File this under "B", for "Boo Fucking Hoo"

[Monoriu]

I once worked in university education, and we specifically did a mini study on university student retention rates.  In Hong Kong, 99% of first year students are expected to graduate.  We actually considered that too high. 

[derspiess]

So it's all the fault of the Columbia student body for not being welcoming enough, and the faculty's fault for not coddling her as a "social learner".

Doesn't seem like she feels responsible for any of it.

You sure seem fixated on placing blame.

Yeah.  It's all on her.  I have no problem with her walking away from that opportunity if she couldn't hack it.  But don't do the disappearing act to cause people to worry about you and don't blame everyone else for your failures. 

[Razgovory]

Everything is your own fault.  Unless it's Obama's.  It might be Obama's fault.  In fact it probably is.

[derspiess]

K thnx.

[crazy canuck]

This story seems quite weird, I don't know how much is not being told. The girl's reaction was strange and obviously not very considered to those around her, but if what it says about her background is true (raised by a single mom, sent to a boarding school, overachiever, would only communicate with her mother twice per month...) I can see how that girl would be stressed/bummed/burned out. Her environment doesn't exactly seem to be the most nurturing one, and once she started having trouble with her life I can easily understand that the situation would spiral into a bad place.

I mostly agree with you, except I don't think the story is weird at all.  As someone else pointed the story of freshmen not adapting well to all the pressures of university for a whole range of reasons is well known.  It is also very common for kids in distress to try to avoid telling their parents about it.  Especially in circumstances like this.  Added to the pressures that all students face in their first year, this kid had to face the pressure of living up to all the expectations.   Berkut wishes he had her problems.  I don't think he has any idea what she went through or what it is like to be stressed to the point of just dropping out.  To add to the problem it sure seems from the few comments about her mother in the article that she was completely incapable of giving the kind of advice and support that would have helped her daughter.   

A lot of universities now recognize that proactive action is required and systems are being put in place to detect students in distress early on so that counselling services can be made available.  If identified early enough there is much that can be done to help them through the tough patches.

[Phillip V]

Nothing weird or surprising about this case.  The girl reacted to challenge and stress in an alien environment by shutting down and running away, which is a very real response for many people.

Other new college kids also follow the same roadmap and profile for 1st and 2nd year dropouts.

For a fundamental solution, children need emotional education in K-12 schooling, especially in the areas of adaptiveness and resilience.  Universities are following suit by providing more first year social and academic support to retain at risk freshmen.  The girl was overly praised and sheltered growing up; being an only child to a high achieving mother may have played a part.  My high school valedictorian was a similar high achiever that everybody praised as a future CEO and very smart, and she literally cried to a teacher to change one of her grades from a 'B' to an 'A-'.  She later left university for a semester due to a mental breakdown.

Overall, the health and wellbeing of young people seem to be suffering.  There are multiple tangents we can start thinking about, such as the rapid use of attention deficit drugs by students to cram for exams, increased rates of depression, etc.

[DGuller]

Part of the problem is that high school isn't really that hard (though maybe that doesn't apply in that girl's case).  If you put your mind to it, and are moderately intelligent, you will ace it.  However, as the educational difficulty ramps up, there is no reserve to tap into;  lazy smart students can step up to the challenge, but moderately intelligent hard-working students can't work any harder.  And if you were overachieving for all the wrong reasons in high school, you have a bad situation when the stresses of college life combine with lack of perfect academic success.

[LaCroix]

maybe she never really liked science and was kinda pressured into the role because she was good at it?

[Oexmelin]

Students in competitive universities arrive having been groomed, cared for, thoroughly trained for performing at college, where everyone keep telling them they are invested in *their* success. Their dreams have been hemmed in by pressures to perform, and their notions of the Good Life are wholly informed by landing high paying gigs at the best possible firms, whether those are pharmaceutical, biotech, WallStreet, etc.

the same time they operate within a culture - which may include their parents - that lauds college as a great time of partying, having fun, finding yourself, finding love, etc. And yet they are finding an increasingly corporate, bureaucratized environment. One of the recurring problems mentioned by students where I teach stems from their disappointment at finding an atomized social environment that fall short of their expectation of self-discovery.

I think their aspirations are slightly misplaced - for I think they are expecting that this self-discovery will happen like everything happens in a "school environment" these days: with people telling them how to get there, with clear goals, and seminars, and clearly delineated boundaries. I think ascribing that to "kids these days" is moronic: we have made this world for them. They are only expecting what we told them should be the only thing to expect. The peculiar alchemy that made colleges a place of socialization seems to be undone. I am sure some soulless Mono clones will laud and applaud the death of any and all aspirations beyond that of performing to make money - and while there are some students who enthusiastically sacrifice their souls in such a way, we should not be surprised that others want to run away. See the discussion between CdM and Mihaili in the "basement" thread.   

[Phillip V]

maybe she never really liked science and was kinda pressured into the role because she was good at it?

She doesn't know.  Nobody knows.  There was no questioning or true experimentation in her younger years.  Thus, the needed emotional education in K-12 schooling would include cycling of students through wildly varying environments, subjects, tasks, extracurricular activities, and social groups.  Children then can begin "figuring out who they are" at an earlier age rather than confusedly melting down as young adults when their previous rigid reality is turned upside down.

[Razgovory]

K thnx.

Actually this is probably a BLM plot.

[dps]

Students in competitive universities arrive having been groomed, cared for, thoroughly trained for performing at college, where everyone keep telling them they are invested in *their* success. Their dreams have been hemmed in by pressures to perform, and their notions of the Good Life are wholly informed by landing high paying gigs at the best possible firms, whether those are pharmaceutical, biotech, WallStreet, etc.

the same time they operate within a culture - which may include their parents - that lauds college as a great time of partying, having fun, finding yourself, finding love, etc. And yet they are finding an increasingly corporate, bureaucratized environment. One of the recurring problems mentioned by students where I teach stems from their disappointment at finding an atomized social environment that fall short of their expectation of self-discovery.

I think their aspirations are slightly misplaced - for I think they are expecting that this self-discovery will happen like everything happens in a "school environment" these days: with people telling them how to get there, with clear goals, and seminars, and clearly delineated boundaries. I think ascribing that to "kids these days" is moronic: we have made this world for them. They are only expecting what we told them should be the only thing to expect. The peculiar alchemy that made colleges a place of socialization seems to be undone. I am sure some soulless Mono clones will laud and applaud the death of any and all aspirations beyond that of performing to make money - and while there are some students who enthusiastically sacrifice their souls in such a way, we should not be surprised that others want to run away. See the discussion between CdM and Mihaili in the "basement" thread.   

If you're right (and I'm not entirely sure if you are or not) then things have really changed since my day, at least in High School.  I was considered a high achiever in H.S., but I didn't really feel that there was that much pressure on me to go to an elite university or into a particular field of study.  I would have actually appreciated more pressure, or at least guidance, along those lines.  For the most part, those of us who got good grades, tested well, etc., were told "You can do anything you want to do;  you should be successful in any field of study you want to go into".  Nobody helped us figure out what we wanted to do, because why should they--we were going to be good at anything we wanted to do, right? 

[Monoriu]

I find this case surreal.  I am a failure at life.  But when my parents dragged me to Canada, I experienced a change from high school to university, from HK education culture to Canadian education culture, from a Cantonese to English medium of instruction within weeks.  Add that to all the changes about living in an entirely different country.  Was it even remotely conceivable for me to say variations of "I needed time to adjust", "I needed help", "I am burnt out", "I am suffering from [mental illness of the week]", "I am not doing well because I left all my friends and the culture here is unwelcoming", "I wanted to discover myself/see the world/have fun at university/party/get a girlfriend", "I want to study what I want to study, not what the job market wants me to study" etc? 

The real world is sink or swim.  So is university. 

[Jaron]

I find this case surreal.  I am a failure at life.  But when my parents dragged me to Canada, I experienced a change from high school to university, from HK education culture to Canadian education culture, from a Cantonese to English medium of instruction within weeks.  Add that to all the changes about living in an entirely different country.  Was it even remotely conceivable for me to say variations of "I needed time to adjust", "I needed help", "I am burnt out", "I am suffering from [mental illness of the week]", "I am not doing well because I left all my friends and the culture here is unwelcoming", "I wanted to discover myself/see the world/have fun at university/party/get a girlfriend", "I want to study what I want to study, not what the job market wants me to study" etc? 

The real world is sink or swim.  So is university.

Another world is possible, Mono, if you just believe...

[jimmy olsen]

"I wanted to discover myself/see the world/have fun at university/party/get a girlfriend", "I want to study what I want to study, not what the job market wants me to study" etc? 

99% of Americans would say yes to the first, and the ones who would say yes to second would be over 80%, perhaps significantly so.