“Everyone when I was a freshman was stressed and overwhelmed,” said Blackburn, now a social work junior.

To help students emotionally transition to college life and prevent students from engaging in self-destructive actions, the MSU Counseling Center is offering grants to Registered Student Organizations.

The organizations are encouraged to create programs to reach out to first-year students who would like assistance in dealing with emotional problems, said Jan Collins-Eaglin, director of the MSU Counseling Center.

In a 2010 study of MSU students, 38 percent stated they felt they needed some form of assistance in coping with mental and emotional problems, Collins-Eaglin said. However, many students are too uncomfortable to seek out proper assistance, she said.

“There is a stigma attached to receiving help for emotional and mental health problems,” Collins-Eaglin said. “One way to counteract that myth is to have students talk to students.”

The grants to Registered Student Organizations come from a larger Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act Fund awarded to MSU Counseling Center to assist in suicide prevention. From 2000-08, an average of almost three MSU students committed suicide annually, half of whom were freshmen, Collins-Eaglin said.

“Some of it has to do with the development of students,” Collins-Eaglin said. “It is during this time in their life there are a lot of stressors. Students that begin to feel depressed for the first time might not have a lot of education about depression. … Some students, they’re so overwhelmed, they lose hope.”

Finance sophomore Michael Henry said the MSU Entrepreneurship Association submitted a plan to the MSU Counseling Center for the grant. The group hopes to use the money to hold a competition to find and implement the best way to link the MSU Counseling Center with suicide prevention, he said.

“Our competition focuses mainly on suicide prevention,” Henry said. “The real value to the Counseling Center is going to be linking that idea with the Counseling Center itself. So as far as the freshman perspective, it’s hard to become oriented with all the resources on campus.”

Nick Pfost, chairperson of the Alliance of Queer and Ally Students, said the group would consider applying for the grant at their next meeting.

“I can see where students would be less receptive to people who were officials,” Pfrost said. “Students can reach out to other students in ways the university might be limited in doing or not consider.”

Registered Student Organizations that are interested in designing an outreach program need to fill out an application detailing the plan and a budget for it, said Juliette Niemi, the educational program coordinator with the MSU Counseling Center. Niemi said several applications already had been received. The final deadline is Jan. 31.