Camosun College students who are nervous about exams, stressed out by an overload of work, or feeling kind of gloomy because of the weather this time of year are in luck: the Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) is hosting their annual De-Stress Fest on March 8, at the Interurban campus’ main causeway.
CCSS clubs and events coordinator Tagg Kelt, who graduated from Camosun in 2009, has been involved in organizing the event for many years; he believes that students need to give themselves a break and unwind sometimes.
“It’s something that exists in a lot of other colleges and universities, this notion of providing a day or several days, or even a week, in which students can decompress and de-stress, and focus on mental health and well-being,” says Kelt.
Kelt says that the focus is mainly on day-to-day things that impact students’ lives and cause them stress; he says their message is “don’t sweat the small stuff.”
“The aim of the event is to provide stress relief for students,” says Kelt. “Normally, it’s closer to finals, when students are running out of student loans and running out of time to prepare themselves for final exams. It’s an opportunity to provide these students with something that they can hopefully find some stress relief with. We can’t do much about exams, and we can’t do much about the stress of your student loans, but we can at least provide opportunities for people to acknowledge their stress, and try and do something about the things they can manage.”
Although the event—which will feature therapy animals, free pancakes, and tai chi, among other things—is held to address all of life’s various stressful predicaments, it also addresses mental-health issues that may very well be plaguing students.
“We’ll have people speaking about mental-health awareness,” says Kelt, “as well as some workshops dealing with not only mental-health awareness but how to deal with everyday life’s stresses.”
De-Stress Fest
11 am to 1 pm, Wednesday, March 8
Free, Camosun College Interurban Campus
camosunstudent.org/events/destress-fest