Sunday, February 10, 2013
High levels of stress at Carnegie Mellon decried
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: After learning that a fellow student at Carnegie Mellon University had committed suicide last month, graduating senior Katie Chironis would not stay silent.
In a forum piece published by the student newspaper, she bemoaned a campus culture in which overachieving students wear insane workloads like a badge of honor, pretending to be fine while academic and personal stresses approach a breaking point. Citing friends who had left school early or stewed on campus alone, she wondered why her university wasn't doing more to get them help.
"Many are suffering, and no one's talking about it," she wrote. "Why?"
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8 comments:
The article itself was interesting but the comments were far more interesting. I could not be leave the comments some left about how people were overreacting and how it was not actually an issue. Some of the posts brought up some interesting points regarding scholarships for some students it is impossible to go here without a scholarship. Naturally those students are going to do everything in their power to keep grades up. I am honestly appalled at what some people think is acceptable to say.....
I agree with Alex Kane, its appalling what some people think is acceptable to say. The fact of the matter is yes, we go to a high dollar private university. One commenter in particular generalized CMU students as our hardest points in our lives being studying in the guiet library with a $10 Starbucks drink. That the majority of the students here come from wealthy families and dont actually have anything to worry about. We are a high dollar univeristy because we produce the best graduates in our fields. But only the best survive here. As for the majority of us being wealthy, I have only my mother helping me out with what little she can, I work 40-70 hours a week over the summer because I dont have time to work while here and all of my loans are going into my name, i get some help from financial aid but its still going to put me in tremendous debt. I recognize how much I pay to go here because I will be the paying for it. I think i can speak on more then half of the campus population saying that we do not come from wealthy families and have worked our asses off to get here and continuously work our asses off to stay here. It is truely unfortunate that a student has been driven to the point of taking his own life and we as a community need to be more prepared to recognize those of use who are struggling and might just need some help and some encouragement.
I agree with both Sean and Alex. I think the amount of work that students handle here is unreal. I have never worked harder in my life. I love this place, but at the same time, everyone that I talk to has something bad to say about the vibe here. Everyone is always on their game if they want to be successful here. Those who aren't on their game don't stay. The whole..."this is the hardest thing we will ever do" is both stressful and great at the same time. I love working harder than I ever have, but I also love a LITTLE bit of free time....
I agree with Alex on his stance about scholarships. Yes, students are stressing to keep their grades up over that, myself included. And I think everyone in the school of Drama can certainly relate to the stories of what lengths people have gone to get things done. I do feel, however, that the School of Drama, while probably being one of the hardest working departments, also is one of the best at balancing work and play. While it is great that students at CMU want to do well and excel, and I am happy to see such a large group of devoted individuals in our school, I do think that it is important that the school promote healthy habits for those that have a little more trouble balancing work and recreation.
I think the whole conversation needs to shift from "CMU is too stressful, what can we do to make it less stressful" to "how can CMU help their students learn to manage and balance their stress more and learn to ask for help."
The suicide last month was tragic and may or may not have been preventable, but I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with making this tragedy into a campaign that showcases how stressful CMU can be. I do think that CMU has a responsibility to move forward and attempt to change the culture of self-martyrdom and one-up-manship complaints that seem to plague the campus, and to somehow convince its students that there are resources and help available.
Society's pressures and expectations are the main problem here; as achieving excellence is expected due to the high cost of such an education that CMU offers. That along with probably not having a comfort group of friends/family that students feel okay confiding in. Let's be real, not many students use the counseling services at a university.. not unless they are required to by a doctor or because they are use to going to counsellors. Many people don't even know that it exists or would be too ashamed to use the services.
Yes CMU is stressful, very stressful for many students and while not many may decide to commit suicide, some may turn to drugs, alcohol or even cheating. This is also the case in many other universities and people in the working world. Yes! CMU's counseling services has a responsibility to make themselves seem more approachable to students who are unaware of their challenges but may need such services, BUT SO DO STUDENT'S FRIENDS AND FAMILIES! If you pressure your children into thinking that university is the only way to go, and not just any college, but a top ranked one; then if they aren't performing up to scale, stress occurs. Anytime an expectation isn't met, STRESS OCCURS. How it is handled is another thing and that all depends on the person's personality and their circle of comfort.
About those comments below that article, those are just pathetic, yes students aren't in a battle field at war with the stress of dying in a minute, but they are in the battlefield of potential failure or success and that is their reality like death/surviving is for solders.
I agree with Alex about the comments on the article. People were just lashing out about CMU students being spoiled and how they don't know real problems. It sounded like they were focusing on financial jealousy instead of the mental stress and suicide. What people forget is that there are different types of problems. How can you compare physical pain to mental pain. And within mental pain, how can you compare the different types to each other? I think the fault of this mental stress is both the universities and society itself. I agree with Chironis that the university should focus more on supporting students' mental health instead of Andrew Carnegie's birthday cake. Luckily in the school of Drama, we are taught about how to deal with scheduling and managing our time wisely. Yes, we all still stress out, but we have a better understanding what to do. I'm not saying everyone should take a class; that would be like a new Computing at CMU, and I don't think anybody wants to go through another one of those. Instead, perhaps, the university can give a free lecture at the beginning of the year and during each of the midsemesters. As for society, society is the one who stresses to students that if you don't do well in school, you will fail in life. Now students are stressing too much in desperation for a successful career, and now people scold them for being spoiled and doing exactly what they told them. I think the CMU work load is manageable, but students must be taught how to manage time. Of course, I can only speak for what I have experienced, but I truly believe in what Randy Pausch said: "The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."
I think that the problem may be less how stressful Carnegie Mellon is, and more out attitude toward stress. Looking at one or two similar articles when a suicide happened last semester, many people commented something along the lines of how if you can't handle the stress of Carnegie Mellon, you are an idiot and clearly don't deserve to go here. This is not a helpful attitude, as cultures like this can prevent people who need it from seeking help, as they don't wish to be perceived as weak, or not deserving to go here.
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