Health and Human Services Professional Development

Privileged College Student, Are You Grateful? By Shaun Hurdelbrink and Jill Bowers, PhD  on   April 28, 2015   Many view a higher education as the ultimate gateway to success, but seemingly few students express the gratitude tertiary education deserves. Unfortunately, the opportunities and privileges of being a college student may easily be overlooked or taken for granted. As a university student, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a fellow student complain about the amount work that needs to be done for a class, or how much someone is dreading the next difficult section. I’ve also been asked many times, “what’s the easiest class to take?” If anything, students should be excited to take on academic challenges instead of avoiding or dreading them. Understandably, this is not the view of every student, but my experience has demonstrated that many students may be in a counterproductive mindset. Throughout my life, higher education was viewed as an expectat...

   Eat Oats for Breakfast and Get a Move On!         By Shaun Hurdelbrink and Natasha Co le Before college, eating healthy and staying physically active was a straightforward, stable routine for me. Cereal in the morning, PB&J for lunch, cross-country or swimming as exercise, then a well-balanced dinner made by mom or dad. College, however, was a whole new lifestyle and it became challenging to eat the healthy foods I wanted to and stay active. Many college students tend to face similar situations and gain weight over the course of their first few years on campus. According to NRC Research Press, “about 70% [of 131 college students studied] gained weight, averaging 11.7 ± 9.1 lbs.”1 Despite the great variation in the study’s results, there was nonetheless an upward trend in bodyweight and BMI throughout college students.                       However, there are s...