Stress and Anxiety among College Going first Year Male and Female Students

Stress represents any disruption or difficulty in the smooth course of life and occurs when demands on the individual exceed his or her coping abilities. Survey of available literature suggests that many undergraduate students undergo considerable stress, especially at the point of entry which require adapting to dramatic life changes, due to demands associated with change, leaving home, becoming independent, decision making, competing with new students, assuming greater responsibility for one' life, making new friends, studying regularly and learning about as well as adjusting to a new environment. Inability to cope with stresses is likely to lead to negative consequences with anxiety being one of the most prominent one. Availability of counseling at this stage can be crucial for adjustment to the college life and eventually in carving a desirable career path. The present study primarily aims to explore the differences between college entrant boys and girls on stress experienced in various areas and anxiety, and also to study the relationship between stress and anxiety within the two groups along with attempting to identify the areas which need to be focused upon while providing counseling to college entrants. College Student Stress Scale (Srivastava & Kumar, 2000) consisting of five stress areas, viz., academic, environmental, family, financial and hostel stress and the free floating anxiety subscale of the State, Trait and Free Floating Anxiety Scale developed by Tripathi and Rastogi (1986) were administered to 101 boys and 100 girls, all of whom were hostel residents and in first year of college. The obtained scores were subjected to statistical analysis by computing Mean, S.D., t-test and Pearson's 'r'. Obtained results indicated that boys and girls experienced similar levels of environmental, family, financial, hostel stresses and were also similar on free floating anxiety, but girls reported higher level of academic stress.