Addiction Resource Scholarship Essay Contest

Essay Contest Background
The majority of college students meet the criteria for a mental health disorder. Mental illnesses that are having significant impacts on college students today include depression, addiction, anxiety, and ADHD, among others. What’s more, many students go either undiagnosed or untreated for these mental health issues.

Emotional stress from undiagnosed or untreated mental health disorders can cause increased academic stress, higher dropout rates, worsening physical and mental well-being, overwhelm, isolation from peers, and other negative effects. Without the necessary tools to manage mental health issues, college students may struggle to find ways to cope.

This is why bringing awareness and fresh perspectives to the conversations around mental health issues in college is critical.

Essay Submission Topic
Research the rates of mental health disorders among college students and discuss factors that contribute to poor mental health. This may include financial stress, racial disparities in treatment, lack of access to mental health care, social stigmas, or other issues. Draw on your own personal experiences with mental health and discuss ways in which you feel mental health issues affect the students on your campus.

Create a unique idea for an awareness and prevention campaign, and include the specific ways you would implement this campaign on your campus, given the opportunity. Ensure you are both creative and detail-oriented, sharing why your campaign would be an effective strategy for your school to adopt.

Essay Submission Guidelines
When submitting your essay, please adhere to the following guidelines:

Essay is your own original work
Essay is no longer than 1,200 words
Judgment guidelines: content quality, degree of originality, completeness, and relevancy to the topic
Essay submission deadline: December 15, 2023
Scholarship award announcement: December 20, 2023
Scholarship will be awarded for the January 2024 semester. Scholarship will be awarded directly to the university through the financial aid department (or however the university chooses) to be distributed to the winning student.