Trauma and Coping among University Students

Abstract

University education is an important stage of students’ academic life. Therefore, all students need to develop their competencies to attain the goal of passing examinations and also to developing their wisdom related to scientific knowledge they gathered through their academic life. Life in universities is a critical period for individuals as it is a foot step to acquiring the emotional and social qualities in their social life. There are many adolescents who have been affected by traumatic events during their life span but have not been identified or treated. More specifically, there are numerous burning issues within first year university students, namely, ragging done by seniors to juniors, bullying, invalidation and issues related to attitudes changes and orientation. Those factors can be traumatic for both their academic and day to day life style. Identifying the students who are with emotional damages and their resiliency afterwards the traumas and effective rehabilitation from the traumatic events is immensely needed in order to facilitate university students for their academic achievements and social life within the University education. This study tries to figure out the role of Emotional Intelligence for developing coping strategies among adolescents who face traumatic events. Late adolescence students recently enrolled at University (Bachelor students/ first year students) will be selected as sample. The study is to be conducted in a cross cultural manner comparing 100 students each from Germany and Sri Lanka.