Author Name: – Prerna Arora and Ritu Singh / Date:- December 2023
Abstract
Anyone, regardless of the age, gender or culture, can experience loneliness, which is a complicated and frequently misunderstood emotion. Many youth or college going students may experience loneliness as a result of the adjustment to novice university life, entirely new framework of academics and difficulties in making new friends. The present study aimed at assessing extent of loneliness among first year students of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs. The Perceived Loneliness Scale was administered to two ninety three students selected by using Yamane’s formula viz. the population to sample selection formula and drawn through random sampling from G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Uttarakhand. It assessed existing level of loneliness among youth on three ladder scale that is, low, moderate and highly lonely. Results revealed that unfortunately eighty nine per cent Undergraduate students reported feeling moderately lonely, eight per cent highly lonely and three per cent low lonely while deplorably eighty seven per cent of Postgraduate students reported feeling moderately lonely, eight per cent highly lonely and five per cent low lonely.University students’ feeling loneliness is a serious problem as they are the future leaders of our nation and it has repercussions for their mental health, academic progress and general well-being. The prevalence of loneliness makes it imperative for universities to build more welcoming and supportive cultures by initiating orientation programmes, mental health services, peer mentoring, extracurricular activities and campaigns to encourage open discussion about mental health and loneliness to combat loneliness among university students which will eventually benefit both individual students and the society at large.
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