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E-PrinceSeveral months ago, fellow opinion columnist Susannah Sharpless wrote an article called “Being Happy at Princeton” in which she talked about the struggle to save face while secretly going through hardships as a student at this University. There is this ...(back to the article)
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I don't understand why everyone says it's so cutthroat/competitive here. I don't feel that's the case at all. At the end of the day, I'm going to graduate with the same diploma as you are, whether I got an A or a C.
Remember: Cs GET DEGREES!
Totally agree with '15.
I actually had to withdraw from Princeton because CPS thought I Borderline Personality Disorder (though not depression) and needed treatment. Returning home and having to support myself through working long hours at mundane job in my small hometown, paying rent and power bills, and cleaning and cooking for myself made Princeton seem like a vacation! Rather ironically, after a year of making sandwiches at Subway for a living, I ended up with depression even though I had never had any symptoms as a student, and subsequently never returned to Princeton :(
"Despite the fact that this percentage of students is not large, the administration should investigate why these students leave once or multiple times."
Lol the administration knows full well why people leave... it being the reason most people who take a leave of absence do so
"No one ever discusses it. There might be a simple question as to where a certain person is, and then someone will respond saying that he or she has taken a leave of absence. Then shortly after, the topic changes."
We don't discuss it because many people who say they've taken a "leave of absence" were actually suspended for cheating/disciplinary violations, and it's not nice to speculate as to whether someone is taking a leave or was suspended.
Even if they have taken a leave of absence, it might be that they failed a class, and you don't really want to talk about that either.
"it is easy to think that there is nothing to be unhappy about at the University."
I don't think that's true.
Until I see some stats showing that a higher % of Princeton students take voluntary leaves than at other schools, I will be unconcerned
"Whenever I’ve discussed issues with depressed students who have taken a leave of absence, one of the many reasons for their leave is their inability to succeed despite intense effort. It is especially difficult to continue to try one’s hardest in class, for example, when effort doesn’t equal desired yield"
Welcome to the world, kid
I don't mean to trivialize the serious and important problem of depression, but I think you're making a mistake to assume it's a Princeton problem. In my opinion, it's likely to be just as bad, if not worse, at other elite universities with high achieving students.
Almost everybody here -- student, faculty and staff alike -- is the end result of a severe selection process which winnowed out anybody who wasn't a big and regular "winner" in their careers thus far.
You take a bunch of people who have known only success in their lives to date, put them in one location where there is some explicit and even more implicit competition among them, and that is a recipe for stress and anxiety.
I think that you're kidding yourself to believe grade deflation is a root cause here. Do you think the situation is any better at Harvard and Yale, two well known wellsprings of grade inflation? This is obviously an anecdotal example but, tragically, one student at each campus killed her/himself just within the past two weeks.
No, I think the cause is that we live in a hyper-competitive society where, for seventeen years, each of us has been told that we were the best and the brightest. Senior year in high school, we each got a "fat envelope" attesting to that fact.
Then we get here on campus with only other best and brightest and realize that -- you know what? -- not everybody can be smarter and more talented than everybody else. It takes an adjustment to handle that reality. Some have difficulty doing that and still others will have tremendous difficulty doing it, including becoming depressed.
From my personal experience, Princeton is actually a pretty decent place in terms of the campus culture. It's not that competitive in the grand scheme of an elite university. Focusing on Princeton specifically is really headed down the wrong path in terms of understanding why high achievers get depressed and how to remedy their pain.
I submit that behind many psychological or grade-related departures from Princeton is a failure of the highly touted, but, in practice, largely sub-par, student "support / advisory" system in place. Although it seems everyone from the resident advisor up to the president of the university has student "support / advisory" in their job description, the reality is that for most students this is meaningless, because if everyone is responsible, in effect no one is responsible. For engineering students in particular, where the student population at the incoming levels is exploding, advisory / support is at best a perfunctory, check-the-boxes, meeting to prepare a schedule for the next semester. There is no effort to get inside the student's situation and build a relationship that enables a true advisory / support role. Whether this derives from a lack of leadership among faculty leaders, or a resource allocation issue, or something else altogether, the end result is the same: students flounder without the benefit of the value-add of a properly functioning advisory / support mechanism. At minimum, mandatory, frequent meetings should take place between at-risk (to be defined) students and their advisor(s) if the students are experiencing the kind of academic stress that precipitates departures. Psychological support should also be brought to bear as well. Overall, the quality of the advisory / support role can be, should be, and needs to be seriously strengthened. Just a suggestion