WKNC's Brain Trust

(Host) Lucas 00:12
Good time of day, everybody. And welcome back to WKNC Brain Trust. I'm your host Lucas, and I'm bringing you the 10th episode of my show. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, we are up to double digits. Let's celebrate. So for today's episode, I have to start off with a little bit of a content warning, because what we're going to be talking about today is a little, a little Fe can be a little tricky for some people to hear about to be able to talk about today, we're going to be talking about mental health, and how NC State has dealt with the rapid decline of student mental health over the years. So just for fair warning, that's what we're going to be talking about in this episode. So trigger warning, we will be talking about we'll be talking about suicide, depression, you know, declining mental health things related to that. So if you feel that you may be uncomfortable with this topic, I do not recommend going forward with this episode. And if you do, then you'd love to hear what our guests has. So to start everything off, guest Please introduce yourself.

(Guest) Caden 01:22
Hello, my name is Caden Miller, I'm a freshman at NC State. I'm, in my second semester here on campus. I'm a Caldwell fellow and a Franklin scholar, which are just two of the organizations that I guess I'm part of, I'm interested in the interdisciplinary in an interdisciplinary approach to engineering. And I think part of that is what we're talking about today, which is we need to be more open with, with how we're feeling and how we're living. So that we can, we can be healthy physically and mentally. So I am just to get it out there, I am pretty connected to this issue. Um, I had a I lost a friend last semester by suicide. And, and it has been a really tough time for myself and for I know all the other people that have been affected. I've been laser focused on you know, talking to people learning as much as I can about this issue. Since this started this new semester, I really wanted it to be a new start for me, and to have an have a good positive spin on a pretty on a pretty negative experience. And, you know, I believe that change without persistence is impossible. So here I am persisting,

(Host) Lucas 02:39
beautiful. Well, Caden, it's amazing to have you here today on my show. Very glad that you agreed to talk about this. I know it can be tough, but I know you are definitely one to have your voice out there and have it heard. So props to you. On Unlimited, amazing. I also just realized, I've done this before, but I forgot to introduce myself. So I'm your host Lucas. I'm from also a freshman class of 2026. I'm from Long Island, New York. And I personally don't have a lot of experience on this today, but hopefully Katyn will. Kaden will be able to enlighten me and enlighten you all on this issue. So to get us started. Caden, yes. Would you be able to describe the current mental health services available to NC State students?

(Guest) Caden 03:33
Yes, I can to the best of my ability. It is a very tricky question though, because of how rapidly things or how unwrap idli things are changing and the direction that things are going. We've received a number of reports from administration and from Student Government detailing the kinds of processes and, and just generally mental health related services that the university is providing. And I will tell you all about them as I know them. But, you know, my general feeling towards it is that there are lots of mental health services at North Carolina State University. And in my opinion, that isn't really the problem. I didn't think that when I started learning about this issue, but I believe it now, because I've had the chance to talk to students who are utilizing the service, the chance to start to talk to students that are not utilizing the service. And actually the people that are are giving it in the first place. The issue is that we have, you know, we have clear issues in this university, and students don't really seem to be utilizing the services at the rate at which they might need them. And there's many reasons for that I would definitely like to talk about later. But first of all, we should talk about

(Host) Lucas 04:50
right like these services, what are they?

(Guest) Caden 04:53
So one of the biggest like, I guess, dollar sign things that the university has started is this program called academically live care. And it's 24 7/3 party health support through the academic life care, it's accompany their a.com. And basically, what that allows you to do is to get in contact with telehealth through either your insurance or through the school's insurance that they make that they require all students to have. And they do Urgent Care therapy, Psych, psychiatry, and even nutrition counseling, and all the services are available through academic life care. I think that that is a great thing. Talking to students, I have never met someone that has utilized.

(Host) Lucas 05:38
I was just about to say, I've actually never heard about that. Absolutely. Yeah, I didn't even know that was what it was called. And I didn't know I figured something like that was available to us. But I didn't know as exactly what it was.

(Guest) Caden 05:51
Right. And and we're basically I'm probably that's going to be the trend as I tell you all of these things, because when aren't you saying? Exactly? Yeah, the school is putting the resources into student services. But that might not necessarily be the problem, and we'll talk about it, but in count in the counseling department. So we have two separate counseling services and prevention services. And they work in the same building, but they are separate departments. So counseling services, that changes they offer counseling up to 12 sessions a month. And then if needed, they can provide unlimited counseling, as long as their counselors are available, which is really good. The Counseling Services also does a little bit of training with faculty. They do this thing called question Persuade, Refer, which has been kind of started this year. And that's about suicide professional prevention. And it's basically a training framework that they're giving to faculty, the Q question the person about suicide, do you have suicidal thoughts, feelings, ideation, persuade the person to get help. And that's basically that's basically where we are right now. We the people that need help, unfortunately, a lot of times need to be persuaded to get help, because of how touchy and sensitive the issue is. And then the r stands to refer for help, which is, you know, if the person is unwilling to get help, or needs help, getting help, is pretty much your responsibility as a good person to

(Host) Lucas 07:19
help. You can't just let somebody who's, you know, fighting this fight to just do it alone. And especially if they refusing to get I'll be able to, you know, stick out for them and get them support.

(Guest) Caden 07:28
Yeah, it can be very challenging. You know, with the issue of mental health, there's this idea of, I'm actually blanking on the word, but it is very difficult. And I know this through my lived experience, to actually sometimes even understand your own state of mental well being, because you're not really able to think rationally, when you're experiencing like a high level of emotional distress. And when that high level of emotional distress over a long enough amount of time can cause chemical imbalances in your brain. So it can sometimes be very hard for the person who's experiencing distress, to even recognize that they need help themselves, which is the purpose of QPR.

(Host) Lucas 08:09
So then, that's interesting, you bring that up? Do you think somebody would be able to, like you say, they wouldn't be able to notice. But do you think that if they thought they were they tried to understand their mental state? And then realized, Oh, I'm not really, I'm not really getting it? Like I keep spiraling? Or I can't figure out what's going on in my own head, do you think maybe they would be able to realize, Oh, I think I'm not in a very good mental state because of the fact that they can't think rationally they have. They might be like, Oh, they this has, and then they actually start to think maybe they can become a little more self aware. They're like, Oh, this has actually been happening for a while, you know, I think that's bad.

(Guest) Caden 08:54
Yeah. The word that I was blanking on his insight, that is the, that is the word. And it's not that they definitely understand that they're feeling bad. They definitely understand that. But it can be very hard to understand, often, maybe the root cause, you know, or just, once you're in a state of feeling, you know, feeling a depression, it can be hard to get out of bed, it can be hard to brush your teeth, it can be hard to wake up in the morning, right? To go to a counselor and say, Hey, I have depression, that's almost off the table most of the time. You know what I mean?

(Host) Lucas 09:30
Because they just kind of push it off.

(Guest) Caden 09:33
It's just the nature of the condition. It's like when we have a wound, when your arm is broken, it's very obvious that your arm is broken, very obvious what to do. You need to go to the emergency room and get a cast, right? But when there's something wrong with your brain, when there's something wrong with how you're perceiving the world, or when honestly, you've just been beaten down by life over and over and over again. It's challenging to have insight into how to Your your condition may be because you've, if you're in that condition for long enough, you oftentimes can forget how you used to feel you forget your baseline. This is me now, right? Which can be extraordinarily challenging. And, you know, I've experienced some of that myself, you get you feel so bad for so long that you forget that it's a problem because it just feels like it's part of you.

(Host) Lucas 10:21
You know, it's actually interesting, because I do that. Sometimes, like, you know, like people say, like, seasonal depression. I don't know. I mean, now, you'd say it might have been seasonal depression. This was like two winters ago, I think in 2021. Actually, this wasn't even like pandemic COVID. Really, it wasn't anything like that. It was we went when we went through winter particularly boring winter and nothing really happened. I mean, I started to I started working then. But then all of a sudden, it got warmer out ago, it became you know, Spring came, summer came and started getting warmer out. And then I started to feel like, My head started to feel I didn't I wanted to I don't want to say I felt lightheaded. But like, he felt like a weight had been lifted off of my brain. And I was like, That was weird. That was, that was weird. I've never, huh, yeah, that's totally odd. And then what I did after that was, I'm gonna, I said to myself was like, I want to try to like, remember what this feels like. So that on any random given day, I can just think to myself, like, am I feeling like how I was this one random spring in 2021. Because I was feeling pretty good. I felt normal. I felt like me for some reason, like, completely out of nowhere. And maybe I was just really missing the sun that winter, which honestly, I didn't think of. I would, because I'm a I'm a big fan of winter. Like, it's 86 degrees out today. Oh, my God.

(Guest) Caden 11:52
Are you from LA? Like, God,

(Host) Lucas 11:54
I was dying today. I do not drink enough water to live here. It's gonna kill me. It was I so I was bored. And I checked the weather what it's like at my house, it's 47 degrees at my house. 47. And I was sad. I was like, Man, I missed that. And one of them was that I was a little bummed out. But but you know, it's actually interesting. You bring that up? Because I was like, I've done that before. That's actually so interesting. Yeah, I thought I was the only one that I was like, Well, I didn't think I was the only one. Like, I didn't really think I was like, I thought it would be proactive to say like, let me try to remember what this is like. So now, like on some random days, maybe I've had a long day. And then I'm sitting in my room, and I'm contemplating my day. And I'm like, Oh, that was a bad day. I was a really terrible day. I need to I need to unwind for a little bit. I need to, you know, contemplate what happened today. You know what I mean? Because I'm like, I'm not feeling like me.

(Guest) Caden 12:47
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I think it's a I think it's, I honestly hadn't really thought about that. But if you are a person that you don't think that you've experienced depression, but you have experienced that seasonal change. That is probably in my experience. It's like a

(Host) Lucas 13:02
like, a temporary. Yeah, it's like a like a bomb. You know what I mean? Like, you don't feel kind of sad.

(Guest) Caden 13:07
Yeah. And seasonal depression is very real, right? Definitely proven by science. Just by sheer nature of you know, you're not gonna get much vitamin D, you're spending more time inside and you're more likely to be less social, you're more likely to get sick. I mean, seasonal depression is very real. And I get Yeah, that is a fantastic way to connect, I suppose with the idea of just depression in general. But and when that sun comes up, it's like, you feel great. You feel like yourself, you're like, I've been down in these days, right? But when you were down in those dumps, you felt sad, but you probably didn't realize it. You didn't realize that you didn't feel like yourself, right? Like

(Host) Lucas 13:44
I only realized when you know, winter was over, and spring came and I was like, Oh, that was That was weird. I didn't. And then I realized I was like, I started feeling better. And I was like, I haven't felt like this in months. What happened? Yeah. And then I realized I was like, Oh, that was that seasonal depression. That was terrible.

(Guest) Caden 14:03
And so that you're perfect. I forgot. I can't believe I forgot the word, but you're perfectly describing insight. That is what insight is, right. And that's the power of QPR training if people are actually doing it.

(Host) Lucas 14:14
But people are not taking advantage. People are not taking

(Guest) Caden 14:17
it seriously. And everybody cares about the issue. Everybody looks at it, you know, when the 11 I'm sorry, trigger warning, but when the 11 student dies at NC State, like it, at a certain point, people start to think the problem is bigger than themselves. And and stop trying because it feels so defeating, but that is just going to cause things to spiral more and I'm worried that that's where things are going. And that's why I'm being more vocal now than ever, because our problems are not stopping, but they're getting quieter. And that is an issue for me. And I'm very glad that you have me here today. Just

(Host) Lucas 14:58
amazing. I'm very glad that we're talking about. So I really hope this episode gets out to a lot of people because I do to them. And that would be really great to talk about.

(Guest) Caden 15:09
So we also have that was counseling services. They're doing,

(Host) Lucas 15:13
Ira, there's more services. Yeah, there's more, ladies and gentlemen, we promise help is out there.

(Guest) Caden 15:18
It is out there you, unfortunately, we just have to seek it out ourselves. I've, I've spoken at length, with Emily Anderson, she's the director of prevention services. And she is fantastic. The people in both of these offices, counseling services and prevention services, understand these issues. Well, they're professionals, and they are doing the best that they can.

(Host) Lucas 15:43
So wait, so you when you specify, you emphasize best that they can do, are you, you know, suggesting there's something limiting our NC State health professionals from helping students,

(Guest) Caden 15:57
I believe that NC State does not allow the healthcare professionals to do everything that they want to do. I'm not specifically under Emily Anderson, because I don't want to name any names or throw anybody under the bus. But a number of people that I've spoken to are like, Yeah, this is a great idea. But unfortunately, NC State is a big ship, is what I always keep hearing, and a big ship a big ship. So it's like a metaphor. It's like, literally, if you picture like a cargo ship, it's so big and so heavy that it takes a lot to make a turn. Or also like they also use a phrase, it takes an act of Congress and I which I'm which I'm sure everybody in America understands. Yeah, it means that things don't happen. Because there's so much red tape and bureaucracy through everything. And we're at a public university. We're at a research university and not a mental health University.

(Host) Lucas 16:47
Right? It's big STEM school. Yeah.

(Guest) Caden 16:48
So that is a big part of the problem. There are people at this university that I think have unitary authority, one in particular. But for some reason, I don't see them as passionate about this issue as I am. And my perception could be wrong. But and I hope it is, but I just feel like people care, but caring and willing are different things. And this school wants to expand rapidly. And they want to become a top notch school. And they are unwilling, in my opinion, to put in the effort to provide top notch Academic and Student Services, I believe. And we could talk about this as much as as as the day goes on. But I don't think the problems are student services, we'll keep talking about them. But there's good student services here. I think the problem lies in academic services and administration. And that's just originally, you know, I was like, Oh, my gosh, you know, the service, there's no services, and then you do the research. And then services, they everywhere they exist, they're all over the place. Right. There's a, there's support groups that I've attended a good number of, and those have been fantastic through prevention services, Angela Bowers does a fantastic job. The prevention services also has mental health ambassadors, similar to how like the Career Center has career ambassadors. The career ambassadors are widely used, the mental health ambassadors tell me that no one is asking for them. Now, 98% of graduates from the School graduate with a degree 40% of students that drop out do so because of mental health. So I don't know, like statistics like that really, really bother me. The fact that we have, you know, career ambassadors that are widely used in mental health ambassadors that are kind of pushed to the side and under utilized. And they have great workshops, training, presentations, forums, droppin spaces, or doing things like building resiliency, coping with strength and anxiety, reaching out to people that you're worried for, how to deal with depression, how to deal with bouncing, Courseload with the effects of life, like all of these things, and I talked to them, and they're passionate, and they're great, and they're willing to do the work. But there's no one asking them to do the work. And they can't just insert themselves.

(Host) Lucas 19:05
Era, you can't just, you know, say to student population, if you're depressed, come speak to us like that's, yeah, that would definitely cause some issues back

(Guest) Caden 19:14
to the idea back to insight. You know what I mean? People understand that they don't feel good. But sometimes, you know, like we were discussing, it's hard to realize, oh, I don't feel good. Oh, I have clinical depression. And those are very different things. Especially because

(Host) Lucas 19:27
like what I did, when I went through, it was just like, a few months in winter, I felt kind of down. Yeah, but these people are going through. It's a very, very long stretch of time. What you were saying earlier, they've forgotten what it feels like they've forgotten the sun. Yeah,

(Guest) Caden 19:41
precisely. Right. Yeah. Precisely. So

(Host) Lucas 19:43
you keep saying that. It's not the it's not the student services that are problem because obviously, the services are there. The mental health professionals are there. They seem to know everything about anything, anything anybody can want to know about this. They know what to do. There. being held back. We will talk about administrations, you know, I wouldn't want I don't want to say like lack of humanity. But

(Guest) Caden 20:10
oh, I would say that just to a certain extent, not personally, but just overall, I think that's how institutions share. That's how it ends up going. Yes. How institutions tend to go.

(Host) Lucas 20:19
Right. So we will talk about that. Definitely. But on the side, so you say it's not Student Services, if people is there anything. So, you know, we know, we know what administration can do. We know what administration can do administration can care. We know what they can do. What are some other things you think we can do? Because I'm sure you have a lot to say about what administration can do? I'm sure you do. Yeah. But before we get to that, do you think there's anything else that we can do? Because obviously, the service isn't the problem, the services of their services are great. What can students do?

(Guest) Caden 20:53
Absolutely, I think students are more, you know, the university can Can, can try to, you know, fix these problems as best I can. And even though in my opinion, they aren't doing that, that wouldn't do everything. I think that a larger part of the issue here is culture slash stigma, that seems to persist at NC State. I've experienced it directly because of how many people that I've talked to about this, and everybody's kind of echoing that sentiment, one of the, I'm an engineer, so I can speak from an engineers perspective, obviously, you know, everybody has different problems. But from my perspective, as an engineer, we deal with a very tough, we deal with tough intro classes. Right? And, and, you know, maybe our grades are a little shaky, because they're the the school it seems like it's purposely trying to weed people out,

(Host) Lucas 21:47
they literally call them weed out courses, I remember when the MA department was doing as I'm doing aerospace engineering. So the MA department is having their advising meeting for incoming MA students, they say, okay, just a reminder, you know, you need to code this semester, here are the classes you're gonna be taking, basically, here is what your next few years are gonna look like in the MA program. And they showed us a single slide, I remember the slide. I don't exactly remember what the courses were on that slide. But I'm pretty sure I could name a few. But I remember they specifically said, these are the weed out courses. And this is the head of the advising for the entire MA program. I don't know if she's still the advising head, as of now. But at the time, the head of advising for MA students, and these are the weed out courses. And I was kind of confused. I was like, Why do you have weed out courses? It makes no sense. Why do you have weed out courses you want people like you said 98% of students, whatever it is, they know there's a 90% graduate with a degree.

(Guest) Caden 22:58
The other people that graduated particularly at NC State engineering, there's like pretty much a 100% job placement rate the people that don't get jobs don't want them, they go do something else, like take a gap year,

(Host) Lucas 23:07
right? Like so. Yeah, they come out successful. Why wouldn't you want to better prepare them for that success? Like you said, 40% of the students that dropped out dropped out because of mental health problems. And I'm sure a lot of that stress that have the part of the mental health issues is just ridiculous stress from these weed out courses. They mentioned that at the time. That sounded completely normal to me. I don't know why it's a cultural thing. Immediately that sounded I was like, Okay, that makes sense. The difficult classes I because what I all I hear about Aerospace is it's going to be difficult. It's going to be difficult. They always joke haha prepared to have no social life. I don't know if half of them are joking about that. I'll be fine, hopefully. But what they say is Oh, no, for what I heard for Aerospace is it just gets harder and harder and harder. So the weed out courses to me seemed completely normal. I was like, Okay, why not start off with visits, they what they said is they didn't say that we'd have courses because these are difficult than everything else is easy. They said these are weed out courses, because these are the fundamentals of everything else you're going to be doing. So if you don't understand these things, you won't understand everything else. So the way they said it made complete sense to me. I was like, oh, weed out courses make a lot of sense. But then I don't know if it was you who said something to me about these courses, but it was like, actually, it might have been Louis, my roommate who was on us for those don't I was on Episode One talking about nostalgia. Got a great brain, Louis. And you know, Louis to obviously he's a Ben Franklin, just like you is a brilliant guy. He said actually, this might have been recently he said like the weed out courses are stupid. Why do you have a degree that progressively gets easier? That makes no sense. It makes no sense. Especially if somebody's going to go to grad school like I'm planning on doing hopefully trying to, like apply to like the Excel Ready to program so I can do a master's in one year and hopefully save some money. But he was like, Why have difficult courses upfront, and then you know, people drop out. They, they, they do a different degree. They do this they do and they can no longer achieve their dream. They can't do their intended major because they failed these ridiculously hard classes for no reason. And then imagine the effect on mental health, especially for STEM majors. Obviously, this is a STEM school, we are stem people. The whole it's been a long, it's been known for a long time that, like the whole, it's like the it's not like it's not like an archetype. It's like a personality. It's that it's that it's that overachiever that's never failed in their life. And then they get their first failing test grade and their entire world breaks down.

(Guest) Caden 25:55
Absolutely. And the school seems to be fostering that environment like you, from just knowing engineers, you have that like, it's normally is that like type A personality cluster where every you know, things are in order. And we like math, because it makes sense to us. And it's all logical. And and you've been you we have experience with, you know, classes in high school, even AP classes that and an IB classes that are challenging, but fair, right. And then I'll speak from personal experience. I took AP physics in high school. I understand physics very well, I did very well on the exam. I am in physics right now. I understand that. Well, other than angular momentum, which is a whole story for another day. I guess. I just started doing them. We just started last week. Yeah. And it was the one thing I didn't pick up on AP physics, but I could have taught the whole class, basically by myself. it the way that the way that the lecturer teaches it. Yeah. Because I have taken AP physics that that does not translate to the tests, or to really the homework because they just take everything and they just mock it up to a crazy level. So you're going to originally and I fought for this, you know, we they don't curve the tests. The tests are hard.

(Host) Lucas 27:09
They actually didn't they curve, the second test, they they

(Guest) Caden 27:12
they added five points, because one of the questions was bad. So it's not really.

(Host) Lucas 27:17
But I know it helped a few my friends from not failing.

(Guest) Caden 27:19
Yeah, but that was because of a bad question. Like they don't curve the test, they grade the homework for accuracy. And then like, if you have like, it's all on WebAssign, which was created by an NC State Physics professor. And if you make like, if you put the decimal in the wrong place, or you type, you know, if you don't put an uppercase E or something like that, you know, it takes one of your attempts and now you're you have graded homework, uncurbed tests. And that's it. Those are your grades for the class, maybe 5% participation or something like that. And then it's like, so I could have I don't I have a B in physics right now. And I don't, I'm not complaining about that. But like, I've had to work extraordinarily hard for that B, despite understanding every concept going into the class. Like it's frankly a little ridiculous because and it's because physics 205 is meant to be like you said a weed out class and they make it hard for no reason I

(Host) Lucas 28:09
one of my friends. I'm he's in my physics class. He was in my chemistry class last semester. And he's been taking calculus. He's all he was on the engineering track. No entering first year intended engineering. He's now doing business. Yeah, you'll know why he's doing business physics. I'm sure physics, specifically physics. He did good in calc one. He's doing fine. In Calc Two. He did great in Chem one and the lab and everything. He did find any 102 we did find a new 115. Guess which class he failed the first test. Guess what he's doing now? Business. He is moving to business. And he is a very brilliant kid. And he's going to business Russia. I don't know if he failed the first test, but he's just not doing well in physics. So he's now doing business. And congratulations, NC State. If an administrator you're listening, congratulations, you got one? Yeah. Good for you.

(Guest) Caden 29:04
So it's like this idea that you talked about is my life over because x didn't work out because I failed physics because I you know, failed chemistry because you know, these classes that are that are poorly managed. There's 150 students in a lecture hall and one professor, no ta you have labs where

(Host) Lucas 29:25
the labs are ridiculous. They are so easy. Compared to the actual course they are not relevant to the course. The labs were harder, literally they were and they were but then these were those labs are actually related to what we were doing in class. And you know how they treat NC State. You know how they're treating their lab. graders who didn't have TAs. They're on strike. TAs are still on strike. Yeah, I remember. It was like weeks. It was before spring break. This is before spring break. You know, like a month ago or so. My lab ta started the day off. He's like, Listen, guys, I'm not gonna be grading everything. anymore, we're on strike for better hours better support better pay. So just letting you know, we're not grading your stuff. Yeah, so we're currently fighting the administration and everybody in the class is like, yeah, yeah, good for you, please.

(Guest) Caden 30:16
I think it's great that they're on strike, when you might be surprised to hear is that everybody that I've spoken to at this university has the same sentiment, even if they aren't going on strike, they don't feel supported by administration. They don't feel like their ideas are being heard. And traditionally, higher education is not a very high paying field unless you're like a tenured professor, right? So, you know, how can you expect someone to do a top notch job at a top notch resource research facility and not be able to pay them a top notch rate? Right? And it's especially frustrating when students like us I'm in state, I know you're out of state, so it's even more pay and Oh, my orbit number fees, to where we have mount

(Host) Lucas 30:55
that I pay. Ridiculous to come to this school,

(Guest) Caden 31:00
and teach yourself physics and teach yourself crazy, because the instructor hardly speaks English No offense. Well, actually,

(Host) Lucas 31:07
no, my, my professor, I lucked out. i My professor is amazing. Many students deal with that, though, ya know, I really, really feel bad for them. I am trying to help my friends that got some of the kind of bad professors. You know, you are they know everybody else they know they are. Yeah, but I've been trying to help my friends out. Because I got a very good professor. But still, people who and so we, you know, we recently we actually took a physics test yesterday, I can tell you confidently, I got a 15 on that test. I can cut what that is, that's probably on me. I'm not gonna lie to you. I did not prepare for this. As well as I should have. Because I forgot we had the test yesterday. So I remembered like Sunday, but I already have all the things that I do on Sundays, right? So I started studying. Sunday ish, Monday ish, I don't know that, that grade, that bad grade, that that's coming my way. And that's my fault. I we can blame it on professors. I don't know why I'm bringing this up. But I just I messed up on that test. But good on you for taking account of literally, I did not prepare for this very well. So but I'm still gonna be you know, upset if I fail, obviously. But

(Guest) Caden 32:20
I have a good idea to withdraw from a statistics class this semester that I just have to take again, because the instructor, I'd never taken a stats class before. The instructor was not a native English speaker, and was teaching me statistics as if I already had a PhD in it. I was great. So I was teaching myself. They knew entirely sorry, are they a new teacher? No, they've been here forever. And now and they're the only person that teaches the class.

(Host) Lucas 32:47
Statistics. Yeah, thank God, I am not taking

(Guest) Caden 32:51
5371 and he's a great guy, but not an awesome instructor in my opinion. Yeah. And so you know, we pay these exorbitant fees. I'm teaching myself statistics works for test one, test two, test three comes along. And, and I guess it just stopped working. I didn't put in any less work. But you know, I just have to try again next semester with the knowledge I have this semester. How many tests would take in the class? I like there's like three midterms in the final. But I

(Host) Lucas 33:17
bombed that test I had II didn't do so hot. And the third test

(Guest) Caden 33:21
I didn't do so hot on the first two either. So it's just like it was a waste of time and money. But I feel like if I had I'm a decent student, I feel like if I had a good stats Professor wouldn't happened. Yeah, what are we paying for here? We're paying you know, if is the game to pay $25,000 a year for you even more, to suffer for four years and then to graduate with a piece of paper that is hardly applicable till dork in my field? I mean, that's that's

(Host) Lucas 33:48
kind of Iranian nation. Not gonna lie. Yeah, that can kind of sucks. That's partly the reason. You know, I say I'm from I'm from Long Island, New York. And my family is moving down here. Yeah. So we're moving this summer, because of the fact that we're gonna save so much money, save so much money.

(Guest) Caden 34:04
So we could talk about you know, so those are like that. So when I talk about, what I like to say is that student services is abandoned, like NC State is bleeding or bleeding out. We have serious problems that need to be fixed. They are attempted to wrap up that that injury with a band aid called Student Services, they need to tie a tourniquet around academic services because that's where the problem is. Students are coming out of COVID with, to be honest, not great social skills, not great coping skills and low resiliency to academic stress, especially because of how easy school was during Oh,

(Host) Lucas 34:39
yeah, no, my, my GPA sophomore year. Our No, maybe not sophomore year, it was sophomore year or junior year. I think you was, it was 2020 So for you, I'm gonna say something 20 would have been sophomore. year my GPA, so four years 100.13 Yeah. would not have happened otherwise. So whatever.

(Guest) Caden 35:04
So the school needs to adapt. It is not off and you know, students need to adapt to and like, like we've been talking about it is partially a cultural problem. We need to be more forgiving to ourselves, we need to be more understanding that like, look, I failed this class in my life. My life isn't over.

(Host) Lucas 35:22
You can take it again. You can take it easier schools if you really need to, yeah, it's, you'll be fine. Yeah, you'll be okay.

(Guest) Caden 35:29
Students need that. I'm not saying it's 100% on the school, but it takes too. And the school will throw money into student services that, frankly, they're wasting,

(Host) Lucas 35:40
right? Because Student Services is already so strong, right? They need students to use student services. Yeah,

(Guest) Caden 35:47
take the money and get a professor that teaches the class well, and you don't need 100 counselors.

(Host) Lucas 35:53
Right. Like they've got a very strong student services program. Do they know that students aren't using students houses

(Guest) Caden 36:01
or people in student services? See it? No. They know, for a matter of fact, yeah. Right. Like

(Host) Lucas 36:05
I'm sure that the counselors like the people in suits, services, no, but do the the board that decides where the school is money goes? Well, they're my hard earned dollars

(Guest) Caden 36:14
head. Yeah, they know, they just are like, this is how we're gonna solve the problem because they don't want to change don't

(Host) Lucas 36:20
change the academics, right? Yeah. When they're like, Oh, of course, it's working. Yeah, mental health student services, like perfect.

(Guest) Caden 36:29
And they recently published the calendar. I'm sure you've heard about this, because everybody's talking about it with the new Wellness days,

(Host) Lucas 36:36
wellness days, I'm just gonna say this. Now this is very, this is probably gonna get me like shot or so now say, I am not a fan of wellness days. I hate them so much that for starters, they're on a Thursday, or at least they were, I think the new calendar has come on Tuesdays. I just like how I function, how I how I roll as a student, like I have breaks that are longer than like, just the weekend. I can't do that. Because then because then I go in full break mode, my brain is off. And now I have to come back and keep you know, doing stuff. Like heading into spring break, worst time to have tests ever. literally the worst possible time to have tests. Plus my spring break didn't line up with any of my friends spring breaks. Yep, we started earlier. I think that's just like known for southern schools, or is that specifically just here? Because I know like I have other friends that go to schools in North Carolina, Florida. They went back around the same time that I did. But their spring break was a week later. It's weird. That is weird. I don't know. But I just like wellness days, especially on a Thursday. What are you doing? Give me a give me a three day weekend, please.

(Guest) Caden 37:46
Well, so when when are you closely examined the calendar they sent out you you quickly realize that they have pulled the wellness days out of our reading days for finals? How do you know that?

(Host) Lucas 37:56
That's reading days or finals? That's like, like studying days.

(Guest) Caden 38:01
There's supposed to be a week I'm reading, they pulled the wellness, they pulled one of the wellness days out of the reading days. So that's you actually didn't do anything? That's like, well, like not only

(Host) Lucas 38:12
is the fall 2023 Yeah. Yeah. So we've got first day of classes is August 21. Wellness day, September 19. On a Tuesday, I'd like to point out on a Tuesday. Yep. What? Why? Why?

(Guest) Caden 38:32
I don't know. I bet that's so stupid, or one of the dartboard Oh, Tuesday

(Host) Lucas 38:36
and then less than a month fall break. Which is, you know, Monday, Tuesday, so it lets us have like they're going to have it on Tuesday, and people are going to skip classes Monday. I mean, I definitely won't be as my schedule is right now. I've got a lot on Monday. Yeah. Which is good. That's how I want it.

(Guest) Caden 38:51
But the wellness day just pushes everything back one day and actually makes it it makes more things fall on the same day. And in my opinion, does not help to do anything. Yeah. Except for make the work less spread out and more concentrated.

(Host) Lucas 39:03
Yeah, that's one thing during that week, like my physics class, and my calc class both have homeworks do occasionally, my calc class will have something on Monday or Thursday. Physics Tuesday has both something due on Monday, something due on Thursday, you know, generally easy, that's manageable. And then we had a wellness day on Thursday. Everything was then pushed back to next Thursday, and the same deal for my calculus class. I had seven assignments due on one Thursday, one Thursday. Um, I did a few of them already. Right. It wasn't terrible. But like still that was ridiculous of seven assignments due on one day. Yeah. It was ridiculous. You're gonna help put a wellness day on something put it on a Friday, please or a Monday?

(Guest) Caden 39:46
Yeah, give us that extra day.

(Host) Lucas 39:50
Because what do we think we're going to do on our wellness days? Like I know some people like we've gone hiking in the past me me you some of our friends. We've gone hiking. I spent my On this day, if not hiking or no actually have opportunity to enjoy the wellness day, I spent my wellness day getting work done, of course. So it's not really, it's not a wellness day, it's more of a catch up day. And this is completely random. But I actually saw like on Tiktok This is years ago, this is before we even came here. This is like I was junior year. And I saw somebody posted a tech talk. It was like a joke tic tac like POV NC State gives us a wellness day. It was somebody who goes who probably might not go to state but they they went to state two years ago, they posted it tick tock they said like, Oh, what are you supposed to do with this? Haha. And then there's like, the funny it was a funny sound or whatever it was. And they, I was like, Oh, we're gonna get work done. It's a nice working day. That's great. Like, you know, instead of giving us wellness days, like it's gonna solve a problem, like that kind of thing. And I was like, Oh, that's a funny joke. No, it's not a joke. It still happens. And I saw that two years ago. Right. So, you know,

(Guest) Caden 40:59
yeah, it's just so they're gonna give us a wellness day that most schools already do that, first of all, so it's not anything impressive.

(Host) Lucas 41:07
Especially on a Tuesday, like, yeah.

(Guest) Caden 41:09
So do you want to talk about what I think the school well, we can talk about what other schools do because while I say that our student services are, are sufficient enough and that we need to fix Academic Services. When you compare our student services to our counterparts in the ACC, which is our sports conference. They're actually still lackluster. So FSU is kind of, in my opinion, the golden standard, they have this thing called FSU cares, and what we've been talking about, like people not having inside people not being able to recognize that they need help or not having the strength to ask for help. FSU is care starts all inclusive support that comes to you at Orientation, financial planning, mental health services, academic services, counseling, all of it all wrapped into one that they give to you. They force you to take it, at least to a certain extent, because they recognize that even though not everybody will ask for help. Everybody needs help. Because you're especially freshmen are adjusting to such a big thing. That's what FSU does. And I think that though the golden standard by University of Miami, and Pitt and Wake Forest, do mental health fairs, mental health symposiums healthy you what matters to me, or what matters to you face to face, they go go under different names. But basically what the schools do is they have events, about mental health visibility and support. I don't think we have we've had any. And somebody that I talked to that I won't name, their name, was trying to get an event going and tally and was told that they cannot use tally for a mental health event.

(Host) Lucas 42:40
Specifically, because it was a mental health event. Well,

(Guest) Caden 42:43
that doesn't really fit the tally brand. I suppose I don't I don't know why but but they were trying to do something that was in my opinion, pretty cool. And I won't give out too many details because I don't want to get this person in trouble. But they they were basically told no, you can't do that. And tally. Tally is not for that tally is for you know tally is for food and fun. And it isn't for mental health.

(Host) Lucas 43:04
Okay, like,

(Guest) Caden 43:05
it's stuff like that, like, it's the culture at this school. It's the students, it's the faculty, if we're not willing to talk about this issue, if we're not willing to look it in the face and say, I gotta stop this, nothing's gonna happen, it's only going to get worse. And that's what's been happening. You know, not all of the 11 student deaths have been by suicide, but many of them have been drug related, which normally, it's like something like 83% of drug users are comorbid with a with a mental health issue. And they're most of the time using it for self medication. And that 83% statistic. So it's like, even though that isn't a suicide, it's still a mental health related death, right most of the time. And and the school won't acknowledge that either. They call it an accidental death.

(Host) Lucas 43:54
Yeah, I remember reading that email. Yeah, they will send out

(Guest) Caden 43:57
these emails. It is the most impersonal, inhumane thing. I mean, imagine, yeah, it is the worst. The school likes to think that they know everybody who knows the person. So what they do is they send crisis teams to like the residence halls of the person lived in, and they'll send a counselor to like each of the persons classes that they were in, like, and then that's it. That's that that is the that's the that is the support. And then they then they put out a poster that says, hey, come to this, or hey, come get counseling, but you have to ask for it. And then the process to intake into counseling, you know, what they call it, like, triage? Who wants to go to triage? No one because triage it's just such a terrible connotation of like, it's a word with a terrible connotation. I almost when I would start my intake process that almost stopped me in my tracks. That word right there and I feel like for most people, it probably does.

(Host) Lucas 44:52
What else could they call it?

(Guest) Caden 44:54
About intake? How about support start? How about anything other than triage which Just when I think triage I think like people dying on the battlefield of World War Two, like, you know what I mean? Like, we don't need to be using this kind of language. And that and that's part of the cultural problem too. Like we like we don't under Maybe, and maybe NC State needs to do a better job of like, how to approach this, this issue? Should we send out? Oh, or we'll send out an email where we where we miss gender someone after they died? That happened to do you remember that? I think so. Yeah. So it's just like, it is just the most impersonal thing ever again, the people in student services care mentally, the great people, I have not met one of them who is not passionate about this issue and try to do everything they can. The dollar signs, and the reputation of this university is what's holding them back. Because administration wants to keep the university growing quickly. They want to do an engineering expansion. They want, you know, turn on the state basically into the next MIT. And there

(Host) Lucas 45:59
Why is no reason for that. MIT is MIT. You don't need to be MIT that one of the reasons why I picked this school was because it wasn't an MIT you know what I mean? Like I picked it because it was still a decent school in a good area that I want to you know, families moving to so I'm sure there's you know, good people around whatever it is, I got family in the state. I picked this school over another school because it didn't feel preppy. Right. It didn't feel like an MIT. The other school I was going to with look goes I was also looking at is literally called alrighty. Ross is to Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. It's a great school. It really really is. It's a private school. It's extremely expensive. I got a huge scholarship, but it still would have cost me more than here. Also a pretty big reason why I came here it would cost me less in the long run because we're moving. But I want to I liked the environment here better. Yeah, I like the air felt more free. It felt more personal felt more informal. You wanted me like I didn't it didn't feel like an institution. It just felt like a place you know, and it just felt like a place where I could go make friends. You don't get an education. It just it felt more friendly.

(Guest) Caden 47:15
Yeah, we're we're we're a STEM school now. We're originally an agricultural school. And actually Raleigh is like the number two best city in the country to live in. Why do we need to be MIT we don't need only a really don't like the school is successful, incredibly successful. Really. Our graduates are successful, incredibly successful. How about instead of rapidly expanding the academics? Reforming the academics make them a little bit more, you know, palpable, make them a little bit more accessible, bearable. Make them worth my money? Oh, no, I mean, with my

(Host) Lucas 47:48
money, come on. Yeah. Especially all the international students that come here, oh, like I'm out of state. It's not exactly International, like, you know, it's still from the US. So I can just mean, theoretically, I could just go to a different school in the US be so easy, I could just transfer to my credit transfer, whatever easy. The international students, I have a lot of international friends who are here. But a lot of the international students, they pay the same rates that I do. But they come to, you know, the US the, the safe haven in the West, the US they come to the US to get an education. Honestly, I don't know how they pick like NC State, it seems kind of random. You have somebody coming from like, you know, like India, coming from Vietnam, Korea, whatever it is, it seems a little random. But it's a good school. So they pick it, and they come here, they pay the same that I do. And then they're, you know, much farther from home much farther from their family much farther from, you know, their home support, that kind of thing. So I don't I feel kind of bad for them. Because, like, I don't like looking at my tuition bill coming out. I'm sure they dread looking at their bill.

(Guest) Caden 48:59
Yeah. And then it's just, yeah, it's been horrible. It's just been, you know, we were both freshmen you come to this university with with expectations. You know what I mean, you come with an idea in your head. And in many ways, the school has exceeded its expectations. I love things like this. I love WKNC. I love the library and the tech lending program. I love the Makerspace in my building.

(Host) Lucas 49:25
I recently just found out about the makerspace like, I knew it was there, but I never one actually checked, you know, like never actually went and tried to look at the makerspace and I went in and I was like, wow, this is insane. Yeah, this is this. It's things like that, that sometimes I'm like, Okay, wow. Okay. Like, have you been to hunt? Oh, yeah. Hunters insane. It's insane. And I'm like, I pay all this money. And then I go when I see something, something that's like, oh, okay, now I get why, right. But then But then. But then

(Guest) Caden 49:57
we feel more like statistics than we do students. Yeah, the school is just using us to market itself and doesn't, in my opinion, part of my friends give a shit about us. They don't like they, they will say that they do and the people personally might, but the institution does not care at all. And, and that's where we are today. Like, that is why I'm here having this conversation with you and why I've been having these conversations and I'm very grateful that you've had me on, and I would love to, you know, keep going as long as possible. But, I mean, yeah, this is the that is the crux of the issue, in my opinion, is that we are at an institution that is unwilling to change in a meaningful way. Yeah. And our students, which is the bread and butter of the institution, the reason why the institution because you know, you can have 1000 good professors, right, you need good students to be successful. Yeah. You can have 36,000 new students and you can take in a bigger freshman class so baby you have to find the 6000 new students are no no 36,000 undergrad and oh my god, that would practically double the size of the school. Oh, yeah. No, I misspoke. I apologize. Now the boss letting me but the school is buying apartment buildings because they're taking in more people than that are graduating because there's so rapidly like, why can't

(Host) Lucas 51:12
they just say no to some people like there are other colleges that probably need more students like to say no,

(Guest) Caden 51:18
so let's we'll talk more about statistics. That's what we feel 34% of students at NC State surveyed and by our student Task Force said that they were dealing with some form of depression and 12% had suicidal thoughts and then of course, we've had five deaths by suicide and six additional accidental deaths on on Capitol claimed accidental Yeah, which which are mental health related, in my opinion, um, and then you're going to take on even more students like you clearly can't handle the amount of students read now. What are you doing? Yeah, fix your problem before you make it worse.

(Host) Lucas 51:54
Yeah. Even just for housing alone. Yeah, they that that whole housing raffle. I mean, like my situation was totally my fault. Because I didn't know that my time selection was on the date opened. I thought my time selection was the day after. And that my friends time selection was the day it opened. His was the day after mine was the date open. I could have gotten this into well, village nice and easy. I forgot about that. And I had the wrong time. Because I saw the time I saw my was 10am I saw his was 9am. We're like, okay, cool. We'll go with his I completely forgot to check the date. So that was just on me. But I know other people who, like even they're like sophomores, and they cannot find a place on campus in Raleigh. So expensive. I don't even know what rallies like because I just I found it. I found a spot. I ran to sign Hall. I'm like, okay, that's fine. Good. And actually lucked out. Because I know people that live there. Now. I think one of them actually lives in the room we're going to be in next year. I was like, how was it? He goes, Oh, I love it. Simon's actually really nice. Got some we got a corner room to hold ourselves up with a nice corner room. So we got a Windows. Yes, sir. to Windows. I'm excited for Windows, because in the Selvan in the front rooms, those windows, it's right on the balcony. So I have my straight. My blinds closed all the time. Yeah, I can imagine how many people like looking into my room as they walk by right. No, but they've even then, like, if they like, like, Louis, yep. got pushed off campus. Because they did not have enough on campus housing. Because all the dorms filled up. All the dorms filled out and they

(Guest) Caden 53:27
had to buy like 600 rooms and university towers, which is a, which is a like separate apartment building.

(Host) Lucas 53:32
Yeah, I know. I started seeing ut as an option. And I'm like, what, what, when? Since when was that an option? Yeah. Anyway, I was like, Oh, that's so far. Anyway, I'm going to stay on campus sometime.

(Guest) Caden 53:45
And then how much of how much are we paying as undergraduates for NC State to take on more people than they can handle and buying apartment building? How much does that go into our fees? I'm sure it does. To a certain extent,

(Host) Lucas 53:54
I would hope that it's not extra with the amount of oil they have their

(Guest) Caden 53:59
fees go up every year. So it's kind of Yeah, but what what if you want to start talking about the bare minimum solution?

(Host) Lucas 54:09
Yes. We've talked a whole lot about the issue. Yep. Talked a lot about the issue. It's very known, then. I'm sure you know, everything we've covered. I think we've I think we've covered quite good, a good amount about the issue. Yep. Let's start turning it in on a more positive side. And let's start tackling the solution. So we talked about we know what students can do. Let's let's take a peek at administration. Let's talk about that. What do you think? What sort of steps do you think administration could take? And I'm not talking about like, oh, they could start reforming academics? I'm like, What about academics? Could they reform or like, what could administration what kind of policies could they enact that kind of breaks down that not exactly breaks down the bureaucracy because obviously you need some form of a governing body, you know, Any anything, but kind of enables the bureaucracy to work? I mean, it actually lets them make change. Like, let's put some power steering on this cruise cruise ship. Let's let's let's make it turn. What do you think?

(Guest) Caden 55:15
Yeah. 100%. So what I, what I would love to see from illustration is for administration to start taking student input, they don't really, they created a Mental Health Advisory Board, which I'm sure that as soon as we go a month without someone dying, it will be dissolved and they will all paint they will all pat themselves on their, on their backs and give themselves medals and bonuses. Because that is what happens in higher education institution. I'm not impressed by a mental health taskforce at all, you know, how many people on mental health task force 20 to 2525. Okay, guess how many of them are mental health professionals?

(Host) Lucas 55:48
You have brought this up to me before and I remember the number of I don't want to spoil it. I don't pretend like I don't I don't know. 18? Three? Oh, gosh, yeah,

(Guest) Caden 55:56
it's three. And there's terrible. Yep. So what other universities do and I know this because I went to the ACC leadership symposium, which is how I got a lot of this information that I've been talking about, meeting with student leaders from across, you know, 15 schools, is that our student government is one of the schools that I talked to probably the least involved in the administration process. We have basic, and we have student government and and you know, they are able to make their own rules. And you know, they have people in administration that that listen to them. And our student body president has a seat on the on the Chancellor's Board of Trustees, right, Kenji? McKenzie, right. Evelyn? Yeah, um, I don't, I don't even know if I think he's doing good job. I don't really like the people don't even read his email. Exactly. The people at the school don't care about student government, because it is not clear that student government does anything. And it's not clear that student government does anything because administration does not allow them to, they can put they can put on great events like the pan Africa thing like that was mainly started by student government. It was, you know, an idea that that grew. And we've had a fantastic pan Africa week, where we've been able to celebrate diversity on campus is fantastic. But other universities, older universities, more prestigious universities in the ACC, like Duke and Syracuse, and Georgia Tech, have student government advisory boards at every level of administration. And not just one person who has a seat at the table. But several people who have a voice at the table. And it is written into their schools like constituting documents that this is the case, these schools have good programs and have no suicides, AI, at least none that I know of, and none that they knew of. Now, obviously, that's a correlation. And we can't say that that's necessarily a causation. But I think it'd be a great place to start, start actually, like listening to student input, and honestly, force them to take it. And if that would be important. Yes, yeah. And if the students are wrong, let them be wrong. And I'm trying another solution. But at least you tried something,

(Host) Lucas 57:59
right. It's better than throwing money, throwing money into our already pretty good student services. That just, I mean, you're gonna go many places,

(Guest) Caden 58:06
the people that are on that are making these high level decisions are old and went to college for basically free, they have no idea what it's like to be a student today.

(Host) Lucas 58:16
No clue how old was how big our wallets theoretically, are,

(Guest) Caden 58:22
can be stretched, and then all and then their main intention is to promote their main intention is number one, to promote the image of the university. And that does not include talking about suicide. Their second intention is to milk money out of alumni from the University.

(Host) Lucas 58:38
Extremely I always see a whole bunch of old people coming in. They're like, wow, look at this dining hall. I'm like, I know that fountains spruce things up just for you. Yeah, I can tell when they have alumni. I don't even need to see any old people. I just know when they have alumni. They have got the salad baskets are better than the areas like getting mad. They're clean. The food is just better the person I think the shuffle I'm no more often I love that kind of food. It's eatable. Yeah, edible. Oh, my God.

(Guest) Caden 59:05
Who cares? But yeah, it's just there's a disparity between, you know, how much administrator might personally care because they could tell you that they care all day. Frankly, I don't care that you care. I want to see you do something. I want to show me that you don't just say I want you to address the issue as the emergency that it is not an issue. Right? Because it isn't an issue. It is an emergency. It is it is critical. And if this problem continues next year, which I'm sure it will, because they haven't done anything. It definitely well. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm just going to keep whining like this, but I mean, like what in the world? I'll tell you what, as long as the problem continues, this university won't see a cent for me.

(Host) Lucas 59:53
I mean, you can try that, but I don't know how that's gonna work.

(Guest) Caden 59:55
Oh, I mean, I mean, in terms of like after I graduate.

(Host) Lucas 59:57
Oh, okay. That was That's a good distinction to make. Yeah, I have to keep paying. But yeah, you gotta pay to be the school. Yeah, I don't, I'm not really planning on anybody be like, Oh, look, you're an alumni pay somebody? I'm like, no,

(Guest) Caden 1:00:09
no. And what did you do for me while I was a student other than take my money and trade it for a piece of paper? Yeah, that's what that's how I experienced this year. Tell me how you feel. It feels very transactional to me.

(Host) Lucas 1:00:22
Yeah, a little bit. I was just looking at like taking summer classes here. The in state rates not so bad. But for out of state it was going to cost me about 10 grand, just to take six credit hours. You guys just already ridiculous. Wild, so I'm probably not gonna I think I might not do six. Any credit hours. I was over

(Guest) Caden 1:00:44
a while. Are you able to do the community college thing?

(Host) Lucas 1:00:46
I probably can. Yeah, I might just enroll in a community college back home over the summer, see if that loan transfer, but I don't know, I actually started looking up a few colleges. I don't think they'd take and like I knew I know of a few community colleges near me, I looked up like, do they allow that? Because they you know, I emailed my advisor. He's like, Yeah, we have a website that'll tell you exactly what schools have equivalent courses that we accept. And like, that's amazing. Thank you. And then I went to do that. And I looked up the CUNY colleges that I at least know of off the top of my head. They didn't take them, or they didn't have an equivalent course. So I was like, oh, that's, that sucks. Oops,

(Guest) Caden 1:01:25
yeah. Wow. But it's just I don't know, there.

(Host) Lucas 1:01:27
I'll find something another day. If I can apply to this school. I'm sure I can apply to a community college nearby, like, like Wake Tech, or Rockingham County, whatever it is. I'll figure something out. Yeah. But that was 10 grand for six credit hours. But it's Oh, it's over the summer. So why? It doesn't make any sense. It's ridiculous. Money grab because it's higher education. You know, obviously, education to the name, the whole purpose is to educate people. But it's a business. It's higher education is 100%. A business what a public school is, is a corporation. Yeah, it feels as a corporation that has employees. I am an employee of the school. I feel that way. Technically, yeah. I'm, I'm an employee of a school we're on organization and WKNC. Like, this is why I don't is ridiculous. I have, I've got the access to the school employee webpage. Whatever it is. This business is 100% of corporation. And we all know how Corporations Act in regular society. That's right. Money, money, money. That's how they act in society. Why would they do anything different? In a school? Yeah, because it's a it's a society. It's a community. It's a population. It's people have to govern. And now they just want money in their

(Guest) Caden 1:02:46
pockets. And you and I both, we're not saying that the school shouldn't be rigorous. Right. We're saying it should be fair, and human.

(Host) Lucas 1:02:55
I love I love going to my classes and seeing the robots in front of me looking through slides. Yeah, great. It's awesome. Like I

(Guest) Caden 1:03:01
could have read myself for free. Yeah,

(Host) Lucas 1:03:05
completely. You have watched the some guy on YouTube, tell me all

(Guest) Caden 1:03:08
about this. In fact, Khan Academy taught me calc three, no offense,

(Host) Lucas 1:03:12
honestly, I might need to start using Khan Academy. Second Calc test for me didn't go so

(Guest) Caden 1:03:17
yeah. It's not gonna go so hard. Because also like, we could talk about this, too. But there's, it seems like there's not much oversight on the instructors like I had, especially you see it with the graduate students. It is entirely up to how much the graduate student cares and is willing to donate their time to the class. Yes, like we've talked about there. They're not compensated well. So a lot of the intro classes that we talked about are taught by graduate students, especially in like, departments that are not as big intro, like physics, and chemistry, and they're taught by grad students. And your experience in that class is entirely dictated by how much the grad student wants to help you. Yeah. And they have no incentive really to do it, to do anything other than the kindness in their heart. And if they're able to donate time, right,

(Host) Lucas 1:04:02
my calc recitation, the the grad student does my Calc, recitation. Usually she's pretty good. But sometimes, she just says like she'll, I asked her to do an example. And she's going through the exhibit, but she says, Do you need me to work this out? And I'm like, yeah, yeah. And she goes, she's Lilly says, like, Do I really have to work this out? Guys? Can you just figure this out on my I know this, I'm asking you because I don't know how to work it out. Excellent. So this is

(Guest) Caden 1:04:30
the this is the problem session.

(Host) Lucas 1:04:33
The rest of the recitations problems sessions are supposed to be working working out the problems. And she's so she will say frequently, like, do you really need me to work this out? Yes, yes, I do. Actually, that's why I'm here asking you about it. So please do me a favor, just as one questions all I ask and,

(Guest) Caden 1:04:48
and like we've kind of been talking about underpaying grad students underpaying facilities worker underpaying entry level professors, the bad mental health that's coming with these people putting in so much work because simply they care and not being compensated well trickles down through things like that. Yeah. And that's also what I talked about when I say academic services needs reform, like

(Host) Lucas 1:05:11
pay our teachers pay them, well, I want you to tell me there isn't a shred of my tuition that goes into paying like, Kenji, just give some give a raise to some teachers, you know what I mean? Just just compensate our educators a little bit more

(Guest) Caden 1:05:29
like, look, if I have to, I'll take $100 extra fee to pay the instructors, well, maybe maybe they'll instruct right side of just reading off a slide.

(Host) Lucas 1:05:37
Actually, my regular calc professor is pretty good. Like, you'll get a professor who's pretty good about it,

(Guest) Caden 1:05:41
just out of the kindness of their heart more than anything, right? Yeah. Yeah.

(Host) Lucas 1:05:45
They just have access to a textbook that I need to pay for, which is stupid. Yeah, but whatever. I did that that in itself is dumb. Yeah. But, and then the professor writes the textbook in the US. dollar, the e 101. Textbook I had to pay for it was only $15. So it wasn't so bad. Yeah. But she wrote the textbook, my teacher wrote the textbook for that, and I didn't use it once. did not use it once.

(Guest) Caden 1:06:12
But yeah, so that's basically that's basically where I've been at.

(Host) Lucas 1:06:19
Right. So Kaden, excellent discussion we've had absolutely amazing. I'm so really looking forward to getting this episode out there. You're grabbing me, of course.

(Guest) Caden 1:06:31
But what I wanted to say kind of just to leave off is that we've been having this great conversation, but that Well, all we can really do is have conversation and learn from each other. And, and just have the conversation and enough times. And so if you are a student who is passionate about this issue, talk about it, talk to somebody, reach out to people, if you think that they need help, if you have the strength to talk, you also have the strength to listen via resource, do what you can, everybody is struggling with this. And it's up to us really to fix it. Because if we just sit idly by the school will do nothing until we forget about it.

(Host) Lucas 1:07:13
Powerful stuff can definitely I hope, well, I hope people hear this. I hope people hear this, this is really been eye opening for me. I really hope that it does what my show intends to do, and provokes thought, and likes anybody that really listens to it. But very insightful. Very powerful stuff. Thank you so much. And complete change of tone. But thank you to JT SATAC. And moving boxes for providing with us with some amazing intro and outro music, amazing intro and outro music. If you want to catch them, you can check them out on Instagram, at moving boxes, band, all lowercase all one word at moving boxes band. And if you enjoyed what you heard today, I know it was a longer episode. But this is an extremely important topic that needs to be spoken about needs to be acted on. As Katie was saying, help people, if you be a resource, you know, if you have a voice, use it. Be there for your friends be there for others. Big change needs to happen. And as the students of this school, we are the agents of that change. And we need to make it happen. Let's turn this let's turn this big ship around like the the people in the Student Service Center was saying, let's turn the ship around. Let's get back on track. And let's you know improve our school as a whole. But if you enjoyed I know again, it was a longer episode. If you enjoyed this episode and want to stay tuned for more WKNC Brain Trust content. You can check us out@wknc.org forward slash podcasts. It's wknc.org forward slash podcasts with an S I want to thank you all for listening. Stay well\