<p>I know a lot of students that go to UChicago, and most of them are very interesting, very smart- and at one point in their lives have been very depressed. This school is also incredibly rigorous, and a friend of mine that goes there became overwhelmed with the work and transferred out due to depression. I was wondering if depression is common at "quirky" schools like swarthmore and chicago. Are they just filled with sad people who think they won't fit in anywhere else?</p>
<p>Your conclusion seems to be based entirely on anecdotal evidence… taken from a handful of students at two extremely rigorous colleges.</p>
<p>Tufts is known for having quirky kids and people, in general, are very happy there. Take this with a grain of salt, but the Princeton Review ranked it 14th last year for happiest and 19th this year (released like several weeks ago).</p>
<p>Your logic is very flawed. And to answer your question, no.</p>
<p>Nope, nope. Quirk is a measurable quantity and the more a school has of it the more depressed the students are. Fact. My desire to attend a small LAC is just a thinly-veiled cry for help.</p>
<p>OP, this is a great example of how you can’t draw conclusions from a tiny non-representative sample. In order to really answer this question, you’d have to know the answers to the following: Are the students that you know representative of all students at those schools? How many students at those schools aren’t depressed? What’s the depression ratio at other similar schools? What’s the depression ratio at non-similar schools? You see the point.</p>
<p>You do raise a good issue, though. Depression is not unique to college students. In fact, college seems to be a protective factor in your age group; depression is less prevalent among students than non-students of the same age. But it can strike all age groups, all walks of life. It’s wise to be aware that anyone can fall prey to it, to know the symptoms, and to know how to get treatment.</p>
<p>I think you mean super rigorous schools = depressed students. UChicago and Swarthmore have reputations of being places where kids work day in day out. (UChicago’s nickname is “Where Fun Comes to Die” [WHERE</a> FUN COMES TO DIE](<a href=“http://uofcslogans.blogspot.com/]WHERE”>http://uofcslogans.blogspot.com/) , enough said). They may be quirky schools, but quirky doesn’t necessarily equal depression or really hard work. Tufts and Reed are quirky, and they have a lot of work as well. </p>
<p>Maybe there is some sort of trend between quirky and tons of work…</p>
<p>Still, I wouldn’t say quirky schools = depressed schools. And I do NOT like quirky schools.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s hard to distinguish workload stress from depression by looking at students. The college years fly by in a flash, with the resulting education often proportional to the effort expended. I’d say go ahead and appear depressed if you’re investing in your future.</p>
<p>Oh my god, I didn’t come to a conclusion I asked a question. I know I didn’t have a large enough sample, that’s why I asked. People on this website are such pretentious know-it-alls.</p>
<p>Some people told me
“You will be fine. You don’t have to study that much at UIC.”</p>
<p>So, I think I will be okay and happy.</p>
<p>It’s going to be hard to generalize.</p>
<p>Carleton College is quirky and hard-working but still lives up to its 2004 Newsweek/Kaplan “Hottest Schools” designation as “Most Fun-Loving.”
:)</p>
<p>^^^ Kind of an overreaction, don’t you think?</p>
<p>It really is kind of silly to ask a question like this. You are essentially asking people to answer whether or not a very broad generalization is true. A good way to think about sweeping generalizations is to assume not true.
Are more competitive schools more likely to have depressed students? No, depression is an illness that has many different causes, most of which could be found anywhere there are people.</p>
<p>I think Grinnell is about the quirkiest school you could find, and most of the students seem pretty happy to me. I mean, it’s not very often that I see depressed students foam sword fighting.</p>
<p>When you’ve got a lot of socioeconomic and cultural disparities at an institution, many students are bound to feel left out. An institution plays an important role in helping to create a sense of community among all students, really. When students become vocal enough about a lack of community at their institution, you know that the institution has failed in its responsibilities. </p>
<p>Perhaps the professors and administrators at Swarthmore and Chicago have taken a passive, or even apathetic, stance toward their responsibilities.</p>
<p>William & Mary is known as a non-conformist quirky school. It has also been rated as a school that has the happiest students. It helps that you can have 65 degree days in Jan/Feb. Chicago winters are prob depressing by themselves.</p>