Seniors present research on the stress of college students

COURTESY OF JORDAN MERRITT
NSU students present their research projects at The Divsion of Research Retreat.

Abril Chao, senior biology major, and Emily Bernard, senior chemistry major, presented their research on college students’ stress at the 2024 InterLACE Research Showcase and the 2024 Division of Research Retreat.

“We were able to look at their data and see, depending on their parasympathetic and their sympathetic nervous system, what years were more stressful, what times or what things made life a little bit more stressful,” Bernard said.

Their research focuses on how chronic stress impacts students’ heart rate variability. They gathered information from students in both undergraduate and graduate school, focusing on their academic year, whether they were a first-generation student and whether they were working in addition to being a student.

“We’re both big on trying to get into research, but also being able to do it together was really fun for us,” Bernard said. “We’ve been like partners for a lot of things since freshman year and we’re now in senior year, so this was like a really cool way to kind of sort of wrap up our experiences together.”

Chao and Bernard were inspired by their anatomy professor, Chinenye Anako, who left NSU before this semester due to personal reasons. Chao and Bernard analyzed data from their professor’s previous research and found out how so many things can impact students’ stress.

For students working while attending college, the data showed their nervous system regulation looks very different from students who don’t work. Stress impacts the heart, which could lead to dysfunction.

“For me at least, being a first-generation here in the US and working and being engaged in so many things, it was just crazy to see what might be happening inside of myself, and how my systems might be working and I might not know about it,” Chao said.

After their research, Chao and Bernard hope that students take their stress seriously and understand how harmful it can be.

“We always like to say that there’s healthy stress, the stress that motivates you to go forward and achieve your goals and follow your dreams and that’s good,” Chao said. “But know when to stop and know your limitations and understand how much it can affect you behind the scenes.”

For students who want to do their own research, they encourage them to create bonds with their professors and jump on research opportunities they come across.

“NSU has amazing faculty and they’re super approachable and they’re nice and they want you to succeed. And that’s something they need to take advantage of. But if they just sit in a class and they don’t talk to the professor, they don’t show interest, then it’s going to be super hard,” Chao said