The ones left behind
What do you do when your university actively hinders your academic success?
Content warning for some graphic descriptions of suicide and the desire to self-harm
Below is a general summary of the events that led to me leaving the University of Chicago in March of 2017. As implied by the content warning, this is not going to be a happy story. There are some standout moments, but overall I don’t think positively of my situation.
It’s a sensitive issue for me, but I don’t intend to minimize anyone’s accomplishments, especially given that I wrote this during graduation season. This is for me to vent publicly about my experience at the university, why I left, and how it impacts me to this day.
Growing up, I was really into math. I was good at it and I felt determined to do something related to that as a career. When people asked me what I wanted to study in the future, I said, “Statistics!” I was proud to say that, too.
I always saw college as a stepping stone to something bigger. Even getting into college felt like many doors opening all at once. I wouldn’t feel trapped at home and I could go out and do something in the future.
The main reasons I applied to (and attended) the University of Chicago were the intellectual environment and the people. I met some of my closest friends there. There are many great individuals who went there and I was amazed at some of the things they accomplished before, during, and after college.
I wasn’t the best student in college. I still worked hard, but after a while I was no longer interested in my major. After struggling with some math and statistics classes, I switched my major to global studies. This was an improvement and I did have more of an interest in the beginning. I received a research grant to travel to South Korea and some of the texts I read are still the most memorable for me at the university.
However, my struggles continued. I felt overwhelmed. I was taking a daily language class, trying to read everything I could for my other classes, and carving out some time for me to relax. I realized that I had many issues with the department and that I truly didn’t know what I wanted to do in the future. For the first time in years, I genuinely felt that I had no purpose in life.
That mentality had a detrimental effect on my mental health. My grades declined and I could hardly function. This only got worse when I failed a class for the first time my third year. I didn’t withdraw from the class in time so I have a permanent F on my college transcript. I blamed myself for it and spent a good portion of the summer depressed.
I took that failure very personally. I told myself that if I couldn’t finish school by next year and had to move back home with my family, life wouldn’t be worth living. It was the first time in my life I was ready to give up and kill myself. Looking back, I didn’t need to add that kind of pressure to my psyche, but finishing school meant a lot to me. It was something I aimed to do since I was a child. It was supposed to be the next big step in my life and the key to bigger and better things. Seeing that slip away was soul-crushing.
At the same time, my desire to go to school declined. My parents noticed my change in attitude as the new school year approached. I used to clean off my desk, look for new school supplies, and set up my bag in anticipation for the new year. When I was at UChicago, that attitude faded every year. By the time my third or fourth year came along, I wasn’t excited anymore. You know how bad it has to get for me to stop looking forward to school? Even the thought of going to school somewhere else was less appealing.
The university didn’t help with this much. UChicago pretends to care about its students’ mental health, but I never believed it. Most students are consumed with enough work and activities that seeking out student counseling always took away from that. Any time I scheduled a counseling appointment I felt that I shouldn’t be there because I should have been doing something more important. Going to a counselor shouldn’t be stressful, but the university made it so by design.
At the end of 2015, I decided to go on leave instead of finishing out my fourth year. It would give me enough time to relax at home and take a break from school. I didn’t work much while at home, so I had some financial issues. Combined with the loneliness I felt at home and other emotional issues (like when an old roommate died unexpectedly), I was an emotional wreck.
That period wasn’t all bad; I got to perform with my old color guard team again and I was able to visit South Korea for a month as part of my old teaching job. But the guilt and shame of leaving never subsided.
I went back to UChicago in the fall of 2016. At first, things seemed positive. I was in a new dorm, my classes seemed appealing, and many people I knew were still around. The Cubs won the World series that year and the energy was unreal.
While all that was happening, I was unraveling inside. I couldn’t focus and I was overwhelmed again. Finals week was happening and assignments were piling up. It was too much for me to handle and I knew that wouldn’t be able to do it all. I did what I thought was the best decision at the time: ending my own life.
This was the first time I ever seriously considered suicide. I had thought about it in the past as a hypothetical, but I still felt like I had time before it got to that point. I went up to the top of a staircase on the fifth floor of a campus building and stared down at the bottom. There was a table I could land on, but I probably wouldn’t survive from that height anyway. The floor was concrete, so I would have died on impact.
I was in a really bad place. I messaged people indirectly about it while I sat there. I wanted to say how I felt but I couldn’t put it into words and I didn’t want them to be alarmed. What stopped me was one of my friends texting me, “Please don’t die :(” That was enough to take me off the ledge. I walked back to my dorm after that.
How do you tell your professor that you need an extension on your assignment because you attempted suicide? Do you say, “Yes, I tried to jump off a staircase last night and I haven’t really processed that yet so I’d like more time to work on this assignment?” Well, I didn’t say that. I said I had a medical emergency. When the professor asked for proof, it threw me off a bit. Instead of telling them directly, I had to email my advisor and have them speak with the professor instead. I ended up withdrawing from the class later.
The next quarter was abysmal. All of my classes were bad, plus I was working on my thesis at the time. I could hardly focus on it when I had many other responsibilities for my other classes.
It was an especially rough time for me as well. My mental health declined further. I tried to suffocate and hang myself using two scarves and a doorknob in my dorm room. I would walk up to the 9th floor staircase in my dorm and look down at the basement floor, daring myself to jump. This was a continuous feeling for the rest of the quarter.
To make matters worse, my advisor informed me about a larger issue: I couldn’t continue studying at UChicago without appealing for every additional quarter that I wanted to be there. You’re limited to the four years that you’re there, and any additional time has to be approved by the university. This additional time isn’t covered by financial aid, so I would have had to pay out of pocket for tuition and housing the rest of the time I was there.
My advisor was actively pressuring me to stay as well, even though she knew I had a suicide attempt a few months prior. It was an incredibly uncomfortable situation and it felt like she was being forced to do it. Despite her protests, I left the university at the end of winter quarter of 2017. I never enrolled there again.
My original intent was to try taking classes at another school. I would still be able to graduate from UChicago and I could take classes at any school they would approve of. Unfortunately, I would have to pay for classes out of pocket and I couldn’t apply for financial aid at that school since I’m not technically a student. Some classes are only offered at UChicago, so I’d need to take those there to finish anyway.
In April of 2017, I had hit rock bottom. Even to this day, I thought I was acting rationally. I had just left school, I was living with some friends, and I barely would have enough money to live after a while. There was no reason for me to keep living because I saw myself as a waste of space. I did what I thought was my only option: to end my own life for good.
I walked out of my apartment to campus. I didn’t say anything to my roommates when I left. Looking back, they probably would have felt so guilty if I died. Imagine the last moment you see someone before they die and it’s them ignoring you and walking out the door for the last time.
Here I was, back in the place I said I would die at 4 months before. I’m ready to do it this time. All I had to do was sit on the rail and push myself off. I played out potential situations in my mind and none of them were great options. What if I survived but with major injuries? What if I regretted it after jumping? Would I be able to save myself if I jumped?
When I was up there, I was talking to someone from my dorm and he ended up calling our Resident Head. When he told me this, I got down from the ledge and walked home. About an hour later, I get a call from my parents. The dean of students called them at 2am because they received a call that I had tried to kill myself. They drove to Chicago the next day to pick me up.
This is the first time I ever had a serious conversation with my parents about my mental health. I like to keep things about my personal life secret. I don’t always want people to worry about me. If I say something, it’s because it’s something really serious for me that I want to address.
That was the last serious suicide attempt I had. I’m doing better in life since then, but the urges still creep up. Sometimes when I’m overly stressed, I still imagine a noose wrapping around my neck or the feeling of falling off a building. I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing that.
The regret and shame of not finishing school always sits in the back of my mind. I’ve been turned away from jobs because I didn’t have a degree or an appropriate work history. I want to finish school somewhere else, but I’m not sure what I want to study or even if having a degree will help me find a better job in the future.
The worst time I feel, obviously, is during graduation season. This year, the final group of people I know from UChicago graduated. Between this and recent events going on in the world, seeing people who entered UChicago four years after I did and graduating four years later was enough to put me over the edge.
Every college graduate (especially at UChicago) has a story about something they had to overcome to finish their education. I love reading about people who are the first generation in their family to graduate, or whose parents are immigrants who risked everything to have a better life for their family, or who also dealt with mental health issues and were able to push through enough to succeed.
But reading those stories also hurts me inside because the same thoughts always occur: “This could have been me. But it’ll never be me. I never accomplished what I wanted to do and I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t even know what I want to do with my life. I’ve failed myself and I don’t deserve to live.” Not surprisingly, these thoughts appear more frequently around graduation season.
This should be the part of the story where I say I don’t feel that way anymore, but that wouldn’t be true. The feelings come and go and sometimes they come back stronger. When I open up to people about how I feel, I always think I’m being a burden. No one really wants to hear someone tell another sob story to them. It feels like I’ll eventually have no one to talk to comfortably about this and that scares me.
I’m writing this because I never publicly stated what’s been going on with me in recent years. I don’t like talking publicly about any of this because it’s so personal and embarrassing. I do feel, however, that it’s important for me to say something. I hope that someone who reads this will gain a boost in confidence to talk about their own issues.
Congratulations to the graduating class of 2020 and beyond. To those who were supposed to graduate and didn’t: put your health first, get some help if you need it, and take as much time as you need to finish. If it feels like no one else supports you, you’re reading the words of someone who does.
