Difficulties whilst studying

Students with existing mental health conditions may also find themselves more severely affected than most by these pressures, which may worsen any existing symptoms. You may already know how your mental illness affects your ability to study however if you do not, here are some of the ways that may alert you that you should seek additional help and support.

You may find difficulties in:

• working in groups
• relating to and working with other people - peers or academics
• with time keeping and attendance
• being around large groups of people, for example, in lectures, libraries,
• examination
• too much concentration on detail
• tendency to overwork
• exam performance
• sustaining effort - academic performance may be erratic
• making choices and prioritising workloads
• meeting assignment deadlines
  

If you feel that you are experiencing mental health problems you should contact someone as soon as possible. People you may consider contacting include:

Your GP, your psychiatrist, the student counselling service, disability support department, personal tutor, a friend, university warden, Students’ Union welfare officer.

Remember that not all of the above will have knowledge of sever mental illness, but they should have an idea of where to refer you within the university.

Most universities are very aware of supporting students, and will appoint a personal tutor or staff member to each student to be your first point of contact if you have any problems. It is very important that you communicate with your university if you are having problems as they will only want to support you. If you do not let your department know what is happening, they don’t know you need support and you may find that you cannot cope any more.

University support services also keep strict codes of confidentiality according to the Data Protection Act so you needn’t worry that your course mates will find out anything about you unless you tell them yourself.

If you believe you have been discriminated against in some away by a department or person at the university, it is worth making a complaint to the relevant university official, usually a Dean of Students or Registrar. A university will have policy in place to protect students from discrimination so a complaint will be investigated and the problem may be rectified if a breach of policy is identified.

Access to education is addressed by the Disability Discrimination Act. ‘SKILL’ is the national bureau for students with disabilities.

They produce a booklet ' Five Step Test ' which takes you through a series of questions to ascertain if you have been discriminated against. If you think that you may have been discriminated against the Disability Law Service  may be able to help you challenge the college or university.