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Original Publication Date
2025
Document Type
Presentation
Abstract
Graduate school can be a demanding and isolating experience, especially for international students who face additional challenges such as language barriers, cultural adjustment, and limited social support. Mohammad Jahanary’s research explores how outdoor physical activities can serve as pathways to psychological well-being for international graduate students in the U.S. Guided by the biopsychosocial model, he conducted interviews with 16 students across four universities to understand how these activities impact mental health. Participants reported that outdoor recreation not only improved mood, sleep, and stress management but also fostered a sense of community and belonging. While cost and safety were noted concerns, the overall findings suggest that outdoor and physical activities are affordable, culturally inclusive interventions that promote resilience. Jahanary’s work calls on universities to encourage and facilitate these opportunities—pairing international and domestic students and offering incentives—to build healthier, more connected, and more productive academic communities.
Transcription
Our next competitor is Mohammad Jahanary. Green Resilience: Outdoor Physical Activities as Pathways to Psychological Well-being for International Graduate Students in the US. They're in the School of Education, and their advisor is Dr. Jennifer LoCasale-Crouch. Graduate studies are just challenging for everyone, right? As students need to learn a work-life balance, they need to work on assignments, deadlines, research projects, and presentations like this. These new experiences usually lead to anxiety and depression, while 50% of graduate students here in the U.S. experience these conditions. That is six times higher than the general population. And 24% of these people have clinical symptoms of depression that require medication, regular visits to psychiatrists and psychologists. but their story changes for international students because besides all of these new challenges they also need to address language barriers cultural differences social isolation mostly by themselves why because during fall breaks winter breaks domestically students can pay a visit to their family and friends and take benefit from that social support but this social support is not accessible for international students at least for a couple years. I introduced outdoor and physical activities as an intervention that doesn't only bring mental health benefits but also social and physical health benefits that is supported by biopsychosocial model. I interviewed 16 students across four different universities here in US so far and I have found that they don't see these activities as just a way of keeping their physical health but also as a way of creating a sense of community, getting a better mood and sleep quality and manage their stress. However they had some concerns such as cost concerns and safety concerns but overall this intervention showed to be an affordable and culturally safe one. After all Mohammed why does it matter? Because these are future professionals and scholars of this country probably and if we want healthier and more connected campus community future we need to focus on this specific population. Just imagine in future you're going to have international workers and scholars that are better adapted to US social norms and values that significantly reduces workplace conflicts and increases work productivity. I suggest universities promote these activities more often or pairing international students with domestic students during these events and lastly putting some rewards for these fun activities to motivate international students to join. Thank you
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Comments
11th Annual VCU 3MT® Competition, held on October 3, 2025.