In the last post, we highlighted a few of the places you can turn to when the pressures of higher education start to take their toll on one’s mental health. Ultimately when students face depression and anxiety, it’s not only their emotional state that’s affected. Things like attending classes, completing coursework on time and writing exams become all the more difficult when struggling with these conditions.

Alternatively, it may be that while everything else about your college or university experience is going well, you’re nevertheless finding that your grades aren’t what you were hoping for but you can’t put your finger on why. In both these cases it’s important to know who to talk to and when in order to ensure that can continue on with your education with as little disruption as possible.

For study-related difficulties, the first person to speak to will be the point of contact within the department within which you study (or, if you’re at a smaller institution, there may be an individual who covers several or all academic departments). This individual will go by a name along the lines of academic advisor, academic tutor, or something similar; it’s likely that in the first weeks of starting your course you will have been given this person’s name and contact details. However, if you’re not sure who this person is then speak to either someone in your institution’s student support services or a member of the teaching staff in your department.

The individuals in these roles are there to provide advice to you to help you get through your education, and they are well aware that there are often extenuating circumstances that make it more difficult for some students to get through a module or degree than for others. An academic advisor can provide you with practical advice, from selecting the right course load (perhaps you need to drop one or two modules for a semester while you have counselling sessions) to helping you renegotiate a deadline if you’re going through a particularly difficult time or getting further support from other teaching staff if there are particular aspects of your subject that you’re falling short on. In many institutions, once the advisor is informed of your situation, they’ll speak to other faculty on your behalf so that you don’t have to approach each lecturer. And in many institutions, extensions have to go through an academic advisor, meaning that anonymity can be maintained.

When should you speak with an academic advisor? This is a difficult question to answer, as it depends on your individual circumstances. One important thing to remember though is that it’s a lot harder for an advisor to renegotiate deadlines if those deadlines have already passed or you’ve already missed all the lectures in a given module. If you think you’re going to be unable to get through a piece of coursework or class, you should let someone know as soon as possible so they can get in touch with the relevant faculty members.

This post is not to say that you need to let everyone know if you’re suffering from depression or anxiety and therefore need this taking into account by your institution, or that if you’re not getting great grades that you need to make it known to everyone. But remember that if you’re in one of these situations, just as there are many services to provide you with emotional counselling should you need it, there are also services and policies to help you get through your academic career as successfully as possible.