Episode 9

About

What really happens when teens trade high school hallways for college campuses? In this insightful episode, Soren and Chris sit down with two student life experts, Angela and Andi, to explore the powerful transition from high school to college—and how it reshapes community, mental health, identity, and daily life.

With decades of experience supporting young adults, Angela and Andi offer real-world wisdom on the emotional, social, and psychological shifts that come with this major life change. From making new friends and navigating independence to managing anxiety and maintaining connections back home, this conversation is packed with practical takeaways for students, parents, and anyone walking alongside a young person in transition.

Whether you’re preparing to leave for college or supporting someone who is, this episode will help you understand the journey ahead—and how to walk it with clarity, compassion, and confidence.

Tune in and be inspired to show up, speak out, and stay grounded.

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*Please note that this episode contains sensitive behavioral health topics such as suicide and substance use. If you are experiencing a behavioral health crisis, please contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling 988 or visiting www.988lifeline.org.

**This podcast is for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered health advice. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice.

Transcript

The Inspired Insights podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered health advice. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. Please note that this podcast may contain discussions on sensitive topics such as mental illness, suicide, and substance use.

If you are experiencing a behavior health crisis or need support, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling 988 or visiting www.988lifeline.org.

Chris:
Welcome, welcome to Inspired Insights. Soren, how are you?

Soren:
I am fantastic, feeling very optimistic.

Chris:
Oh, we’ll have to come back to that. We have some guests with us.

I love having guests in our studio. Yes, I love it. Yes.

I’ll let our guests introduce themselves and then I’ll discuss with our listeners what we want to talk about today.

Angela:
Yes, hello.

I’m super glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me, Chris and Soren. It’s amazing.

I’m Angela Felicia. I’m the director of UMaine’s Counseling Center, and I’m really happy to be here.

Chris:
And fun fact, you and I’s friendship, we’re coming up to our 26th year of friendship, 1999. Fall of 99, we met.

Andi:
What is the traditional gift of a 26th year?

Chris:
Remembering it. Yeah, we met August of 1999. Yeah, that’s true.

Do I do the math right then, Soren?

Angela:
Sure. Yeah, coming up on 26.

Chris:
Yeah, we’d be coming up on 26. So, fellow social worker, we met in graduate school as resident directors at the University of Maine, which brings me to guest number two.

Andi:
That is me. My name’s Andy Bowen, and I’m the director of resident life at UMaine.

Chris:
So, welcome you two. It’s so nice. So, the reason why Soren and I wanted to ask you both to come on this episode is because Soren, if you look at Soren’s sweatshirt, our listeners now know Soren is heading far away from September of this year.

Indeed. I mean, you’ve lived, you’ve traveled a lot. We’ve talked about that.

Yeah, I asked before. But this will be your first time living, not visiting, but living somewhere else. So, I thought it’d be kind of cool to talk to some college life experts about what’s in store, thinking about what’s that transition like from being high school with families to now independent in another country.

I know your university, alma mater university, serves students from all over the country, really the world at this point. So, that international approach to higher education, I think, would be really interesting. And then, what are some of the challenges that young people have as they transition into that new life?

Yeah. But first, Inspired Insights of the Week.

Soren:
Chris, would you like to start it off?

Chris:
So, folks know Soren’s mom is now the, what are we, the laundry queen? Oh, of course.

Soren:
Laundry queen of Bangladesh.

But I was thinking about, like, what famously needs to happen when college kids get to campus is, for many of them, they’re learning how to do laundry for the first time. They need to learn how to do that before they get back. Ideally, right?

So, Inspired Insight of the Week, you don’t need to use as much laundry soap. You don’t need to wash your clothes every single wear, except socks and underwear.

Angela:
Yeah, I love it.

Chris:
Those got to be clean, but use, like, a little bit less soap and wear your clothes other times. But hang them back up. Nobody likes a rick and jean.

Soren:
But there’s a fine line between being savvy with your laundry and being stinky.

Chris:
You’re right. That’s true.

That’s true.

Andi:
I’m not wrong writing that line.

Chris:
I think we’re all on savvy. Yeah, we’re on the line of savvy. Fingers crossed.

So that’s my Laundry Inspired Insight of the Week.

Soren:
Soren, your Inspired Insight. Um, so, last night I was, um, engaging in a Kirtelman tournament.

For those of you who don’t know what Kirtelman is, it is a, um, essentially, like, competitive Latin trivia where you’re on teams of four.

Chris:
Wait, let that sink in. Let, yeah, competitive Latin trivia.

Soren:
Okay. Um, but I promise it’s a real sport and it’s really fun, uh, but I had the opportunity to participate with a great, great group of my fellow students and, uh, my team ended up coming out on top of the state. Congratulations.

Yeah, um, so that was really fun. But my Inspired Insight is more about the pretense and, like, expectations that people have around everything when it’s kind of not that big of a deal. Like, in, in relationships, I think we have a tendency to create, like, a bunch of, like, social expectations and schema around things that don’t really matter at all.

And, like, I found myself last night really wanting, like, validation from my teacher and he was not really giving it to me. Yeah. But, um, I found myself thinking, well, honestly, it really doesn’t matter because this is for me.

It’s not about, like, the social expectation or what people are expecting. It really is just because I had fun playing trivia. Yeah.

Chris:
And important length skill. Like, as you age, as we age, the ability to find gratification from within and not externally.

Yeah. Or Latin trivia.

Soren:
Yeah. And congratulations. Thank you.

And not expecting, uh, like, gratification from others, right? Like, when we attempt to force others to be our source of, uh, like, happiness, it ultimately just creates, like, a power play, like, and high tension relationship between two individuals, right?

Angela:
Yeah.

Chris:
Great insights. I love how I talked about laundry and you’re talking about interpersonal relationships and personal gratification.

Soren:
Well, I think that speaks to what’s great about this podcast, the blend of pragmatic and philosophical.

Chris:
That’s true. We do ride that line too.

Andy, inspired insight.

Andi:
All right. So I have not always been a Taylor Swift fan.

I wasn’t ever against Taylor Swift. Growing up, I listened to, like, Phish and Dave Matthews. So I wasn’t, I wasn’t into it.

So I started noticing that all of my students were really into it and, like, in a way far beyond what just, like, music listenership would qualify as. It was much more passionate. So then I started listening to it.

And, um, there are certain songs that I still don’t get, right? I’m like, what? And then there are some that I’ll hear it and I hear the words, I hear the music and the way that it makes me feel like, and I’m like, oh, I do get it.

Like, I understand it’s, she’s writing about these feelings that we’ve all had, you know, or that we will have, we don’t even know that we’re going to have them. So I was thinking about I Can Do With A Broken Heart, which is, um, just a fantastic, I think, song about resilience. And I mean, geopolitically right now, I think a lot of our hearts are breaking.

Like we’re seeing what’s happening and we have such a huge job in front of us, right? Such a huge job, but our hearts are broken. We need to, like, boss up.

And she knows, I gave her this pep talk. But yeah, we need to do it anyway. Like, carry on, bitch.

Chris:
Smile. I should have worn those bracelets today.

Andi:
I’m surprised you didn’t.

Chris:
I had that set. If we had talked beforehand, I absolutely would have.

Andi:
Well, I wanted to really dazzle you with a surprise.

Chris:
And you did. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Angela? Yes.

Angela:
So my inspired insight comes from actually one of my most favorite quotes of all time, Reverend William Barber. Do you all know Reverend William Barber? He is a leader in an anti-poverty movement.

And he spoke at a DNC convention a good 10 years ago. What he said stuck with me forever. And I’ll paraphrase it because I don’t quite have the brain.

That people get bogged down with what matters so little.

Soren:
Yeah.

Angela:
And they don’t pay attention to the things that matter so much. And so we need to really pay attention to the things that matter so much. Versus, like, worrying about the minutiae, which is similar to your— Yeah.

Soren:
Actually, I was going to say that’s, I think, very related to what I was trying to get at. Yeah. Yeah.

Nicely said. Cool thread.

Chris:
So as I said to the start of the podcast, you and I, as social workers, go way back.

I’d love to hear how you got into higher ed, because I think you’re coming up to a long time.

Andi:
Oh my gosh. So many years.

Chris:
Yeah. So what about higher education for you, career-wise?

Andi:
Okay. This is going to make me sound so awful. I love it.

Driven by passion or anything. I just happened to fall into an RA role when I was in my undergrad. I majored in art history and foreign languages.

I had nothing to do with student development. Fell into this RA role where I was mentoring peers and helping them just exist as adults, independent of whatever family they were coming from. And at that point, as a peer, right?

And I just found that I was kind of naturally good at it. Now I’m also naturally extremely lazy, right? So this is something that I’m already good at.

And then you were telling me that I get paid to have barbecues and make people feel good about themselves. Like, sign me.

Chris:
Yeah. Yeah.

Andi:
Right. So I kind of got into it that way and actually went to school. I grew up in Maine, went to school away from Maine.

And it made me appreciate Maine people a lot more. I worked in upstate New York and lived there for about seven years. It’s fairly similar.

The way people think and the way they act is kind of similar to here. But it made me miss how authentic people in Maine are. Like, without any care as to how the rest of the country might be thinking about Maine.

Like, nobody seems to care. And I just really like that. Like, Maine’s going to do what Maine’s going to do no matter what.

Soren:
So I was like, I get to get back to that.

Chris:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome.

Now I know your why for social work, but I want to give you the opportunity to share. Sure. Listeners, your why.

Angela:
Yeah. My why for social work is because I really thought I would do something to save the world. That was really kind of my mission.

I was telling Andy that at lunch today, in fact, that I went into social work. My bachelor’s was in psychology. So I really like people, really like understanding people.

And I thought, oh, I know I’m going to do social work because I’m going to help save the world. The world is a much bigger place than what I thought I was when I was younger. So now I just really want to save my corner of the world and make a difference for my little piece of the planet and the people around me.

Chris:
Yeah. Which I will say, you’re killing it. You’re doing it.

Thanks. Obviously, I’m going to say you are one of the fiercest allies to LGBTQ plus individuals that I’ve ever met. So you’re doing it in your own way.

Angela:
I love that.

Chris:
Thank you. Yeah. So let’s start off thinking about this transition into what’s next, right?

Going from high school to college life. And I’ll let you kind of kick us off in the conversation what do you notice the most, just in generally speaking, like that group of 17, 18-ish year olds?

Andi:
Transitioning.

Chris:
Transitioning.

Andi:
From being at home to being away from home. What I notice is there are so many students who have relied very, very heavily on whatever grownups are in their life to manage the difficult parts of their life, to manage the complicated parts of their life, the logistic parts of their life, all that stuff. And then once they are in the college environment, the expectation from the college is that the student is managing that on their own.

So we’re only communicating with the student. There are a variety of reasons why. But I find that a lot of our incoming students aren’t prepared for that.

And likewise, the parents aren’t prepared. They’ve been able to go in and see, like on Power School or whatever they do, they can go in and see all of their kids’ information. And then as soon as their student is enrolled in an institution of higher education, those verbal privacies can get really intense.

And we’re not talking to parents about things unless we’ve got express permission from the student. So then if you’ve got a communication issue between the student and the parent, where maybe the student isn’t so communicative with their parent, parent’s not getting information, students aren’t getting resources. And so is it predictable?

Yes. But it’s kind of like this, the whole transition, it’s everyone involved in the transition that is struggling.

Chris:
Yeah. Yeah. And correct me if I’m wrong for our listeners, FERPA is the healthcare version of HIPAA.

Andi:
The college version of HIPAA. It’s the Federal Education Right to Privacy Act.

Chris:
Got it. So you can’t share information about these students.

Andi:
No. I mean, if somebody calls, if a parent calls me at work and says, hey, I have a question about my child, my student, I can’t even verify that that person is a student.

Chris:
Really? Even though parents are paying the bills or getting the…

Andi:
It does not matter who’s paying the bill. The matriculated student, regardless of their age, is entitled to these privacies. So that is a very important thing for both the incoming student to know as well as the parent, that that information is not going to be flowing freely.

Chris:
Even if the student… Because I started college at 17, I’m an October Berkeley. So I started college at 17 in September.

So technically still a minor for a month and a half or so?

Andi:
Yeah. There are still certain things about your experience at the university that we would not share.

Chris:
Did you know that that was a thing?

Soren:
I was vaguely aware of something similar to that, but I didn’t realize the significance of that barrier, which introduces a very interesting new variable to a relationship that has been very direct for your entire life. And like, I know that without my mother, I would not be…

and my father, I would not be able to manage any of my affairs. So that does… It’s a little food for thought for me.

Chris:
But also, correct me if I’m wrong, like in our healthcare worlds, can the student give this university permission to…

Andi:
Yes, of course. Any individual student can give permission for a variety of releases. So whether it’s behavioral information, financial information, academic information.

Not medical information, because that’s not educational. But you can give permission to certain people to see certain parts of your educational record or speak to people about you and your experience at the university.

Chris:
Now, how does that work for you, Angela, as at the counseling center that you’re running where you’ve got clinicians treating? So you’ve got kind of FERPA and some other things going on.

Angela:
We do. It ends up being really complicated and we will get to Andy’s point, right? We will start getting in August.

We will start getting parents calling us, parents of first years. And they will say, my child, Chris, coming onto campus. I know they’re anxious.

I want to schedule a counseling appointment. And we have to say, nope.

Chris:
Here’s our number. Have your student call us.

Angela:
Yep. Have your student call us. And parents aren’t happy because they’ve done all the scheduling, right?

So it’s a really hard transition. And then the counseling center, UMaine really takes mental health seriously and really values it a lot. So the university offers free counseling for students.

So that means we aren’t technically covered by HIPAA. However, all of our people are licensed mental health providers. So they are because of their license.

So we have this sort of like extra layer of confidentiality, which is really confusing too.

Soren:
Yeah.

Angela:
Interesting. Right. So it makes things a little bit complicated.

And then parents, they might release certain information to talk to residence life or the student might, but that doesn’t necessarily apply.

Chris:
It’s not a blank to everyone on campus.

Angela:
Those are really confusing for both students and parents actually.

Andi:
Because ultimately the goal is to get it so the student is managing everything. So that’s set up for the student to manage everything.

Soren:
Regarding that transition, how long on average would you say the learning curve is for your average freshman? How long does it take for them to be like, oh, it’s time for me to start doing yours rather than expecting their parent to.

Andi:
There’s so many variables. The big thing is depends on whether or not their parents went to college. Cause I think that is a huge predictor of whether or not, or how someone’s going to navigate the waters of college.

If they’ve got someone in their back pocket, who’s recently experienced the same thing.

Angela:
Yeah. A hundred percent.

Andi:
No, I forgot the rest of your question. I’ll be completely honest.

Soren:
I mean, just broadly, like how long does that transition take? And like, what would you say are the transitionary steps as an additional layer? Right.

Chris:
Do you want some paper?

Soren:
Do you want to take some notes?

Andi:
I mean, it’s different for everyone. There are a lot of our students who have never faced adversity and they’ve never had to do anything independently. And I think for those students, it’s a harder learning curve than some of our students are coming.

And I’ll talk about maybe students who have moved a lot, or they’re coming from families that have a lot of kids in the family. So they’ve got some experience taking care of other people. It’s all very different, but what is developing is agency and independence.

And it is a spectrum for everyone. Like the more opportunity now you can take to put yourself in scenarios where you have to exercise critical thinking on your own or logistics or executive functioning, stuff like that. Like flexing those skills now while you still have the safety net of your support network here, then it makes it a little bit easier as you get there.

Chris:
I can picture your mom with a glass up against the wall and she’s feeding us. Now you and I talk, and I know you talk with your staff all the time about just brain development and the science of, what is it, 24-ish years old before brains are fully developed? 26.

So which is the undergraduate experience and like for you and I, some of our graduate experience as well. So what are you seeing at the counseling center around maybe some of the struggles with the transition? Because I know you see the mental health issues, depression, anxiety, some other mood disorder stuff, but the adjustment pieces.

Angela:
Yeah. We end up seeing a lot. We see a lot of first-year students throughout their entire first year.

Fall is really busy for us with our first years. And we see students who just simply don’t know or recognize that no one’s really paying attention to them in the same way that they did in high school. So they don’t go to class.

It’s not like the principal’s going to call the mom and say like, oh, your students aren’t going to class. Right.

Chris:
Or mom can look at power school.

Angela:
Or mom can look at power school. So we see a lot of that. We see a lot of students who’ve never been by themselves before.

So they’re just so anxious because now here they are in a new environment. They’re in a new res hall. They’re with new people, but they’re also by themselves.

So they have to navigate all that alone. So the level of anxiety just ramps up dramatically.

Chris:
I mean, I think what I know as well, and as somebody, I teach a lot of undergrad juniors and seniors, but there is for a lot of these students, miles of difference from high school academics and expectations to even first year. And I know you’ve done a ton of college. Love it.

Angela:
Yeah.

Soren:
I’m taking five APs right now. But I think. Wow.

Chris:
Well done. But for age group in general.

Soren:
Yeah.

Chris:
Like that transition of high school homework and paper writing to college.

Soren:
Yeah.

I think I am very concerned about that because right now I am just like coasting. I think like high school is very few expectations. I’m not putting in any effort for all of

Chris:
Sorin’s teachers listening.

Soren:
No, I promise for all my teachers, I am trying my darndest at every moment I can.

Chris:
But academics have come easier for you for a long time. Yeah.

That’s just the case.

Soren:
And I am concerned about college, especially because I’m going to be attending a relatively prestigious institution. And I can’t even at the moment, like fathom what the requirements will be and like what I’ll be doing.

Chris:
Yeah.

Soren:
So that’ll be a really interesting thing that I have to adapt to both like a different structure of academics and like different subject matter.

Chris:
Yeah.

Soren:
Yeah. So I think it will be very jarring as I think we’ve outlined.

Chris:
Well, and there’s the piece like I remember in our resident director days, which, you know, full disclosure, the day I moved into my dorm in August of 99 was the first time I had ever lived on a campus because I grew up where I grew up was just nearby.

So I lived at home.

Andi:
Right.

Chris:
So that first day of moving into like I was experiencing college life at the same time my 18 year old freshman students were experiencing that. And it is a complete like it’s a it’s a multi month sleepover.

Andi:
It’s a very, very, very, very complicated social environment, a residence hall. We talk about it a lot. We’ve got an increasing number of students coming to college who are on the spectrum and who are not picking up social cues as easily as other people.

And it’s difficult to succeed in that kind of social environment with the best recognition of all social cues, but it can be incredibly difficult, you know, because there are no moms and dads and people to help translate what’s happening.

Chris:
Yeah, like Ed Tech’s, I think it was a special.

Andi:
There’s none of that.

You’re doing it yourself. Yeah.

Soren:
And it’s the formation of an entirely new social structure. Like the vast majority of children are coming from a high school that they’ve been attending for four years where they know everybody, all the like barriers and like social connections are already outlined. Yeah.

Andi:
They haven’t had to make new friends for a decade.

Soren:
Yeah.

Andi:
Like that’s wild. They’ve never, the last time they made new friends, their parents were doing it together out of play.

Soren:
Yeah. That was a really big concern for me, especially before I had the opportunity to go to Brazil for a month and make a bunch of friends there. But I was extremely concerned because I’ve realistically not made like new good friends for three years outside of Brazil, obviously.

And I was super nervous because my friend group is very abnormal, like we’re very unique individuals. So I was very concerned about like my social compatibility with others and whether the idiosyncrasies of my current relationships will result in a greater barrier of entry to interacting with others. So I think having been used to the high school environment is going to make the transition even more pronounced than if someone was maybe coming from very limited social experience.

Angela:
Well depending on the school, the high school you’re coming from too, right? So if you’re going from a really small, Maine has a lot of small high schools. So if you’re going from a really small high school where maybe your graduating class is under 100 to a state institution like UMaine where there’s almost 12,000 students, that’s a huge difference too.

So how do you find your people with that kind of difference?

Chris:
I still remember, now thinking as a commuter student, that first day walking into Psych 101, I froze. I remember it so clearly. I froze at the door to see a stadium.

That many students? Like there was 400 seats in this auditorium and I was in 12 people English seminars. It took every ounce of my being to not spin and walk.

Andi:
Well, I think that’s the thing. It’s confidence.

Chris:
Which I hadn’t.

Andi:
Right. If you don’t have it, fake it. Because everyone who’s on college campus, I see it on like when they all move on that first day that they all move on.

How many people come up to me and tell me that they just met their best friend? I show my best friends to my roommate. I’m like, you met that potential serial killer 10 minutes ago.

Angela:
Tell me that’s your best friend.

Andi:
I’m like, a lot of students come assuming that everyone already has best friends there, which is not true. Everyone who’s coming in knows no one.

Angela:
They know a couple of people.

Andi:
They know the former version of the best friend. They don’t know the new version. So you’re all starting on the same playing field.

What matters is the confidence to take a step outside of your residence hall, to take a step to join a club that maybe you didn’t think that you were interested in just because it looked interesting. You know what I mean? It’s all about confidence.

It doesn’t have to be organic. Just getting out of your room will get you the engagement and the involvement that will build that confidence.

Angela:
Then that’s what parents can do too, right? To be helpful with that transition is to encourage their student to join a club. Don’t come home every weekend.

Yeah. Stay on campus.

Andi:
We did the order of operations for if you have a problem as a student, the first step is not call mom.

Angela:
Are we interested? Yeah. No.

No. No. Yeah.

Andi:
Because back in high school, you run into an issue, you’re like, ba-bam, call mom. And it reinforces and keeps them from- Mom’s anticipating those calls, right? And we’re like, no, you run into a problem, run through your resources that you have already.

And when you’re on a college campus, it’s lousy with resources. Everyone’s throwing resources at you. It’s up to you to catalog them and then pull them out when you need them.

They’re everywhere.

Chris:
Yeah. Yeah.

That’s a great point. I remember that too. Every week we were getting things to hang up on bulletin boards and bringing in speakers.

Andi:
Yeah. It’s the order of the confidence to leave your room. None of that matters.

Angela:
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:
Do you see a lot with your first, do you see some first years that are just frozen? Totally. They just come out and yeah.

Angela:
Yeah. Completely frozen. YouMaine has this great app.

It’s called Campus Groups, right? So sometimes, frankly, we’re doing therapy, yes, obviously, but we’re also saying, hey, let’s pull out your phone. Let’s help you download Campus Groups.

Showing them how to use the resources too as an intervention. Because we do see students that come to us and they’re sad, they’re depressed, they’re lonely, and really they just, they haven’t found the confidence. Right.

Or they wouldn’t even be able to fake the confidence to just go out and take that first step.

Andi:
Join the horse club.

Soren:
Yeah. Yeah. Given that college campuses are so flush with opportunity, do you guys find that there are a lot of students having a similar experience almost to walking into a restaurant where the menu is 50 pages long?

Chris:
Yeah.

Soren:
There are simply too many options that are now frozen, staring at this menu, not wanting to order anything.

Andi:
Yeah. We run into that at the beginning of the year. We’ll do an involvement fair where we have all of our 200 and whatever groups, student groups on campus.

We’ll table. I mean, there’s just people, wall-to-wall people. And yes, it looks very overwhelming, but we still encourage people to go out there.

And we’re like, sign up for every single club that even begins to pique your interest. Because all you’re doing is opening the door for an email to come. You’re not signing your life away.

But I think that anxiety is if I sign up for this club, I’m going to graduate and I’m going to have to go into the field of horses.

Chris:
Yeah. I’m signing my life away now. That’s not necessarily it.

Andi:
It’s just like, get out of your room, get into some clubs and stuff. You’re not married to everything, but like trying all these different things. Our best clubs, Dungeons and Dragons.

Chris:
Yeah.

Andi:
It’s like our biggest club. And that’s where I recommend people go. And they’re like, I don’t have any friends.

I don’t know who to be friends with. I don’t know what to do. I’m like, these people have a great community.

And I had no idea what they’re doing, but it’s-

Chris:
And that is the key word that you just said, community, right? That encouragement to get out, to meet people, to find your group, to start building community. Because as you both said, and you, that your community hasn’t changed for years.

And so you have confidence to get out and find and explore and just meet your next community.

Angela:
Yeah. And just try it on.

Chris:
How much of, I think one of the other just narratives around moving into college life, and a lot of families worry about this, is the party stuff, right?

Angela:
So- That doesn’t happen at college.

Andi:
Right? We don’t see that.

Angela:
There’s no parties at college.

Chris:
I mean, a lot of navigating first year is navigating some of the temptations and finding community. You might have some false starts, but matter of fact, how much of an issue is substance use?

Andi:
You and I have completely different views on this.

Chris:
Well, and probably because you are seeing folks where that has become an issue. Major problem.

You’re normalizing it a bit more because it’s part of transition.

Andi:
Yeah. We’re seeing it as a reality of the transition and trying to get our arms around it so that in a way we’re reducing the harm and the risk to the individuals and to the community. I get it, Angela.

Soren:
I think, especially in environments like high school and as you transition into college, substance use and partying can function as a real social lubricant. I think it’s, to some extent, very important in order to create communities. It’s a rite of passage.

Andi:
Yeah, yeah. I think the first time you experience or experiment is drugs, alcohol, whatever, should not be in college though. Right.

No, I agree. And that’s something I’ve never been able to say before. Seeing just some orientation or something, I can’t say it.

But listen, parents need to show their kids how to responsibly consume substances before they come to us and have no idea where to put the brakes on. You have to know what’s your limit, not what is the internet’s limit, but what is your limit? How do you respond to this?

I think it’s crucially important to do that ahead of time so that those experiments that are having on campus where the anxieties are heightened and people are looking for ways to socialize a little bit more freely, it can get really dangerous.

Angela:
Yeah. Well, some of that too is just parents talking, providing some basic education too. One of the things that…

I’m going to out my nephew here who was in college. I won’t say his name or where he goes to college, but I’m going to out him here. I was educating him about alcohol by volume.

Sorin, do you know what that means?

Soren:
Yeah, it’s the percentage of alcohol in a given liquor.

Angela:
Your parents have done a fantastic job. Well done.

Soren:
I think Sorin educates their kids. I’ve had the opportunity to extensively experiment with substances.

Angela:
Nicely done.

Soren:
I’m feeling so-so about it, but I am glad that I am well aware of my boundaries and stuff.

Angela:
There’s so many students that come to college and they don’t understand that a shot of vodka, it’s smaller. A Poland spring bottle of water. That has more alcohol than your Natty Light.

Even though the Natty Light is bigger, it’s not the same. They don’t understand that.

Chris:
Some of that is just the one-on-one transition stuff.

Andi:
You know what I love? I love a Borg, right?

The blackout, right? Yeah, when you think about this.

Chris:
All right, that’s it.

Andi:
It’s really great. Gallon jug that they mix alcohol, water, and usually like an electrolyte, like Neo or something. Then they name the Borg, like Lizzie Borgia or something like that, right?

Have you heard of this?

Soren:
I’ve indulged in this. It’s not a recipe for a fun evening. It’s a recipe for a fucking disaster.

Andi:
Hear me out. Hear me out. You’re making your own Borg, right?

That’s my Borg. I brought my Borg. You don’t know if it has alcohol in it.

You don’t know what it has in it. It’s my Borg. I have a cap on it.

So that’s some harm reduction. Yes, it is. That’s not a huge drinker.

Yes, it is. Because I’m an idiot sober, so why do I need to really gamble? I’m pretty happy sober.

Right. But it may be that the pressure to drink around my peers is so great that I want to appear as though I’m drinking. It now does my Borg, right?

Chris:
And then you own-

Andi:
That’s my Borg.

Angela:
Right.

Andi:
Right. It’s the whole thing. It’s what I’ve been drinking the whole night.

I love that. Well, it’s going to put anything in there. Right.

Chris:
It’s the harm reduction.

Angela:
Exactly.

Chris:
And you don’t have to sip off mine.

Andi:
No, don’t touch my Borg. Don’t touch it.

You will find out it is like all ginger ale.

Chris:
I love that. See, I love getting to this place of what are some advice?

I’m not loving, but what are some recommendations? What are some- Tips and tricks. Yeah, tips and tricks, both for families to be preparing themselves.

I think there’s some shock that come for the parents as well. But what are some, for folks listening, what are some tips and tricks for the student and for the parents to make that transition go as successfully as possible?

Angela:
And shifting from the substance use.

Chris:
Yeah, I love that.

Angela:
Because we think of students Soren’s age as like digital natives, right? They got the technology, they know what they’re doing. No, they don’t.

They have the technology for social media. But other than that, no. So we at the Counseling Center will in fact say to students like, hey, your next appointment is Thursday at four.

Take your phone out. Have you ever put in an appointment in your own personal phone? Because who’s managing their appointments?

Obviously, mom and dad. So let me show you how to use your calendar app.

Chris:
Big reminders.

Angela:
And how do you set the alert? And I cannot tell you, nine times out of 10, a student will be like, oh, I didn’t know that.

Chris:
That is a great advice.

Angela:
Well, why would they? No, because they haven’t had to flex those skills. They haven’t had to use the skills.

Chris:
That’s great advice.

Angela:
Same with whatever the academic app is. We use Brightspace, right? So you can download Brightspace on your phone and then look at it.

Because that’s how you know what is coming up on your syllabus.

Chris:
Because guess what? And you can do alerts on your Brightspace.

Angela:
The professor’s not going to tell you. You have an assignment to do next week. The professor’s not reminding you because they gave you a syllabus at the beginning of the semester.

That’s on you.

Soren:
Yeah. Yeah. Glasgow has a similar app.

And actually, this is very specific to me. So not necessarily broadly applicable. But because I’m operating on a student visa, I will have to check into every single one of my classes to ensure that I’m meeting the requirements of my visa.

Andi:
So you will usually be there.

Soren:
Yeah. I think that that would be great.

Andi:
That’s really important. Because I was going to say another important thing is going to class. Just go to class.

Right. Yeah. That’s something without somebody waking you up and being like, it’s time to go to class.

It can be really hard to make yourself go to class. Really hard. We used to show the students in a certain number of Chipotle burritos, how many burritos each class costs.

So we’re like, go ahead and skip it. But it’s like 35 burritos. Yeah.

Yeah.

Soren:
Yeah. That’s great.

Chris:
Yeah. I remember the first semester, the students trudging out the door at 7.45 after their 8 a.m. classes. And the very next semester, dead quiet.

Everyone realized, I’m scheduling eating. Yeah. Everyone transitions out.

So my, as a resident director, one of my favorite times of the day was from like 7 to 8.30. It is beautiful. Quiet, happy, your team, you know, you’re trudging. Especially responsible ones getting to do some laundry.

Andi:
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:
I love it. Doing less soap. That’s right.

Andi:
Oh, that’s right.

Chris:
I just freaked one. I copied. So do you have any final questions for Andy or Ang?

Angela:
I call this lightning round of Stump the Therapist. Anytime I present to classes at the university, I say, last question to Stump the Therapist. You can try to do stumpers.

Um.

Andi:
My conspiracy theories of chicken.

Chris:
Yeah.

Soren:
Conspiracy theories? I didn’t realize that chickens are that enigmatic.

Chris:
Yeah.

Soren:
Hi, Jov. I’m trying to think. And I am just wondering how, obviously, it is essential that students have a like positive social milieu, right?

But how contingent is the positivity of their milieu on their academic success? And like, what’s the relationship there?

Chris:
Great question.

Andi:
I think it’s different for everyone. It’s different for everyone.

It’s somebody who’s really jazzed by external, you know, relationships and everything might depend on that. And I need people to be around them and have like a posse in order to, you know, to get the charge out of. And then there’s other people who are very content being in college or university with the anonymity that comes with being around so many people that that’s actually very comforting for them.

So I think you kind of have to try it out, like see what works for you.

Chris:
And know yourself.

Soren:
Yeah. So I’ve asked numerous questions and I’m getting like responses that are like, well, it’s very dependent on the individual. And I totally understand how that’s the case.

And I see the validity of that. But how to how do you two as individuals who are working to improve the student experience manage the individuality and how essential like individualized care is when you’re operating with a student body that is thousands of individuals?

Angela:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s a really good question.

Andi:
I love people. Like I love people. I love people.

I love their weird problems. I love the weird ways that they think about things. I love ideas.

I love all that. So I’m very happy. It’s probably annoying, like to get in with one person and find out what makes them tick.

Why are we doing this? And then see if I were them, what would I do differently? So I like to do that.

Chris:
Yeah. Yeah. What I will say, what I think I know or remember about resident life is that you build a team, right?

It’s not you have multiple staff who are supervising multiple staff when there’s a whole hierarchy of support and you do a ton of training.

Andi:
We do a lot of training. It’s all on like how to connect with the student that’s in front of you.

That’s the first thing, just connect with them. And then if there’s a problem, assess the problem and make an appropriate referral. But we’re just like big siblings maybe that are in like a hall and without a lot of judgment, we’re just trying to provide guidance because it’s really hard to be a human.

It’s really hard to be a human without your parents. That’s right. Yeah, that’s right.

Soren:
Do you guys find that you have the resources necessary to service every individual student? Because the other day I was talking after school with one of my former teachers who used to be a college professor. He has his PhD in chemistry and material sciences.

And he was complaining repeatedly about how stretched thin college faculty are and how there isn’t that time for sitting to think and sitting to interact with other individuals anymore. It’s really about productivity and optimizing for things, at least at the research level. So do you guys have a similar experience to that in your student interactions?

Andi:
I don’t. Yeah, I think that that’s the academic side of the house where they might get more pressure to be productive when it comes to research. But we’re coming from student life, which is the other side of student support.

You’ve got your academic support and then your support with everything else. No, I don’t feel that at all. I feel like we’re here.

I mean, are we stretched thin? Yeah. But we’re not in this field because we were looking to sit and think.

My husband is a programmer. Let’s do this. Yeah.

Chris:
Yeah. Yeah. Because sitting idle like that old adage.

Andi:
I started thinking about chickens again.

Chris:
But you don’t want your students to have a ton of time.

Andi:
Pretty unstructured time.

Chris:
A lot of breast life is programming and keeping things.

Andi:
That’s kind of like a combination between like a summer camp and a work camp.

Soren:
Yeah. Work camp in the summer.

Andi:
Yeah. Like sometimes there’s authority. But most of the time we’re like making bracelets.

Soren:
Right.

Chris:
Just keeping it going. And this is also part of our community and connecting. Yeah.

Angela:
And then we at the counseling center too, we maintain appointments daily. Twice a day, in fact.

Chris:
Yeah.

Angela:
For emergencies.

Chris:
Yeah.

Angela:
Right. For an acute need. So we constantly like we build into our schedule an opportunity for something that comes up.

Chris:
Yeah.

Angela:
To be available. Which is why I say this all the time. We never have a wait list at our counseling center.

Ever. Ever. Because people can get in right away.

Because we know the need. Like if a student needs help, they need it now. They don’t need it like three weeks from now.

They need it today.

Soren:
That’s right. I think that’s really awesome, actually. And I think it’s a little sad, the contrast between the ability to receive mental health care between like a college student and your average pedestrian.

That’s right.

Chris:
That’s right. I guess there are some benefits of being, you know, like even though we talked about transition and making those adjustments, at the end of the day, you all do an amazing job being available, providing that support, and just helping. Just helping students succeed.

Angela:
Well, and hopefully helping people become whatever kind of human they want to become. That’s right. No, it’s whatever kind of human we want them to be.

Right.

Chris:
We’re already indoctrinating them. Right.

Angela:
We’re indoctrinating them.

Andi:
Excuse me. Sorry. My bad.

Chris:
This has been an amazing conversation. Any last words, thoughts, suggestions, advice?

Soren:
I would just like to express my gratitude that you guys were able to come on and have a conversation with us. And I’m so pleased and grateful that I get the opportunity to have these discussions that many other soon-to-be students will not have the ability to have. And I’m glad that we were able to produce something that I think has some tangible advice while also offering more of a viewpoint perspective on what’s occurring.

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:
Any last words?

Angela:
Thank you so much. Thanks for having us.

Andi:
It’s been really fun.

Angela:
I love having the conversation. Yeah.

Soren:
Well, I’ll listen all day. Yes. Thanks so much to our audience for listening.

Well, we’ll see you next week.

Chris:
Bye, y’all. I’ve been Chris McLaughlin.

Soren:
I’ve been Soren Peterson.

Chris:
See you next week.

Soren:
This has been the Inspired Insights podcast.

Bye. Bye.

The Inspired Insights podcast has been brought to you by Inspired Consulting Group, LLC. Edited and produced by Amanda Seidel and Derek Harter. Marketing support for the Inspired Insights podcast by Elizabeth Gaden.

Music by Derek Harter. Please visit www.inspiredcg.com to learn more. Copyright 2025.

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