of real campus life is caused by mass media. For example, a famous campus situation comedy show, “Non-stop” described university as just a kind of place for play or amusement. The leading actors and actresses of the show were portrayed as if all university students were given only to play without study. They did proxy attendance and caroused till dawn so, they were frequently late for or absent from their classes.” Due to the misrepresentation of campus life, students seem to misunderstand the real situation and it may be impossible for many students to imagine a desirable campus life. As a result, many students appear to start college life soaked in alcohol with the excuse of relishing the hard-worn freedom from their stressful high-school years.
    In addition, not enough programs like freshman orientation and on-going guidance exist to positively motivate students. The main objective of these programs is to provide information and a set of guiding principles relevant to university students, which can help them understand what good campus life is all about. Effective freshman orientation programs are especially necessary to assist these newcomers in adjusting to their new environment. Such guide programs are currently needed as it is difficult for juniors to ask seniors’ advice about good campus life. Park Eun-jeong (Junior, Dept. of Economics) said students have to take seniors’ and professors’ advice and make good personal relationships. However, as individualism is remarkably widespread in our society, most students have a strong tendency not to have concerns for other people and are too busy just developing themselves: improving their English skills, gaining good grades, or practicing interviews for employment. Many seniors who could give certain advices or aid about campus life to juniors don’t care. Perhaps it’s just as well, as it could just lead to a situation of the “blind leading the blind”, thus continuing and re-enforcing misconceptions about campus life.

Time To Set New Goals for Your Future Life
    As mentioned above, so many students are dissatisfied with their lives on campus and face depression. Very often they don’t realize that certain help exists even if this is not a total solution. Factors of dissatisfaction and depression like May illness have been deep-rooted for a long time, so it is difficult to resolve them.
    We would like to make suggestions that may be helpful for students who want a vibrant campus life: universities need to operate effective orientation and guide programs, which are more needed now than ever on campus because universities have become more individualistic. Students must enrich themselves with diverse experiences through various programs offered by universities. It is possible to be actively engaged in study and research on significant national and global issues by participating in university-linked programs. If such options are not available, students need to seriously reflect on their daily lives on campus and try to make appropriate changes.
    It is time to set new goals and make plans for your future life. You can start by setting goals for the near future. Don’t worry about small goals. Try and believe in yourself! Self-confidence will give you the strength to tackle greater challenges and help you when times get tough. The Tribune believes that you can do it.

By Gim Ye- seul, Tribune Reporters
Lee Han-na, Tribune Reporters
Gim Bo-a, Tribune Reporters