{"id":232259,"date":"2026-01-14T06:37:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T06:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/232259\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T06:37:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T06:37:19","slug":"how-a-northwestern-program-tackles-student-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/232259\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Northwestern Program Tackles Student Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"

The stress of managing her engineering classes at Northwestern University<\/a> didn\u2019t just weigh on Fiona Letsinger mentally\u2014it began to take a toll on her academic performance.<\/p>\n

In her second year, Letsinger\u2019s dean introduced her to PATH<\/a>, a peer mentor\u2013led program housed in the engineering school that helps students manage stress, perfectionism and personal growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the second he described it, my jaw was on the floor,\u201d said Letsinger, a fourth-year civil engineering major. \u201cI was like, \u2018Yep\u2014that\u2019s exactly what I\u00a0need.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Launched in 2016, PATH\u2014short for Personal Advancement Through Habits\u2014is an eight-week program that guides students through reflection and personal development using a mix of online coursework and small-group discussions.<\/p>\n

During the 2024\u201325 school year, 88 students completed the program. About 90\u00a0percent reported a positive personal change, and more than 60\u00a0percent said they experienced growth in self-awareness; roughly half said it improved their motivation and goal-setting skills.<\/p>\n

Letsinger said the program gave her the language to recognize and name the ways stress and perfectionism were shaping her college experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I couldn\u2019t be a perfectionist because I wasn\u2019t performing highly enough,\u201d Letsinger said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t until PATH when I was able to get the vocabulary to identify how stress showed up in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Impact on students: Joe Holtgreive, assistant dean for undergraduate engineering, said his experience supporting students in both short-term and systemic crises inspired him to start the PATH program nearly 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

At the time, Holtgreive said, Northwestern was reassessing its withdrawal policies and considering making it easier for students to drop courses later in the term. That prompted him to engage in difficult conversations with students about whether withdrawing was the best option\u2014or whether they were experiencing what he calls an MIU, or \u201cmoment of intense uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow you respond is going to be really important for your future success and resilience,\u201d said Holtgreive, who remains a PATH faculty member. He added that students would later reach out to thank him because they performed better academically than they thought they would.<\/p>\n

Liz Daly, assistant director of academic advising and PATH faculty, said the program was originally intended for engineering students on academic probation but later expanded to include anyone feeling overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had students who would request to take it again because they appreciated the community and the conversations that weren\u2019t happening elsewhere on campus,\u201d Daly said. <\/p>\n

That emphasis on reflection and peer support continued among students who participated in PATH during the 2024\u201325 school year.<\/p>\n

To better understand students\u2019 experiences, Holtgreive and Daly surveyed participants, asking them to reflect on their academic challenges and select three goals from a list of seven. More than half chose \u201cshift mindset to embrace challenges, persist and learn from feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants also completed surveys at the start and end of the program, rating which behaviors they found most challenging.<\/p>\n

Before starting PATH, more than half said they \u201cdwelled on inadequacy after failure\u201d and were \u201cavoidant and\/or withdrawn when things were going poorly.\u201d By the program\u2019s end, that number had dropped to about 15\u00a0percent.<\/p>\n

Daly said students often cite Holtgreive\u2019s \u201cflashlight of attention\u201d lesson as particularly helpful.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur attention is like a flashlight\u00a0\u2026 and whatever is illuminated by that light represents our awareness,\u201d Holtgreive said. \u201cWhere we shine that light represents our intention,\u201d he added, noting that students\u2019 intentions are often \u201cyanked back and forth by crises, breaking news or self-critical narratives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can tune in to what\u2019s present in the moment through our awareness and decide whether something is helpful or productive, then we can step back, understand the intention behind the attention that\u2019s creating this awareness and adjust it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Letsinger agreed with Daly, saying this lesson was a game-changer in how she understood her own thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember hearing that and immediately being like, \u2018Yep, I need and want more of that kind of thinking,\u2019\u201d Letsinger said, adding that she not only enrolled in the program again the following quarter but later became a PATH mentor herself.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next: Holtgreive and Daly said the program became so popular that other institutions have adapted it, including Smith College, which launched its own PATH-inspired program<\/a> in fall 2020.<\/p>\n

Daly noted that in conversations about PATH\u2019s impact, faculty and staff often asked whether they could participate as well. As a result, Holtgreive and Daly now hold multiple sessions each year for Northwestern employees interested in learning strategies to manage stress in their own lives.<\/p>\n

Holtgreive said that response suggests that many of the conversations happening among students also resonate with faculty and staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an empathetic bridge, and it helps them to recognize that they\u2019re struggling with some of the same things that their students are struggling with,\u201d Holtgreive said.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Holtgrieve said, PATH is meant to help anyone practice responding to moments of uncertainty instead of trying to make them disappear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re feeling or confronting a moment where it\u2019s not clear what to do, it\u2019s human nature to say, \u2018I want that to go away,\u2019\u201d Holtgreive said. \u201cBut being able to practice living through and responding to those moments is how you build the skills to be a better person.\u201d<\/p>\n

(This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Joe Holtgreive’s name.)<\/p>\n

Get more content like this directly to your inbox. Subscribe here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The stress of managing her engineering classes at Northwestern University didn\u2019t just weigh on Fiona Letsinger mentally\u2014it began…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2046,84,3685,134,13484,232,554,555,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-232259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-career","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-events","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-higher","13":"tag-jobs","14":"tag-mental-health","15":"tag-mentalhealth","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}