<p>Perhaps you can translate bears and dogs for us, parent1986. I don’t fully understand what she is trying to say.</p>
<p>Too many assumptions about comments being directed a posters. IMO the comments are being made about the posts, not the poster.</p>
<p>Maybe the student got some special treatment (ie got a single as a freshman) because his dad was a respected faculty member. Maybe he got it because he got a note from his doctor saying he needed a private room for personal/health reasons. We simply do not know.</p>
<p>But count me in in the camp of people who are equalaly saddened at the death of this, or any student, regardless of who their parents are. Understand that in his family’s nationality/heritage/cultural network it may be more personal and more painful. I simply hate to see any young life lost.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And would it help if they did? The MIT student who died had family nearby – he was a faculty brat. He probably had friends nearby, too, attending one of the many colleges in the Boston area. It doesn’t seem to have mattered.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>He was a young man, not a show dog. I also agree with PG and EK.</p>
<p>A “great line”? Oh, gag.</p>
<p>parent above^
thanks, phew.
like, PG says she has no idea what I was trying to say but somewhat she took it as I am saying this kid’s death is more important than other kids.
I was only trying to point out his circumstance could be very different,
ie
why he was in the single as freshman
why no one came to check on him
why his family did not contact the kid for a week nor alerted official
etc
which could be out of norm of regular American college freshman’s life.
since we don’t have no farther info yet, it is kind of pointless to compere how our experience or expectation is to schools or own life, because this certain kid’s weren’t it.
I even apologized in the opening of my post knowing it might off- topic or out of place, for I have learned this from my past troubles in the parents forum.
I just felt like saying something that might never have crossed your mind.
people are people, yes. but they are all different.
this is the country made from all those people.
I’d like to understand it more, and wish you do, too.</p>
<p>I think this student death will remain more memorable than most – but not because of his father’s extraordinary career.</p>
<p>In most instances, if a student dies, there is an impact on the college community and an impact on the community from which the student came. But in this instance, both are the same community because the student’s father is on the MIT faculty. So the impact at MIT will be greater.</p>
<p>Bears and Dogs, the tragedy is that, a tragedy. Nobody denies this fact.</p>
<p>Each of us are simply discussing ways in which to keep our own and your kids safe on college campuses, theoretical ways to keep track of kids. I don’t think anyone here genuinely believes anything could have been done, but all of us are horrified by the idea that a student could be “missing” for a week without anybody noticing.</p>
<p>Nobody wants that to be the case for any student, and it has led some to believe he was very isolated, just in general, while others believe this is more “normal” than we might realize.</p>
<p>As to the tragedy of the death? This is not in dispute. everyone here feels for this family.</p>
<p>This whole story is scaring the living daylights out of me as I sit here reviewing my kid’s MIT application for errors and omissions before pressing the submit button.</p>
<p>A Stanford student who had a parent on the faculty committed suicide a few years ago. It seemed to have a bigger impact than the other deaths at the school.</p>
<p>However, I do think the school is responsible, and that they take actions to prevent student deaths. </p>
<p>Ask around. I have yet to ask one kid who feels like he could have been left alone and unnoticed for a week. RA’s and others check on the kids. At MIT I think it would be more prevalent.</p>
<p>My son lived in a private dorm (not campus-run) which was more like an apartment building. It was “off-campus”, but about as on-campus as you can get, really. If you didn’t have friends, you could go unnoticed there for a long time if you lived in a single. Absolutely no one else would check on you. This was at Penn. </p>
<p>Agree that any loss of a young person is a tragedy, whether or not from a show-dog quality family. Perhaps more media attention will be paid due to the parents, but that is the main distinction. Parent, family and friends love the person not for his or her earning potential or IQ.</p>
<p>Texaspg, it just happens to be that the kid was at MIT. It could have happened anywhere. I don’t think it’s a reflection on MIT at all. </p>
<p>One thing that strikes me in past discussions is that students have posted about roommates that were not social, who just stayed in the room or in computer labs and didn’t engage in the typical social interaction of going to dinner with other students, going out at night, etc. Invariably, as these discussions unfolded, some parents of kids on the spectrum, or those kids themselves, would post and say that the kids were content and not bothering anyone else with their quirks and that they didn’t really appreciate the being-rounded-up-to-all-go-see-a-movie that well-intentioned fellow students or RAs would engage in. That we are all different, and if a student doesn’t want to engage socially, then just let him be. In that light, it’s difficult to know whether a student who doesn’t engage is desperately lonely and depressed, or whether he is just not neurologically typical and is just wired to really want solitude. How much DO you pester someone who doesn’t seem to want to engage?</p>
<p>a small note, but my niece, a junior at MIT, has had a single every year and not by special request. It’s apparently not that unusual. She says they are really ramping up their counseling services since the incident.</p>
<p>My MIT kid did check in with me last night, but offered no new details. I’m hoping that every house has a session on mental health. I don’t know if this was a suicide, but I’m hoping the death inspires more of a buddy system.</p>
<p>I recall other suicides, and talking to myson about NOTHING at such a young age is so awful. Unfortunately, adolescents’ brains are just too impulsive</p>
<p>pizzagirl - I agree. I would worry the same about any school and am seriously wondering about local commuter colleges.</p>
<p>Marian, you took my sentence about kids being at college far from home out of context. I was not saying that was, or could be, a contributing factor in this or any tragedy, nor that the opposite scenario of having relatives close by could have prevented this or any tragedy. Obviously not, since we already know the student was local and had a parent working on campus. I was talking about why it is that parents are so affected by these stories. It’s because we send off our kids, who are supposed to be adults but aren’t always so adult at age 18, to live in a new place and want to believe they will be safe, happy, and looked after. Some colleges really sell the community concept. Thus, we are shaken and shocked.</p>
<p>@texaspg and other prospective parents: my son is an MIT freshman. We’ve never seen him happier than when we visited for family weekend. He has an accidental single room (his roommate moved into another dorm), which is wonderful for him. He sleeps fine and does hw in peace. He loves the students in his dorm, music activities, the Tech, and classes. He tells us frequently how supportive and reassuring the upperclassmen on his hall have been to him. MIT is hands down the best social environment he’s had since a wonderful preschool experience twelve years ago.</p>
<p>I can understand the impulse to try and pinpoint some MIT-specific detail of life (singles? no meal plan? dingy buildings? hard psets?) as a probable cause for the alleged suicide, but it doesn’t hold up in my view. My heart goes out to Satto’s family and friends, his death is a tragedy that defies comprehension.</p>
<p>When I was in grad school, there was a suicide in my dorm who wasn’t found for a while. The student had told his lab-mates and others at the univ. that he was going home for some reason, so they didn’t think anything was amiss when he wasn’t around. And he had told his parents that he was going to be spending more time than usual in the lab, so they just assumed he was in the lab when they couldn’t reach him. (This was before cell phones) Eventually the parents did get worried and asked the university to check on him. </p>
<p>(I knew him slightly, and to all appearances, he was a well-adjusted, happy person. His research was going well and he was considered one of the stars in his dept.)</p>
<p>We don’t know that the MIT student didn’t do something like this as well. </p>
<p>My heart goes out to his family and everyone who knew him. They will be second-guessing themselves for the rest of their lives.</p>
<p>Sometimes, even a close family who keeps tabs can’t stop a suicide.</p>
<p>I learned yesterday that a HS classmate of my D’s committed suicide. The child had apparently been at home this semester and the suicide happened at home. So, sometimes, even if the family is aware of problems and is taking steps to help, it’s not enough. My friend’s D attends the same school as the child who died and said she had not seen this student around much this semester and attributed this to her (friend’s D) having moved off campus and not being in the same course of study. </p>
<p>Although I didn’t know this child or family well, I still went into the bathroom at work and cried for 20 minutes yesterday.</p>
<p>Right. And the fact that the father was a Nobel professor there … Could mean the father was sympathetic and kind about the pressure of an elite school, or the father was unsympathetic and expected the kid to perform at perfection. Or the fact that the parents were local could have meant that he drew comfort from knowing they were close by, or that he would have benefited from going farther away. He could have loved the academic pressure at MIT, or hated it. He could have been a kid to the outside world was reasonably engaged with others, or he could have been an isolated loner. He could have hated having a single, or loved it. We don’t know. It’s all speculation.</p>