Harvard Psychologist: College Students Have Always Struggled. So What Has Changed? | Alexis Redding – EP 838

What if today's young people aren't as different from previous generations as we think?

When Alexis Redding and her colleagues uncovered interviews with college students from the 1970s, they found familiar stories of loneliness, academic pressure, family expectations, and uncertainty about the future.

In this episode of Passion Struck, the Harvard developmental psychologist and editor of Mental Health in College: What Research Tells Us About Supporting Students explores what has changed across generations, why belonging matters to student well-being and success, and how parents, educators, and institutions can create environments where young adults feel seen, heard, valued, and encouraged.

Together, Miles and Redding examine the pressure to achieve, the myth of effortless perfection, the importance of student voices, and why learning to pivot may be one of the most valuable skills young adults can develop.

In This Episode, You'll Discover

• What archival recordings reveal about the similarities between college students across generations.
• Why blaming “kids these days” gets in the way of meaningful solutions.
• How belonging influences academic performance, help-seeking, persistence, and graduation.
• Why colleges need a campus-wide culture of care—not just a crisis-response model.
• How parents and educators can share their own failures and uncertainties to help young people feel less alone.
• Why perfectionism and achievement pressure make it harder for students to take risks and explore.
• How small changes in language can encourage curiosity rather than prescribe a single path.
• Why career pivots and reinvention are normal parts of adulthood, not signs of failure.

The Bigger Idea

Young people don't need adults to pretend that life follows a predictable path. They need environments where they can struggle, ask for help, take risks, and learn to find their way. When students feel that they belong, they have more freedom to grow.

Alexis Redding's work reminds us that the question isn't simply what's wrong with young people. It's what we can change about the environments surrounding them. 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexisredding/

Get the full show notes here.

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• Website: johnrmiles.com
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• Substack: The Ignited Life
• Children's Book: You Matter, Luma

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