How many times have you been told “Being a student is the best time of your life”? Or, when you start to complain about how much work you have on: “Work? You students don’t know the meaning of the word!”

I can vividly remember a family reunion during one of my university holidays, when a well-meaning uncle took it upon himself to advise me: “Live life to the full! You students have it so easy and you don’t even realise it! Real-life comes with responsibilities and there’s no going back,” he lectured.

This encounter left me feeling ill-at-ease, like I was living in a parallel reality from all this amazing ‘fun’ that was constantly happening. Overall, I had a great university experience, but there were times when it was not all fun and games - as real life rarely is.

A few years on, I feel entitled to have a moan about work, housemates and whatever else has got under my skin. But at university, a lot of effort was required to convince people that I wasn’t just ticking along as people do. No, I was having ‘the time of my life’ and revelling in this mythical Dionysian world, free of all worries, problems and pressures of work that ‘real-life’ adults have to deal with.

It turns out that, for many students, this perceived notion of student life is far from the truth. In fact, the most recent study of mental health in Higher Education Institutions (HEI), carried out by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2003 found that 25 per cent suffer from mental health illnesses at some point and many also experience problems with drug and alcohol abuse, depression, eating disorders, self-harm and anxiety disorders.

This statistic is the national average for adults in the UK, but the 2003 study found that there was a worrying trend of increasing mental health problems among students. Worse still, there are no systematic procedures in place, so that provisions for unwell students could be described as “at best…patchy.”

But hang on, what do students have to be worried about? Aren’t we all down the pub socialising with our friends and stealing road-signs without a care in the world?

Dr Moira Fraser, Head of Policy for the Mental Health Foundation says the causes of mental health problems are very complex.

"Although anyone can suffer from mental health problems, some students may be at a higher risk, for example those exposed to family breakdown as a child or people from a lower socio-economic background," she said.

“Our lifestyle is also extremely important. Not getting enough sleep, eating badly and partying too hard can all put students at greater risk of having problems. It's also important that students are able manage the stress of academic life, particularly around exam time," Fraser continued.

Cambridge is renowned for its demanding work-load and emphasis on high achievement. However in one ex-student's experience, this was often at the expense of students' well-being.

"Four of my friends at Cambridge had to leave because of alcoholism...Psychologically, it is a really intense experience," said Claire Mullan, who graduated from Cambridge in 2006. "[The University] put real pressure on you mentally, and in some cases that's really good training, in others it ruptures the latent cracks. [It] positively encourages an unhealthy work-life balance, and a slightly manic-depressive lifestyle, where you work loads then you have big down patches," she said.

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