Personal Wellness at Carnegie Mellon

At Carnegie Mellon, we consider personal wellness to combine physical, mental, and emotional and spiritual health and well-being. Toward that end, we provide many services and opportunities to maintain and improve all aspects of health. We hope that the diversity of experiences within each realm will also help students to further explore and develop these areas. If you have questions or want to know of more services that might not be covered below, please visit the list of services and offices on campus with which every first year student should become familiar.

Physical Health

Athletics and Fitness - With fitness classes and physical education courses, Athletics offers students the chance to dabble in physical fitness without committing to an entire team experience. The office also coordinates the large intramural program Carnegie Mellon students enjoy, with team and individual events. Often academic departments, student organizations, and residential House communities will host teams, providing an easy way to meet new students with a common interest. Students with a more competitive edge can test their polished skills with intercollegiate club sports and varsity teams.
Dining and Nutrition - Dining Services offers a variety of food options across campus, with eating locations and explanations of meal plans provided on their website. While some menu items are clearly healthy options, others might best be termed "comfort" food. Health Services, in partnership with Dining Services, helps students to find the balance between healthy and less healthy options through nutritional education outreach, nutritional counseling with a registered dietician, and specialty food resources for vegetarians and athletes.
Health Services and Emergency Services - Health Services provides daytime services for students in need of routine medical assistance, in addition to providing counseling and educational outreach programs related to nutrition, sexual health, hygiene, illness prevention, and alcohol substance use/abuse. In emergency situations, University Police will work in concert with Health Services (during the day) or our on-campus Emergency Medical Services (EMS) group (during the night) to get students to appropriate local medical facilities for treatment. When they return to campus, Health Services (often in conjunction with Disability Services) can help students find the resources and support they need, whether temporary housing for students with limited mobility, taxi cab vouchers for off-campus physical therapy, or other needs.

Mental Health

Academic Preparedness and Advising - Each academic department and college provides academic advising for their students, but there are several other places to go for professional advice. Academic Development supports students develop academic skills, such as positive study habits, provides tutoring, and also provides academic counseling for students who are struggling to make the most out of their coursework. In conjunction with Academic Development, Student Affairs provides a January series of workshops, called "JumpStart," to help students improve some of these skills for the spring semester. The Carnegie Mellon Advising Resource Center (CMARC) focuses its efforts on advising students and connecting students with larger goals to broaden their perspectives on academic expectations. The Career Center is another source for professional advising. While focusing on goals after college, the Career Center also helps students put their studies into broader perspective to ensure that coursework and extracurricular experiences meet future goals.
Stress Management - University life can be rigorous. This is especially true at Carnegie Mellon and as such, students who are unprepared for the rigors of being in a new and challenging environment will develop stress. In addition to time management seminars offered by Academic Development, students should take advantage of stress management opportunities across campus, whether finals programming hosted by House communities or more formal workshops, such as those provided by Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). Students should also plan to prepare for stress by eating healthy diets and talking with friends and even counseling therapists when they feel tension mounting.

Emotional and Spiritual Health

Counseling - Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) is a phenomenal resource on campus providing confidential therapy sessions, group workshops, and general information on all things related to emotional and psychological well-being at no cost, as well as psychiatric services and medicine for students in need of it. Additionally, students can also find more informal resources across campus, including friends and residential life staff and resources for those with specific needs, such as the Sexual Assault Advisors program.
Involvement On Campus - Social connections and campus involvement are two of the most significant correlates to student happiness. Becoming involved in student organizations, making friends with classmates, and even getting in some gym time will help students to keep themselves in balance and balance priorities outside of the classroom with academic priorities. For more information on ways to get involved, please visit our page dedicated to ways to get involved.
Spirituality and Meaning-Making - Whether students are exploring new religions, joining a new community of worship, or asking themselves the big questions in life, spiritual health plays an important role in the overall well-being of a college student. Carnegie Mellon's Interfaith Council (CMIC) seeks to provide students of all spiritual paths, including atheism, with information and an opportunity to engage in digging deeper. A program in all on-campus first year House communities that has recently grown, Big Questions, pairs faculty with residential students in weekly discussion series on topics determined by students related to the bigger questions in life and help students to make such meaning-making a part of their daily life on campus.