Student-Led Course Gives Classmates Tools To Improve Mental Health

At Carnegie Mellon University, student-led courses through Student College (StuCo)(opens in new window) focus on a wide range of topics, including Taylor Swift’s music, neuroscience for nonmajors, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and American Science Language.

This spring, Gabriel Mendez-Sanders(opens in new window), a Fifth Year Scholar(opens in new window) studying chemical engineering, created and led We Are Not Alone - Supporting Peer’s Mental Health to equip his fellow students with the skills and resources to better understand and support their classmates when it comes to mental health.

“As someone who experienced mental health struggles during my first and second year, I found myself wishing I had more people to turn to, and I also felt a lot of confusion around what resources existed. I had a desire to understand better, but in an accessible way,” he said. “As I was applying to the Fifth Year Scholars Program, the idea emerged to make it a student-taught course to get a student perspective on these topics.”

Mendez-Sanders approached Viviana Ferrer-Medina(opens in new window), assistant director of outreach, prevention and education with CMU’s Counseling and Psychological Services(opens in new window) (CaPS), with his idea since the two had worked together on previous projects.

“We need to be proactive with educating around mental health, and mental health support should be everywhere on campus,” Ferrer-Medina said.

Veronika Eber, a sophomore Tartan Scholar(opens in new window) earning a Bachelor of Humanities and Arts(opens in new window) degree, co-led the class with Mendez-Sanders after meeting him in a communications class.

“There’s a close community in the arts, and there are a lot of people who have mental health struggles, including myself during my first year,” she said. “I think it’s valuable that we have two different perspectives that each of us come from, so I’m really happy to be a part of this with Gabe.”

The syllabus included class sessions on self-care and stress management, active listening, suicide prevention and crisis management, cultural competency, financial stress and food insecurity, and mental health advocacy.

Each class session included a mindfulness activity, guest speaker, group discussion and skill practice. For a final project, each student was required to create a “toolbox” project designed to be shared with others in any multimedia format.

“The idea was to give everyone some flexibility to relate the content to their own interests, and have it be something that's concise enough that they would actually feel comfortable then sharing it with their peers outside of class,” Mendez-Sanders said. “For example, I’m not gonna sit down with you for two hours and tell you all about the resources on campus, but I made this video or one-page flyer that I think is pretty cool.”

Logan Meritz, a senior studying chemical engineering, said she took the StuCo class not only to be able to support others who might need mental health support, but also to improve her own emotional intelligence.

“I think self-reflection and the tools to know how to do that were some things I was really missing,” she said. “The class breaks things down into manageable pieces, the instructors are awesome, and the guest speakers have had such great auras about them — time slows down around them.”

Gavin Kelly, a sophomore studying psychology, said the class helped him better understand the campus resources available to students.

“It’s been a good community,” he said. “The small class size and the discussions make it easy to get closer to the people in the class and share personal details as well, it feels like a comfortable space to do that.”

Connecting students with on-campus resources

Mendez-Sanders said he patterned the class after similar programs he researched at Yale, McGill and Boston universities. He also consulted with staff from CMU’s Student Academic Success Center(opens in new window), Student Support Resources(opens in new window), Office of Wellness and Meaning-Making Programs(opens in new window), Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion(opens in new window) and Career and Professional Development Center(opens in new window).

Angela Lusk, director of Wellness and Meaning-Making Programs, said she knew plenty of research and collaboration went into the content of the class because of Mendez-Sanders’ passion for mental health support in a genuine and engaging way.

“There is a responsibility to do right by the participants, many of whom are coming with their own challenges and lived experience in this space. The class has to both meet the students where they are, and be able to empower those students to support others who might be struggling or feeling challenged in the moment,” she said. “He’s really done the work of connecting to so many campus resources and students to understand what is most needed and then how to actualize that.”

Mendez-Sanders said as students with limited personal knowledge and experience, he and Eber knew they wanted to invite guest speakers from the collaborating campus offices to share their expertise and best explain campus resources.

“What we wanted was a more informal set of tools and resource knowledge that students would have that they could easily pass to each other,” Mendez-Sanders said.

To prepare for the class, he participated in the Pathways for Suicide Prevention Training, and, along with Eber, took part in Mental Health First Aid Training, a nationally recognized program(opens in new window) open to staff, faculty and students on campus. The programs are offered through CMU’s COPE, CaPS Outreach Prevention and Education(opens in new window).

“That helped me see how these topics can be taught in a way that’s engaging and applicable to anyone, where instead of talking at people, you’re walked through example situations,” Eber said.

Tools such as active listening seem simple, but are beneficial to think about and practice in low stakes situations so that when emotions are high, it’s easier to consider them automatically, Mendez-Sanders said.

“Until you actually break it down and think about it, some of the techniques are important to practice, especially when wanting to help someone and give advice,” he said.

Continuing to create a compassionate campus ecosystem

The StuCo class was among about 20 service-oriented projects represented at this year’s Impact CMU(opens in new window), a poster showcase led by Carnegie Mellon’s chapter of Design For America(opens in new window), and was chosen as winner of the Faculty Favorite award.

Anna Mathews, co-president of Design for America at Carnegie Mellon, spoke with Mendez-Sanders and Kelly during the showcase.

“The work they are doing is so valuable in creating a space where students feel comfortable to discuss their mental health challenges with their peers and receive support, and the structure of their class really supports and encourages that kind of environment,” Mathews said.

Sustaining the class into the future was important to Mendez-Sanders, who plans on pursuing graduate research in engineering education at Cornell University, so Eber and Kelly will co-lead the StuCo class, offered again in the fall(opens in new window).

They have connected with LGBTQ+ student group Prism(opens in new window), the Undergraduate Student Senate Advocacy Committee(opens in new window) and the Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion in order to attract more participants in the fall.

“We’re hoping with that outreach, we can really grow the class and help the on-campus resources reach more students,” Mendez-Sanders said.

Combining efforts from CMU offices with student endeavors has and will continue to create a compassionate ecosystem to move campus culture toward better mental health awareness, Lusk said.

“In my time at Carnegie Mellon, I've seen us really push this invitation out to the larger campus community. When we are talking about mental health, it really is a shared responsibility to affect and influence change in this space,” she said. “When we can see that policies and leadership from the top down are influencing change as well as grassroots efforts from students that’s where I see the real magic happening.”