As I have been doing for the past few years, students in my four psychology courses (two sections of Social-Cognitive Psychology and two sections of Behavioral Neuroscience) completed the “political advocacy” assignment, wherein they write to elected officials about some topic they are concerned with, connecting it somehow to topics we’ve covered in the course. This year, approximately 70 students sent 210 letters.

I downloaded the submissions and fed them into Claude Opus 5.5 for thematic analysis, resulting in the following top-five topics.

1. School-based mental health services (~17 students) This is again the most common topic, and now the clear leader rather than tied for first. Students asked for more school counselors, wellness centers, and early-intervention services, often citing California’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative. A related group of about four students wrote about student stress more broadly: homework limits (extending the Healthy Homework Act to private schools), mental health education to reduce stigma (SB 531, which also appeared last fall), and physical activity during the school day.

2. Mental health and healthcare access and affordability (~12 students) Students wrote about Medi-Cal patients struggling to find therapists, incentives to bring mental health providers into underserved areas (H.R. 7324, a Medi-Cal loan repayment program), CARE Court, copays for low-income patients (AB 2208), LGBTQ youth mental health (H.R. 3757), and research funding for youth mental health, dementia, and diverse clinical trials.

3. Poverty, housing, and homelessness (~8 students) Five students wrote about homelessness and affordable housing, often after volunteering with unhoused families, and one wrote about AB 1556’s sober housing requirements. Others addressed food insecurity (AB 1734) and the CalEITC, framing poverty as a source of chronic stress for children and families.

4. Violence, crime, and personal safety (~7 students) Topics included domestic violence and shelters, support for crime survivors (H.R. 8426), law enforcement coordinators for trafficking victims (AB 2720), consent and sexual assault prevention education, anti-bullying policy, firearm safety certificates (SB 948), and package theft.

5. Social media and youth mental health (5 students) Students supported KOSA and California’s SB 976, focusing on addictive feeds, late-night scrolling, and social comparison.

Overall

School counseling and mental health access remain the backbone of the assignment. Below them, the class shifted away from social media, immigration, and guns, and toward economic hardship, housing, and personal safety. Topics were also more spread out this semester, with a longer tail of one- and two-student issues.

Fall 2025 Comparison

Comparing submissions this semester to those from Fall 2025, we find the same core: school-based mental health services and general mental health and healthcare access again led by a wide margin. School counseling grew to a clear first place (~17 students). Social media (9 to 5 students), immigration (7 to 4), and gun violence (5 to 1) all shrank. Immigration letters also shifted from family separation toward the effects of enforcement, such as ICE keeping students out of school and evictions after a family member is detained. In their place, two new clusters rose into the top five: poverty, housing, and homelessness (~8) and violence and personal safety (~7), covering domestic violence, trafficking, crime survivors, consent education, and bullying. Veterans’ mental health held steady. Topics were also more spread out overall, with a longer tail of one- and two-student issues ranging from dementia research and green space to classroom political bias, women’s sports, and foster care.

Conclusion

I do this assignment because my psychology courses are hosted by the Social Science department, and in our department handbook one of the key goals of the department is increasing political engagement. I very explicitly tell students that while I’m interested in the topics they choose to write about, their grade in no way depends on their political stance. Being one-quarter through the semester-long class, I’m confident they believe me.