Whether starting university as a fresher or returning for another year of studying, university can be a lot of fun, but it also comes with its challenges too.
From studying to socialising, there are a lot of new and often overwhelming experiences to navigate.
Unsurprisingly, many students face stressful and anxious situations at university.
For example, 71% of students report feeling anxious about their classes.
In terms of socialising, 44% of students say they have trouble meeting new people.
The work/study/life balance can also take its toll, with 64% of students saying that they don’t get enough sleep, 54% claim they struggle to maintain healthy habits and 37% of first-year students have anxiety.
Whether it is helping with studies, improving student life or managing those first years of independent living, student coaching through university can be incredibly supportive and help students to achieve their full potential at university.
5 Ways Coaching Can Support Your Degree
Pressure and stress management
Juggling deadlines, assignments, life, and personal goals can bring stress.
Academic coaching can offer a space to unpack all of those thoughts and create a plan to better manage your mental load.
A coach will work with you to help you find your priorities, tap into the tools you have within you to manage pressure and discuss the strategies that can help with stress management to keep focused on the priorities that matter to you.
Goal setting
From achieving your desired degree result to forging a future career path or even achieving specific life goals such as in sports clubs or extracurricular activities, coaching can be a vital tool for goal setting.
A coach can help students get super clear on their goals, uncover intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to help them persevere with the goals, and create those milestones and celebrations to maintain focus and encouragement.
Boost confidence
Time at university is an ideal opportunity to build self-confidence.
It is usually a time of personal development, whether it’s managing budgets and living away from home or professional development in terms of academic achievement and career advancement.
With development, one of the biggest issues is standing in your own way.
This is often through imposter syndrome, not feeling good enough or lacking confidence.
Working with a coach can help students first recognise their own achievements and find ways to develop confidence and self-belief.
This could be through underpinning core values and beliefs or strategies that help to consolidate confidence and help students understand their strengths, talents and develop positive self-talk that allows confidence to flourish.
Learning strategies
Coaching can support academic success by helping students to develop learning strategies.
Coaching can help individuals to explore their personalised approach to learning and what works best for them.
Often, we are told how to study or revise through schooling.
However, this might differ from our specific learning style. Coaching can help students to explore their learning approach and set accountability to study plans too.
Working with a coach can help students explore new ways of thinking and problem-solve whenever challenges arise.
Open questioning and having a safe space to explore all ideas can encourage students to take fresh approaches to seek solutions – which is a core academic skill.
Wellbeing and balance
Finally, coaching can be beneficial in checking in with well-being and emotional regulation. Coaching offers a safe space to explore everything on your mind.
It is a space to get everything out of your head and talk anything through that needs processing.
Coaching can also help you check in on how you’re feeling, what you need and what supports you to help encourage well-being and positive life balance.
At Flourished Minds, we partner with universities and support individual students throughout their degrees with specialised coaching.
From navigating the university experience to academic coaching for specific goals – we’re here to help students throughout their education.
If you’d like to find out more about our student coaching services, please book a free consultation to chat about how we can support you.
