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College Students May Be Experiencing Distress After Va. Tech Tragedy

April 25, 2007
By Leslie Olsen

College students across the country could be showing signs of emotional distress following the Virginia Tech tragedy. A Purdue professor saw it happen after 9/11 and has advice for how loved ones and friends can help college kids.

"This could happen to me. This could be us."

Purdue University Professor of Communications Erina MacGeorge knows the first thoughts students nationwide had when they heard about the Virginia Tech massacre. She was a professor at Georgetown in Washington D.C. when a jet struck the pentagon on 9/11.

She began an immediate study of the effects of 9/11 on students nationwide. Many of the 500 students she surveyed admitted some distress. Most of them, she said, had internalized their fears, not shared them.

"Students were more stressed by 9/11 and more likely to have kind of health related issues around 9/11 to the extent that they didn't have good, what I would call, emotional support," said MacGeorge.

MacGeorge has not surveyed Purdue students, but she suspects many are experiencing depression or fear because Purdue and Virginia Tech have similarities such as a focus on engineering.

"It makes you feel like anything can happen at any time. You don't really know. There's 40,000 people on this campus plus, and you don't know every single one of them," said freshman Sam Durfee.

"When it first happened I did think about it and, you know, it's a reality check like, that actually happens. It makes me wonder why," said freshman Miya Roumie.

MacGeorge said parents and friends of college students should pay close attention to them now. And above all, she said to be a good listener and not to trivialize a student's concern.

"The reality is that you're a lot more likely to die in a car accident than to be gunned down in an event like what happened at Virginia Tech. But that doesn't negate the fear, and that doesn't make the feelings of unhappiness any less real to the person that's experiencing them," she said.

"Talk about it with your peers or a mentor or someone you look up to or talk about it with your parents," said senior Michelle Scheidt.

Purdue University has announced it has expanded its multi-layered emergency communication response plan. The school is launching a Facebook group where people with a Purdue e-mail address can sign-up to receive security related information.