By
Justin Ecung
You see them everywhere. Standing outside the library in the freezing cold, outside of the Taggart Student Center and numerous other places around the Utah State University campus. It’s no secret that there are numerous students that smoke on campus, but why? They must know the many side effects of smoking that can affect their overall health, so why do they continue to light up daily?
Six out of fifteen students interviewed at USU have tried smoking or currently smoke. The majority of these individuals are completely aware of the many dangers associated with smoking, including the large number of annual deaths linked to smoking. Like smokers of any age, many college students are actively trying to quit.
For Christopher Thorton, college and smoking go hand in hand. Thorton, a junior studying business at USU, never smoked in high school, but found himself smoking once college classes started. He doesn’t smoke much over the summers, but as soon as a new semester starts, he is back to four or five cigarettes a day. Thorton has noticed that smoking has affected certain aspects of his social life and is trying to quit.
“At first I just smoked when I would go out to party and drank: it was just the thing to do. After awhile I realized that I was smoking more often, but I never really thought it was a problem until certain girls didn’t want to date me. I hated the constant odor of cigarettes that lingered on my clothes throughout the day or at a party; but not enough to make me want to stop,” Thorton said.
Consequently, it was something else which made him choose to stop. The young college student realized that his social smoking habits were affecting his overall health.
“My parents don’t smoke and they were becoming very concerned. I started coughing a lot and whenever I went to the gym to workout I noticed that it was extremely difficult to catch my breath. I always knew that smoking could cause cancer and other diseases, but you really don’t think about that when you’re young. But having a tough time breathing was enough for me,” said Thorton.
Thorton has begun making efforts to stop smoking. He has stopped buying cigarettes and does his best not to smoke when he drinks with friends.
Alexis Jordan, a junior at USU studying engineering, is another student who chooses to smoke regularly. However, although she isn’t a social smoker, she finds herself smoking just as much as Thorton, if not more.
“I didn’t start smoking until my second year of college,” Jordan said. “Sometimes I get really bad test anxiety before a big exam and before one exam I was freaking out at the library. Some of my friends were going out to smoke and I was so desperate to calm down and relax I decided to join them. The next thing I knew, I found myself buying cigarettes and smoking daily just to deal with the many stresses of being a college student.”
Instead of speaking to a counselor on campus about her test anxiety, Jordan chose to keep her academic challenges to herself. Her recent smoking habit provided a short-term solution to her anxiety.
“At first smoking was great. Whenever I got anxious or nervous about a test I would just step outside, have a smoke and it would calm me down. I would walk back in the library thinking that I’m just going to do the best I can do, and continue studying,” Jordan said.
However, Jordan’s frequent smoking concerned her roommates and friends. Brenda Sosa, Jordan’s roommate and high school friend, felt as if Jordan was becoming too dependent upon smoking.
“It seemed like she was always smoking,” Sosa said. “Every time I came home from class or even late at night I would look out our window and see Jordan outside again smoking. It was becoming too much of a crutch for her.”
Sosa decided to speak to Jordan about her growing concern, and the two plan on speaking with an academic advisor about how to cope with test anxiety.
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