Lea en español Kennedy Lawrence felt ready for her freshman year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She was excited about moving on from high school, eager to taste freedom and "thought that it was just going to be like the best thing ever." The Omaha resident wasn't giving much thought to her health.
But about two weeks after moving in, she came down with a bug. "And then, honestly, I wasn't super-prepared to be able to be sick on my own," she said. Being sick on and off throughout the year with various flu-like illnesses that passed through her dorm was completely different from being sick at home.
Caring for herself meant getting meals, doing laundry and showing up at class even when she felt lousy. She also had to figure out how to navigate the campus health system, which cold medicine to buy and where to buy it. "It was an adjustment at first, definitely," said Lawrence, now a junior who wrote about first-year health struggles for the campus news publication.
Dr. Meredith Hayden, chief medical officer in the department of student health and wellness at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said it's normal for incoming students to push health issues aside. "They're focused on things like, 'Who's going to be my roommate? And what are we coordinating for our bedding?'" But the first year is "a very pivotal moment" for health, said Dr.
Brian Shackleford, a staff physician in the student health center at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State Universi.