"College life is too depressing and I just cannot cope with it," said the teenage boy.

The reason was simple. The boy used to be a straight A student in primary and secondary schools. At college, however, he met much stronger rivals and failed to keep his top position or his self-esteem when everyone else was just as intelligent and hardworking.

Such cases are constantly brought to psychiatrists at the Chinese Medical Sciences University in the nation's capital Beijing.

One doctor said he received up to 20 college students each month and had to answer many phone queries too. The start of a new school year and the final exam days would see an even larger number of patients, he added.

Experts say the climbing incidence of psychiatric problems among young students is very often the result of personality defects, which are normally ignored by teachers and parents as long as the students get good grades.

A recent survey conducted in Beijing found that over 16 percent of the college students there have considerable psychiatric problems.

The situation is even more worrying with sophomores, 28 percent of whom show symptoms of depression and anxiety neurosis, the survey suggested.

While many students keep complaining, "I feel gloomy", relations with roommates and results of exams are found to be the two major causes of suicide on Chinese campuses.

Some students have gone to another extreme by murdering others or maltreating animals to vent their depression or anger.

Early this year, a university student in Beijing was detained for pouring a mixture of sulfuric acid and caustic soda over a rare species of bear at Beijing Zoo.

"I wanted to test whether they are really stupid or not" was all the 21-year-old had to say when he was caught red-handed.

"A considerable number of college students have psychiatric problems," said a professor with Hebei Normal University based in the provincial capital Shijiazhuang.

The university is home to a provincial counseling center, recently founded to promote the mental health of college students throughout the province.

In fact, alarms over student mental health were sounded to school management in Beijing and Shanghai nearly 20 years ago and they have worked to tackle the problems ever since.

Most of the colleges and universities in Hebei Province have started to provide counseling and hold regular forums to reduce the students' stress and teach them how to cope with difficulties.

To an introverted senior student haunted by the high pressure of the job market, the counselors would say the best therapy lay in a part-time job or any other chance to know more about the outside world and adapt to it.

The counselors, often faculty members from the schools' psychology departments, have also made an effort to enlighten the students on sex, traditionally a taboo subject about which the young could be very ignorant.

"We need updated textbooks, as the unalleviated theories in the old books are boring to both students and teachers," said a teacher of psychology at Hebei Normal University.

Most counselors say students' mental health should get more attention from society, and a sound family, campus and social environment is essential for their well-being.

(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2002)