College Students and Adderall

I've been teaching a class on health communication in the media this fall for freshmen at UT. It's a really fun class that I enjoy teaching, due both to the topic and the energy the freshmen bring to the class. Tomorrow are final presentations for the class, for a project where I ask students to pick a health topic that interests them and then (1) make the case for their health issue as an important one and (2) how communication/advertising might be used in addressing the problem.

One of the teams picked use of Adderall by college students, both for recreational purposes and to help in academic performance. I've talked to them about this project numerous times since they selected it, but I'm going to be very interested in one they present tomorrow. I know they've been doing surveys/interviews with a convenience sample of their friends and peers, and it's looking like use of Adderall (and similar drugs) is common and relatively socially acceptable. They were going to be digging further into primary research over the holiday weekend to see what else they could uncover, and then come up with their final recommendations for how effective health communication might help address this problem.

The other groups picked stress/lack of sleep, concerns about over-exercising, and stress in the Greek rush/pledge system, which should also be interesting. It's always fascinating to see what the student teams uncover in their research, given that it could be argued they're more apt to get honest answers than more official surveys and research.

So really this post is just about my excitement to see what all these students present tomorrow... More to come.