This time of the school year is a stressful time for everyone, especially the workers at Sacramento State’s Psychological Counseling Service Center. While students cram for finals and stress about everyday life, the Psychological Counseling Center is overwhelmed with demand and has contracted outside help. Clinical Psychologist Paul Turner said in a recent article in The State Hornet that the Psychological Counseling Center needs more regularly employed counselors.

This has been a difficult semester for college students in general and definitely for Sac State students. Last week, a fellow Sac State student died from a stray bullet during a senseless fight one turn away from the campus.

This followed a generally ambivalent morale demonstrated by Sac State students this semester. We were used as both as leverage and as bargaining chips while the administration and faculty bickered over contracts, and we are still stuffed like cattle in the classrooms as our fees balloon. The Virginia Tech massacre was felt by college students coast to coast and left many wondering if their campus was prepared or vulnerable. Sac State offers free counseling for all students at the Drop-In Clinic, located on the 2nd Floor of the Student Health Center. Inside, students meet with a counselor and their immediate needs are discussed. Private treatment is free for each student for a limited period.

During the beginning of the semester, appointments are easier to acquire, but as the semester draws to a close, and the pressure on students increases, it is much harder to access this service. Students commonly have to wait a month and sometimes two months to see a counselor because they are so short-staffed.

The Psychological Counseling Services website offers links to articles and additional information on subjects ranging from managing reactions from trauma and stress to curing writer’s block. There is a phone number for the Suicide Hotline as well. The Psychological Counseling Services Center is doing the best it can with what it is being given to work with. The staff consists of psychiatrists, social workers and pre-doctoral interns that must tackle every student issue from the serious to the insignificant. Somehow it does not seem right that a student sniveling about not having anything to do on a Saturday night should have as much private time with a counselor as a student who is trying to sort out an abusive relationship, but the counselors here and across the country try to make the best out of a bad situation.

Campuses nationwide are seeking qualified counselors to help students react to and cope with everything the world throws at them. Sac State is working along with the Psychological Counseling Center to both increase the capacity and efficiency of the department. But the improvements are not keeping up with the current needs. By fall of 2008 the Psychological Counseling Center is expected to move into the new recreation and wellness center. By then the student population may have increased and the need for more counselors will dwarf the current situation.

If Sac State and the rest of the CSU are going to raise fees next semester then they better make sure some of that money goes to helping out both the counselors and the students by investing in some more full-time workers for the Psychological Counseling Services Center.