Current Trends

Welcome to our Current Trends Section. Continue to check back often as this section will be updated on a regular basis with valuable and timely trends and updates. Please select an item from the list of resources on the left.

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Teenagers are programmed for risk, study finds.

April 26th, 2010 - A new study by British scientists might explain why adolescences engage in often high-risk activities like drug-use, unsafe sex and poor nutrition. (read more)

First-Year students in the US abandon business as a major

January 22, 2010 - The percentage of college freshmen planning to major in business fell to its lowest levels since the 1970’s, according to a recent national survey. (read more)

TimeToTalk.org gives 10 New Year’s resolutions that show kids you care

January 4th, 2010 - A New Year’s Resolution for Every Parent: Talk With Your Kids about Drugs and Alcohol
Resolving to talk more often with your child about healthy decisions & choices is a great idea for the New Year. (read more)

Teens love to be miserable: Study

December 14th, 2009 - In trying to better understand why teens and youth experience more emotional outbreaks than their older counterparts, researchers set out to understand how individuals directly influence their own emotions. Researchers found that youth, primarily under the age of 18, are likely to try and maintain or induce a bad mood, on average, about 25% of the time. (read more)

University enrolment is up across Canada.

October 28th, 2009 - Across the country, enrolment in universities has increased by the greatest amount seen since the double-cohort in Ontario. The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada reported a 4.1% increase since last year, and a 7.2% increase for full-time students. (read more)

Study finds students want to hear your call

October 10, 2009 - A new British study finds nearly a quarter of first year university students would like to receive a call from their parents as much as once a day. This may be great news for parents who are keen on staying in touch with their children as they undergo new changes. However, child psychologist and parenting expert Pat Spungin reminds parents there is fine balance between being there for them and being overprotective. 22.4% of students in this study preferred email or text messages, particular in males, which could be an alternative option.
(read more)

A new service helps students professionally develop their online presence

September 23, 2009 - WhyHire.me has been launched to help students grow their own online presence using coaching, branding techniques, and social media tools. Students can learn to digitalize their resume by integrating blogs, photos, videos, news feeds and Twitter. (read more)

Helpful hints for students to avoid identity theft

September 18th, 2009 - In the era of facebook and telemarketing scams, students are entering universities with a fairly unique challenge their grandparents and parents didn’t really have to worry as much about.Identity theft has been a growing issue, especially for students in universities and colleges in one of Canada’s major cities. Official cards like driver’s licenses or health cards are often targeted for other students to make fake ID’s, or worse, for identity theft and fraud. Similarly, sensitive information posted on social networking sites are often used to build consumer profiles for advertising/marketing fraud. (read more)

Study finds campus drinking is effectively reduced by brief online interventions

September 16, 2009 - A recent study from researchers in Australia and New Zealand found that internet-based screening and brief interventions has a very effective impact on problem drinking on campus. (read more)

Is the Freshmen 15 becoming a myth? Nutrition and health habits seem to be improving on campus

August 31st, 2009 - It is common for parents and students to be horrified about a potential 15 pound increase once they enter their first year of university or college. As the myth goes, first year students are to expect a 15 pound increase in weight, and a 15 point decrease in their grades. The weight increase is typically attributed to pizza, beer, partying and binging. (read more)

Facebook and twitter can trigger an out of control party

August 19th, 2009 - A party is a party. It is not new for students to try and organize as big of a party as possible, but in the era of Facebook and twitter, there exists new problems and potentially huge disasters. (read more)

The Recession Hits Students Hard

August 14th, 2009 - Statistics Canada recently reported that the national unemployment rate for students rose to 21% in July, the highest rate since these statistics started to be recorded in 1977. Also, nearly half of the country’s 414 000 people thrown out of work since the recession began last fall were young people, between the ages of 15 and 24. (read more)

Building friendships that last

August 11th, 2009 - Helping my friends proved to be one of the most satisfying experiences that I have had in my post secondary years thus far. Being a designated driver, taking friends keys, or just watching over them at night to make sure they slept in the BACCHUS position, while exhausting, was extremely rewarding. I learned in my first year how to be a friend when a friend drank to excess, when a friend needed a watchful eye over a drink at a bar, and when a friend needed someone to take their keys away, whether they realized it or not. I cannot stress enough how important the friendships that I made at school have been for my safety and well-being. Just like I have kept a watchful eye over my friends on occasion, I know that if I needed it, they would likewise keep an eye on me. (read more)

Adolescents at higher risk to form gambling addiction, several studies show

August 10th, 2009 - Over the past decade, gambling has ballooned into a multi-billion dollar industry. According to a recent study, teens and tweens are using web-based casinos, lottery sites, and online gambling in huge numbers, and the provinces should be doing more to stop it. Unlike real casinos, minors usually have unrestricted and unregulated access when online. Numerous studies have indicated the rates of problem gambling are two to three times higher in adolescents compared to adults. (read more)

Campuses Brace for Potential Flu Wave

August 7th, 2009 - Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier, the director of student health services at McGill University in Montreal, is working directly with campuses across the country to discuss flu planning and to get students ready to handle any compromising situations they may encounter this flu season. The flu seasons is a regular concern on campus, due to the close proximity and interaction between students. But this year, concerns are higher than normal. (read more)

Nearly One in Five University Students Experienced Violence in Last Six Months: UBC Study

August 5th, 2009 - While attending post-secondary, men are equally likely as women to have been victims of physical or emotional violence, and that violence is often linked to drinking, according to a new study led by University of British Columbia. (read more)

New study suggests heavy drinkers face significantly increased cancer risk

August 4th, 2009 - A Study by McGill University found those individuals in the highest consumption category of beers and spirits increased their risk of developing a wide variety of cancers. Using data originally collected for large occupational cancer conducted since the 1980`s, Dr. Beneditti stated, “we saw increased risk for esophageal cancer, stomach cancer, colon cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer... but the strongest risk was for esophageal and liver cancer.” (read more)

Study finds scare tactics don’t help to reduce consumption

July 27th, 2009 - The Student Life Education Company has been a leader across Canada in the promotion of risk-preventative, healthy, proactive decision-making for youth, especially in the area of alcohol consumption. Unlike most orthodox social messaging organizations in the area of alcohol consumption, we recognize that some students will experiment. Rather than scaring them out of risky behaviour, we give students the tools and knowledge to help them make the right decisions if they find themselves in potentially risky situations. (read more)

Getting Involved in Your First Year

July 21st, 2009 - First year can be an overwhelming time for many, if not most students. A lot of students arrive wondering how to get involved in things that interested them in high school. In order to better adapt to the new environment, a lot of students wonder how to get involved in things that they formerly loved. There are many opportunities on all campuses to get out and do something that you enjoy, or even to try something new. I tried a lot of new things, and also did things that made me feel like I was holding on to some semblance of my old life. University and college life usually makes it easy to find opportunities that are beneficial for students to partake in. There are club fairs, and booths set up during orientation week, and the school website generally has something about clubs and/or sport activities that people are welcome to join. (read more)

Facebook Scams

July 12th, 2009 - Facebook is a common social networking media tool that is popular with high school and post-secondary students. Making the transition from high school to college or university is one of the most exciting times in a student’s life, therefore it should come as no surprise that they would join their new school’s Facebook “Class of …” site. It’s a great idea! In order to meet fellow classmates, ask alumni and upper year students questions and get excited about the institution that the student has chosen. (read more)

Maclean’s 2009 Guide to Canadian Universities

July 9th, 2009 - My link to Queen’s University is rooted in my experiences there as I am entering my fourth year in the fall and have lived both on and off of campus in Kingston. I took an interest in the Maclean’s 2009 Guide to Canadian Universities since I knew that Queen’s pulled out of the survey a few years ago, and it’s always interesting to see what is said about my school. I became quickly frustrated by the culture that Maclean’s painted for Queen’s – a culture that was clearly only absorbed in drinking. The top of the What’s Not [Hot] list was Homecoming being cancelled due to “raucous street parties in the past”. While this may be true, more aggravating still was the idea that nearly everything that was interesting off campus revolved around alcohol, including the bar that closes and is renamed every year due to its illegal allowance of underage students. How appropriate is it for a magazine that is trying to attract first year students to focus solely on drinking? (read more)