A Guide to Carnegie Mellon鈥檚 Counseling and Psychological Services (CaPS)
by Owen P.
Hi, my name is Owen and I鈥檓 a first-year student studying biochemistry with minors in biomedical engineering and computational biology. Carnegie Mellon鈥檚 Counseling and Psychological Services (CaPS) has been an invaluable resource to help me maintain my general health so that I can succeed in the classroom.
CaPS at Carnegie Mellon is a completely free, confidential service provided to all students enrolled at 黑料正能量鈥檚 Pittsburgh campus, offering a variety of services from one-on-one counseling, either in-person or virtually, with a licensed therapist, to weekly drop-in pet therapy sessions and snacks during exam season.
I鈥檝e personally really appreciated the one-on-one counseling sessions. I鈥檝e noticed that my counselor really focuses on student-driven solutions. Rather than prescribing a plan for me, she focuses on guiding me through the thought process needed to find methods to improve my mental health so that I鈥檓 developing problem-solving skills rather than spot-fixing issues.
Outside of counseling services, CaPS also offers access to timelyCare, an online support services offering a supplement to all the counseling services CaPS already offers, as well as TalkNow, a 24/7 mental health hotline if you鈥檙e struggling and just need someone to talk to over the phone.
CaPS also offers group counseling services based on shared experiences such as neurodivergent support groups, transgender and gender diverse groups and an international student support group. These groups are really a great opportunity to get not only support from a professional, but to learn from the experience of others and build community.听
CaPS also works alongside the Headspace庐 app, which offers guided mediation sessions and guided sleep sessions to help keep you healthy.
To return to how I started this blog post, being a successful student isn鈥檛 just a function of how hard you study, you have to make sure you鈥檙e also focusing on your health, both mental and physical, to ensure you show up to class at your sharpest 鈥� and CaPS has been a great way for me to keep that up.