Coaching for College Students in Charleston, SC
College is a lot, and feeling overwhelmed by it is an ordinary response to an unusual amount of change. Confidential coaching for figuring out what you want and how to get there. One-on-one or in a small group, in Charleston or online, from Gnosis Wellness Collective.
Life coaching to help you understand what's happening beneath your patterns and experiment with new ways of responding.
Is It Normal to Feel This Overwhelmed in College?
Yes, and it is far more common than most students think. Gallup and the Lumina Foundation surveyed nearly fourteen thousand students in 2024. About a third had considered stopping in the previous six months, and when they were asked why, emotional stress and mental health were the top two answers; well ahead of the coursework being too difficult, which came fifth.
49%
Named emotional stress was the most common factor
41%
named their mental health as the second most common factor.
20%
Stated the coursework was too difficult as the most common factor.
The academic part is real, but it's rarely the actual problem
If you don't understand the material, you need a tutor, and every campus has one. But for stress and overwhelm, most of what students get handed is advice. Sleep more, manage your time better, push through. Advice isn't a method, and nobody teaches you what to actually do on a Tuesday when everything is due and you're having a hard time getting started.
Coaching is where you learn how to actually create meaningful engagement with what's most important to you, and where you get a method to do it. The physical part comes first, because you can't think your way through a week when your body has been running hot since Monday, so you learn a couple of regulation techniques and practice them until they're automatic. Then you work out what actually matters to you this year, pick a few small things to start engaging in, and then you check the following week with your coach to understand what happened for you.
1. Lumina Foundation and Gallup. State of Higher Education 2025. Fielded October 2024, published April 2025. 13,933 respondents. Among currently enrolled students who had considered stopping out in the previous six months, the reasons given were emotional stress 49%, personal mental health 41%, cost 24%, sense of belonging 24%, and difficulty of coursework 20%. Multiple responses were allowed. news.gallup.com
2. Weissbourd R, Batanova M, McIntyre J, Torres E, et al. On Edge: Understanding and Preventing Young Adults' Mental Health Challenges. Making Caring Common, Harvard Graduate School of Education, October 2023. Nationally representative, fielded December 2022 via NORC AmeriSpeak: 709 young adults aged 18 to 25. mcc.gse.harvard.edu
3. Yeager DS, Henderson MD, Paunesku D, Walton GM, D'Mello S, Spitzer BJ, Duckworth AL. Boring but important: a self-transcendent purpose for learning fosters academic self-regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2014;107(4):559-580. Studies 3 and 4 were randomized experiments with 71 and 429 undergraduates: students in the purpose condition spent about twice as long per review question and solved 36% more problems once the task became boring. stanford.edu
On the Water, Outdoors, or in a Room
What College Students Bring to Coaching
Adjusting to college. This comes up in the first year, after transferring in, and when someone comes back from time away. Plenty of students are also homesick in a place they are 'supposed' to be glad to be.
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Feeling overwhelmed. Everything is due at once. You know exactly what you need to do and you still cannot make yourself start.
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Burnout and exhaustion. You are getting the work done, but your tired, and it feels much harder than it used to.
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Choosing a major, or changing one. Sometimes you are not sure you chose it so much as ended up in it.
Maybe it felt like it was a fit two years ago, but doesn't fit now, and you cannot tell whether it is too late to say that and change things.
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Loneliness and not feeling like you belong. You can be around people all day and still feel like you're on the outside. We can help you identify what you want in friends, and how to change you're engagement to it aligns with your values.
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Purpose and direction. Not knowing what any of this is for is a reasonable thing to wonder about at 18 or 19. It is also a hard thing to say out loud when a lot of money and a lot of expectation are riding on the answer.​ Purpose is where this work starts, because most of the other things on this list get easier to sort out once you know what you are aiming at. Purpose helps you to know what to say yes to and what to let go of. You can tell whether the major is actually the problem, or it's something else. You do not need to be in crisis to work on this, and you do not need to have an answer before you begin. Working out the answer is what the eight weeks are for.
How College Coaching Works: One-on-One or Small Group
Both formats use the same framework and the same tools, and both run for about eight weeks. The difference is whether you want the time to yourself or would rather do it alongside other people. If you are not sure which one suits you, we can work that out in the consultation.
One-on-one
You and your coach, weekly, sixty minutes, in Charleston or online. Everything is built around your situation, and the pace moves as fast or as slow as it needs to.
Go-coaching
Your coach comes to where the task is and works through it with you while it is happening. Some things are not hard to talk about, they are hard to start.
Small group
A few students meet together for ninety minutes every week. You get the thing you cannot get on your own, which is hearing people your age say out loud the stuff you assumed was only true of you.
What a Group Session looks Like
Opening
You start with about ten minutes of settling your nervous system, before anyone talks about their week.
The skill
Your coach teaches that week's tool properly, so you can use it rather than just recognize the name.
Practice
You try it on something real that is going on in your life right now.
Breakout
In group you'll split into pairs or threes and work through it with each other.
Close
You decide what you are taking into the week and how you will keep track of whether it happened.
One-on-one sessions follow the same arc. You regulate first, work the tool, then decide what happens this week, without the parts that need other people in the room.
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Both are confidential. In one-on-one, what you say stays between you and your coach. In a group, everyone agrees in the first session that what gets said in the room stays in the room.
If you need more than coaching right now. Some things deserve clinical care rather than coaching. If you are not eating or sleeping, or you are having thoughts of hurting yourself, that is worth real support and it is worth it soon. Your campus counseling center is there for exactly this, 988 is available any time by call or text, and we can help you find someone. Coming to us and being pointed somewhere more appropriate is a completely fine outcome.
What Is ADAPT Coaching?
ADAPT is a five-stage coaching framework developed by Dr. Maia Gill, a clinical psychologist licensed in South Carolina, and refined over more than fifteen years of applied work. It is the method behind every coaching program at Gnosis Wellness Collective, and it opens with one question, with everything else following from how you answer it
What areas of your life are most important to you right now?
Not the just your major, or your plan, and especially not the version you give people when they ask. We want to know what matters to you now, this year, with no one grading the answer. Most people find the answer isn't as hard to find and act on they thought. Figuring out the answer to what's important to you isn't a signal you're behind, it's just part of the work.
From there you pick which area to engage in first, by building small specific actions that actually move the needle, and we check in each week on what happened and what got in the way, including the weeks when nothing much happened, because those turn out to be the useful too. You leave with tools you can keep using: the Aligning Purpose Scale, the Stepping-Stones Map, and the IMOK tracking system, and more.
Who You'd Be Working With
Hillary Boyd
M.A. CMHC, Coach
Hillary Boyd, M.A. in Clinical Counseling and Advanced ADAPT Coach, shares her expertise in applied child development, women's well-being, and integration of diverse healing practices into daily life, with a multicultural population. Hillary accomplishes this by teaching her clients how to become unstuck from barriers in daily living to connect with what one cherishes the most in life. Hillary Boyd, M.A., brings over a decade of experience with specialization in how to set healthy boundaries, defy societal/self expectations to soar, and revive your purpose with science-based skills to move along one's path.
Bill Jarboe
ISA LVL 3, Surf Therapy Certified, Coach
Bill is a combat veteran, husband, father, and the kind of person who found healing in the ocean before he even knew he was looking for it. After years of navigating PTSD, addiction, and the disorienting quiet that follows military service, Bill discovered that the water could reach places nothing else could. What started as a birthday surf lesson became a calling - and eventually a life's work. Bill is a Groundswell-trained surf therapy facilitator who believes healing isn't about fixing what's broken. It's about reconnecting to what was always there. He brings lived experience, radical honesty, and a deep understanding of what it means to carry invisible wounds while still showing up every day.
Amanda Fay Quinn
RYT-500, Yoga Instructor
Amanda Quinn is a 500-hour Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-500) with a focus on yoga philosophy, psychology, and the transformative practice of Yoga Nidra. She is devoted to helping students move beyond the physical practice of yoga, cultivating self-awareness, nervous system regulation, and inner balance through the timeless wisdom of yoga. Drawing on the profound healing power of Yoga Nidra, Amanda guides students through the layers of body, breath, and mind to invite deep rest, restoration, resilience, and inner peace. Rooted in both yogic philosophy and an understanding of the mind-body connection, her classes weave together mindful movement, breathwork, meditation, visualization, and embodied awareness to support healing while encouraging students to integrate the principles of yoga into everyday life. With a gentle and compassionate approach, Amanda creates a nurturing, welcoming space where students can release chronic tension, reduce stress, quiet the mind, and reconnect with themselves.
Jordan Dasher, Coach
Jordan Dasher is a former Army combat veteran and a graduate of the Warrior Surf Foundation program. In the eight years since, he has volunteered there and taught surf sessions, first as someone going through the program and then as the person in the water with whoever came next. He is lifeguard and CPR certified. He is trained in ADAPT and coaches adults working through transition, burnout, and questions about direction and purpose. Jordan is also an artist, musician, and muralist who uses creative expression to talk about lived experience in a way that reaches veterans and civilians alike, and he has spent years teaching and mentoring in his community. He is a husband and a father of four.
How Much Does Coaching for College Students Cost?
Small group
$50 per session, which comes to $400 for the full eight weeks.
One-on-one
$150 per session, and you decide as you go how many you want.
Go-Coaching
$150 per session, and available in the Lowcountry at this time.
Consultation
Free. About 15 minutes, and you are not committing to anything by having it.
Common Questions
01.
Is this therapy?
No. Coaching is non-clinical, there is no diagnosis, and no treatment goals.Gnosis offers counseling separately, with licensed clinicians, if that turns out to be what you want.
02.
My parents want me to do this and I am not sure.
That is a normal place to start from. Come to the free consultation, ask whatever you want, and decide for yourself afterward, including deciding no. It takes about 15 minutes and you are not committing to anything by showing up.​
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03.
Do I have to be struggling to join?
No. Plenty of people come because things are basically okay and they want to be more deliberate about where they are heading. Coaching is built for that.
05.
Will it feel like being lectured?
Hard no. You are not being taught how to be a student. You're being taught how to engage in areas that are important to you and aligned with your values.
06.
Group or one-on-one?
People benefit from both. One-on-one's give you specialized time for your particular concerns, but groups can provide people with unexpected knowledge, perspective and connection.
07.
Why do so many students consider leaving college?
In the Lumina–Gallup survey, the reasons students gave most often were emotional stress and mental health, followed by cost and not feeling like they belonged. Difficulty of the coursework ranked fifth. Thinking about leaving is common, it is usually about how college feels rather than whether you can do it, and it is not a decision you have to make while you are exhausted.