Lauren Kranzlin, GS ’19, School of the Arts ’21, practices self-care by doing what she needs to do to keep things in order. From painting her nails to using colored pens, Krazlin pays attention to the small details to keep herself in check.

“Part of my self-care is forcing myself to do work for class... You just stress and stress and you finally get it done in the last 10 minutes before class. And then you go to class, [and] you're like, ‘Oh, I'm fine. I did it.’ But it's a really hard habit to break because you just proved [to] yourself that if you wait until the last moment, you can do it and get it done. But you caused all that mental anguish. And it's something that can be avoided if you just sit down and do the work.”

She laughed when telling me that she is in the School of General Studies, saying that she, like many other GS students, has a story to tell about her path to college.

She went on to explain that she attended Johns Hopkins University straight out of high school and immediately struggled to cope with the “work hard, play harder” environment.

“I kind of crashed and burned within a semester. And at that point, I had to take myself out… [I] dropped out of school to figure out what was going on with me. And I was undiagnosed bipolar. And I was an active alcoholic. And I was self-medicating with drugs and alcohol and had no idea how to take care of myself.”

So when she started coming to Columbia, she was careful about how many courses she signed up for.

“If you’re struggling, reach out, talk to someone tell your friends… I kept everything inside. And I almost died because of it. And it’s so easy to do, to isolate. But everyone in the community needs you [in some way] or another. You never know what you’re going to accomplish.”