EDUCATION: Nursing students offer mental health presentations
By Kaily Olivo
Editor-in-chief
Published Tuesday, April 7, 2026
Before spring break, first-semester nursing students gave mental health presentations and second-semester nursing students presented their health fair presentations at Texas A&M International University. This two-day event ranged in topics from burnout, stress and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to energy drinks and caffeine awareness, travel health and sun safety.
Clinical Assistant Professor of nursing Adan Sanchez said awareness of these educational concepts was not only limited to spring break, but is information students and the community can carry along.
Participants at the sleep hygeine booth Claudia Rodriguez, center, and Jesus Manuel Muniz, left, talk to students for the Spring Health Fair on March 5, 2026, in the Student Center.
“So, these [nursing] students and they’re providing educational topics, and things to be safe during spring break, as well as helping the community with topics such as nutrition, [sexually transmitted disease] prevention, sexually transmitted diseases and drug safety,” Sanchez said. “These are all things of concern, especially during spring break, and these are topics we wanted to touch on, especially for the student body.”
Booth representatives interacted and engaged with students through glucose screenings, blood pressure screenings, minigames while providing stickers, candies, sunglasses, etc.
Nursing student Priscilla Marquez participated and informed and educated students on heat exhaustion and heat stroke with their booth “Beat the Heat, Stay Cool.”
“I think it’s very important … in general, because some students just feel like, maybe they know a little bit about a topic, but they’re not very educated about them,” Marquez said. “Some students might be a little intimidated to go and ask personal questions to their provider or anything and by [offering] these booths, they gain a little bit more knowledge.”
Besides educating and informing individuals on numerous health topics, Sanchez enjoyed seeing the creativity these nursing students put into the presentations while Marquez enjoyed presenting, engaging and interacting with the students.
“I love seeing the students and their creativity show with their work, not only getting that information to everybody, but the actual personality,” Sanchez said. “Their personal touch within these projects actually touched pretty deep.”
With these events comes future events in the works to educate and inform.
“We like to partner with student health services, and they’re able to provide these events with partnership from the College of Nursing to better prepare the student body,” Sanchez said. “There are other events that will definitely happen throughout … the future.”
