<p><a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6706395%5B/url%5D">http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6706395</a></p>
<p>(For those who have been following this.)
Poignant irony in the last sentence of the story.</p>
<p>Such a sad story. It really has been a terrible year of sad deaths at Stanford (I know of 3 suicides that happened). Its so sad to see such promising young individuals take their own lives...</p>
<p>Three suicides in one year? Wow, I hadn't heard about all those. A few years ago MIT had several suicides and developed a reputation as a high-stress Suicide U. With a little more national publicity, perhaps Stanford will displace them.</p>
<p>superwizard, in addition to the Native American one, which, & when, was the 3rd one? (Didn't happen to read of it or hear about it.)</p>
<p>Oh the third one was never publicised and was kept hushed because the family of the student asked that that be the case. It didn't happen on Stanford but he was a Stanford Student (freshman). I know from an extremely reliable source that it did in fact happen. He took his own life during winter break.</p>
<p>This is such a sad story. You wish that all three students had reached out during their lives to get the help they needed before it was too late. I wonder what Stanford will change this year to better protect students.</p>
<p>"You wish that all three students had reached out during their lives to get the help they needed before it was too late."</p>
<p>You (I, we) wish that Stanford would create & publicize support groups wherein students can 'come out' about their fears, anxieties, sense of pressure, etc. Time for the silence to stop about this. Several years ago Minna Sandmeier also felt she had nowhere to go where she could admit how human she was. There should be an initiative about this, and it really should be part of the orientation process for all incoming students at all U.S. campuses: publicity about such opportunities to share, & permission to share. </p>
<p>One cannot change one's family's or cultural pressures, but peer support & University administrative/health support can prevent some tragedies.</p>
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Three suicides in one year? Wow, I hadn't heard about all those. A few years ago MIT had several suicides and developed a reputation as a high-stress Suicide U. With a little more national publicity, perhaps Stanford will displace them.
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<p>There are indeed several parallels to the MIT stories, but also a number of differences. MIT gained a lot of publicity --not all positive-- for the manner they handled the cases, ignored the early warnings, and did not notify the parents. For what it is worth, the student who climbed in the trunk of her Corolla had earned her UG at MIT and was a graduate student at Stanford.</p>
<p>The stories of deaths and suicides of students deserve more publicity, as well as the hazing deaths that are quasi murders.</p>
<p>IMHO, the stories of suicides should be a must read at the numerous SAT mills and music academies that are the stomping grounds for the army of ultra driven parents that share an unhealthy focus on academic excellence and related social climbing. And you may add this forum to the mix!</p>
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unhealthy focus on academic excellence and related social climbing. And you may add this forum to the mix!
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<p>...says the person with 4,636 posts</p>
<p>The Freshman who took his life over winter break was identified, and was being treated, by the mental health staff at Stanford before he went home. Peer support and university support, in this case, were not able to prevent the tragedy.</p>
<p>Re Post #10. I wouldn't imagine that peer support & University support would be able to prevent every tragedy, just some, esp. for those students whose main problem is not as much the need to succeed as the need to hide (from parents or from peers) the supposed lack of success, or whatever socially-dictated or self-dictated expectation there is.</p>
<p>The first step to all healing is acknowledging the problem or the need, esp. to others. It is not a guarantee of rescue -- just, for some, an essential first step.</p>
<p>I went to a Parent Ed lecture last year by Denise Clark-Pope. She's the author of "Doing School" about high school student stress and earned her doctorate in education at Stanford. She said that Stanford's student health center has experienced a significant increase in the past few years in the percentage of students reporting overwhelming stress and depression. She said that the school attributes the increase to the intensity of the high school experience of most Stanford-bound students.</p>