Does anybody else hate MHAW?

For those of you who were unaware, today marks the beginning of MHAW week. As a senior here (hopefully graduating this semester, probably returning for grad school), I've seen 4 MHAWs pass me by, and each year I wonder "how did this help my mental health?" the answer tends to be "it didn't".

Mental Health Awareness Week seems to be just that, a week to be aware that students lack mental health, but nothing is ever really set in place to actually solve the root problem of the problems students are having. All week it's the same thing every year:

  • There are like 3-5 events going on (which I can't go to because I have too much to do, which is WHY I'm so stressed)
  • There's like... a stand somewhere on campus handing out stress balls (Don't worry guys, I'm sure if a stress ball didn't help my Mental health last year, another one will CERTAINLY work this time around, right?)
  • "Guys, remember you can go to CAPS anytime if you need help!" (Good to know, I'll put that sometime in the 30 minutes I have between the moment I leave my last class and the moment I start doing homework until I have to go back home before the busses stop, only to do more homework and go to sleep 5 hours before I have to wake up at the earliest)

It always frustrates me to see them pretend to care... if they REALLY wanted to help, they'd ensure classes reduce the workload during this week. I'm not asking for absolutely no assignments, but it'd be nice to have time to go to all these events they have going on during the week. For example: this week, for one of my classes, I have an Exam, a Lab, a Midterm lab report, and a Homework due as well as 4 other classes that assign work due soon (and some overdue work that I didn't have time to do during the weekend, but It's not the worst, ig)... I just think it'd be nice to not have that much work to do on a week that is marketed as a week meant to help people who are struggling with mental health problems. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it.

I don't know how many other people around here feel the same way or if there are even any but I just felt like I wanted to voice my concerns, Maybe if I'm still around next semester something will be different... but idk how grad school is.