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Article Type

Professional Proficiency

Article Abstract

Related Issue:

An increasing number of university students in Canada are from East Asian countries and enrolled in graduate programs. For these students, unique factors may contribute to a stressful study environment, which in turn can impact academic performance. This article draws on literature to identify five such factors and appropriate coping strategies: (1) occupational factors, (2) sociocultural factors, (3) academic factors, (4) gender, and (5) age. While acknowledging that stressors are complex and can have both additive and subtractive effects on each other, the article recommends several intervention strategies that may be deployed at the institutional level to address and mitigate stress-related risks to ultimately improve student persistence and success: (1) comprehensive social supports, in which graduate supervisors and peer groups play prominent roles; (2) development of problem-solving skills early in a student’s program, when acculturative and occupational stressors are most severe; and (3) enhanced campus awareness of sociocultural and occupational limits and benefits.

Author(s)

Andrew Kim is director of Graduate Enrolment Services in the School of Graduate Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Canada. He is the past president of the Canadian Chapter of the National Association for Graduate Enrollment Management and the 2011 recipient of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers Strategic Enrollment Management Award of Excellence. His B.Sc. (Hon.) and M.B.A. were both earned at Memorial.

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