Every College Student Needs a "Happiness Anchor": Here’s Why
College is not always fun.
There are failed exams, financial pressures, roommate conflicts, homesickness, difficult courses, and family challenges.
During those moments, students may benefit from something surprisingly simple: a memory that reminds them why college matters.
Psychologists have a term for these crucial memories: “happiness anchor”. A happiness anchor is a positive memory we can return to mentally during difficult periods.
What Is a Happiness Anchor?
The phrase has frequently been connected to childhood psychology and memories. In one survey described by the Family Holiday Association, nearly half of respondents identified a family vacation as their happiest childhood memory. But any parent knows family vacations are a mixed bag. A family trip typically has highs and lows: magical moments alongside moments of tension. But a funny thing happens. Even if a child seems unhappy throughout an entire vacation, years later, they often say it was a wonderful experience. For children, having anchors of happiness during childhood matters.
Significant positive experiences become part of our personal story. They remind us of relationships, places, accomplishments, and moments when life felt meaningful. And importantly, the travel itself isn't necessarily what makes the memory powerful. It is often what happened during the experience: connection, novelty, accomplishment, discovery, or simply feeling that we were part of something.
That raises an interesting question for higher education: What are our students' happiness anchors from college?
College Can Create Powerful Anchors
Think back on your own college experience. Chances are, your strongest memories aren't of registering for courses or passing a quiz.
Maybe it was traveling abroad for a semester. But perhaps it was presenting research at a conference, performing in a major production, completing an internship in a new city, traveling with an athletic team, or participating in a service trip. Or maybe it was something during college not organized by the college, like a spring break trip with friends.
These are bigger than simply “getting involved.”
They are signature experiences.
Higher education has long recognized the educational value of many such opportunities through research on high-impact practices. Internships, undergraduate research, global learning, service learning, and capstone experiences can deepen learning and engagement.
But perhaps they serve another purpose as well. They give students experiences worth remembering.
Happiness Anchors and Retention
This becomes particularly interesting when considered alongside research on college belonging.
A national study of first-year college students found that, at four-year institutions, a stronger sense of belonging was associated with greater persistence, engagement, use of campus services, and better mental health. Other research has similarly identified social belonging as an important predictor of retention.
A happiness anchor isn't synonymous with belonging, and we shouldn't claim that creating one will cause a student to persist. But the concepts intersect in a useful way.
Imagine the student who tells an advisor in November, “I don't know what I'm doing here.”
Now imagine that same student has already experienced something meaningful at the institution: traveling with classmates to a conference, conducting research with a faculty member, participating in an unforgettable performance, leading an important service project, or completing a challenging outdoor experience with other students.
Those experiences don't erase the student's current difficulty. But they provide evidence. “I've done something meaningful here.” “I have people here.” “I've accomplished something here.” “There are parts of this experience that I would miss.”
When students contemplate leaving, those memories may become part of what they weigh against the difficulties they are experiencing.
The Advisor's Role
Academic advisors are uniquely positioned to help students identify these experiences.
Instead of only asking, “Are you involved on campus?” we might ask:
“What has been one of the best experiences you've had since coming here?”
“What is something you've done in college that you'll still be talking about ten years from now?”
And if the student doesn't have an answer yet: “What is one experience you want to make sure you have before you graduate?”
That answer gives us somewhere to go.
We can help students find the opportunity, internship, study-away experience, conference, service project, performance, competition, or other significant opportunity that fits who they are.
Academic advising has always helped students build a path toward graduation. Maybe part of that work should also be helping students build a college experience worth remembering—one with a few happiness anchors strong enough to hold when college gets hard. [Additional Reading: Are We Preparing the Next Generation of Student Affairs Leaders?]
