My cousin experienced mental illness in grad school. She got through undergrad at brown fine. Immediately went to grad school at Harvard for a PhD. In her second year, when she was 23, she had a serious breakdown, spent 6-8 weeks at the Harvard psychiatric hospital, McLean, where she was diagnosed as bipolar. Took the year off and then returned to Harvard and finished her PhD. It took her longer to get it done but she persisted. She’s now a professor at a top 30 university and continues to manage her disease with meds and therapy. Fully functioning and in a long term, happy relationship.
With the right help and some luck, even if someone is derailed by illness, they can come through fine. It takes patience & a willingness to work through the tough periods. My cousin also had a lot of family support, although I know it scared the heck out of my aunt & uncle, and my parents.
My daughter at Cornell had a rough second semester.
Some of it, it was her doing (refusing to go to toturing and office hours). She had a very easy first semester even with 2 CS classes that most considered not easy by Cornell standard. She finished first semester with flying colors with very minimal effort and without going to any tutoring or office hours.
Second semester was different. She had a relatively tougher CS class that’s upper level and her first Math class at college. In the beginning she was doing good but the long dreary cold winter affected her emotionally and academically. Being from SoCal, she’s used to the sun. Good thing that she opened it to us and my wife (a registered nurse) immediately suspected that it could be SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). We sent her to counselling and bought her a “happy” light. We also advised her to really consider going to office hours and tutoring. By spring she was a lot better and aced her Math finals and most of her latter CS projects.
We knew that going to upstate New York she will have a hard time adjusting to the weather but we didn’t expect her to be affected that much. If she didn’t get better we probably considered her transferring.
I saw this article this morning about a student who transferred from UCLA to San Clara because she was so unhappy at UCLA:
@2018dad, 24 Ithaca winters (we called it “Ithagrey”), which last about 8 months each, were enough to drive us all the way to Hawaii. I’m glad your D is feeling better.
We had a nice visit with DS in Denver. He’s turning into such a nice young man, coming out of his shell a bit, and it’s great to see him getting excited about what he’s learning and the upcoming term. He’ll be sharing a suite with some good friends and is looking forward to that, and to being in a more central location on campus. He seemed to really enjoy showing us around “his” town, taking us to his favorite coffee shop and the art museum, and exploring a nearby town that he can’t get to without a car.
Now that I’m over the sadness of leaving him yet again, it’s time to start looking for airfare bargains for winter break.
2018dad, also hailing from a sunny climate, I’ve known several students who’ve suffered with SAD attending schools in the NE. A friend’s D nearly left Harvard for the same reason. Luckily, she too was able to make some adjustments and remain. I’m glad to hear your D reached out to you and was able to get help and turn things around.
@ - is that going to be awkward for your daughter to be an RA with same age peers?
@Jeannemar - I’m sorry your son had a rough second semester, but maybe a little time and clarity will help the situation. My nephew, too, did not enjoy his first year college experience and has told his parents that he will not be returning to state U and instead will be attending a CC this year. He seems fine academically but socially I think he struggles a bit, so staying at home for a year or two isn’t the worse option.
Go2girl and Go2dad were out the door at the crack of dawn to head back to school. We had a glorious summer together. Go2girl had an amazing internship, was able to join us for a family vacation and then we had a constant stream of her friends visiting until midnight last night. Last year at this time, she was so ready to leave (and in a way, I was so ready for her to go–she was a real pill!) I’ve seen a lot of maturity develop over the last year and I truly believe she has a new appreciation for the opportunities she has as well as the support we’ve offered her along the way. Even though she complained A LOT about how hard she worked in high school, she’s the first one to admit that it has made the transition to college much easier. One of her friends who went to a less rigorous high school had a real wake up call at her college. She’s had to learn to ask for help and really dedicate herself more to her studies. A couple of go2girl’s friends from college came to visit us and I was so impressed with them. Wonderful, smart, curious girls. I realize that we are the lucky ones–it is so easy to be misled by beautiful brochures, enthusiastic ADCOMs, and the pressures that go along with the admissions process. A lot of kids don’t end up in the right place that will develop their strengths and support their weaknesses.
2018dad–I live in the Northwest and have had a happy light for the last ten years. Tell her to start using it by Halloween. I plug into mine as soon as I wake up and check my email. She also might want to increase her Vitamin D intake.
I agree with what ordinarylives and renaissancemom said about mental illness showing up at this age. Two years ago when we were looking at colleges, we visited one of go2girl’s friends who was just starting her freshman year. We took her out to dinner and her behavior was very manic. I had to make the difficult phone call to her mother. Turns out, the same thing had happened to the mother’s sister when she started college. The girl was diagnosed bipolar and came home to restart her freshman year this past year. The good news is that she has it under control and is thriving.
Best of luck to everyone starting their sophomore years! I still can’t believe it!
@go2mom
Thanks for the advice about the happy light. I will sure tell her to start using it by Halloween. She’s been taking Vitamin D since January. She had a blood test during Christmas break and she was Vitamin D deficient. We just got her latest blood test few days ago and her Vitamin D level is normal now. She literally was in the beach almost all summer whenever she had a free time from work and summer class.
@jeannemar - Your post is very timely, as I had been gathering my courage (in the face of all this success) to make a post.
While I have been very happy for all of your offspring, it hasn’t been such an easy road for us. My son dropped out of his wonderful program last fall, very early in the semester. We’d sent him off with high hopes and frankly we were devastated. I was sad and my husband was furious.
He came home and worked (very) part-time, and got some therapy and medication. He’d been very anxious and probably was depressed. He started part-time at the local community college and experienced success. He will have a full-time load this fall, at the same community college.
His attitude is 100% better, and his confidence is way up. He has a renewed love of learning. There is SO much pressure on these kids during their junior and senior years of high school. Way too much. They get fast-tracked on paths not of their own making. Sometimes they just need to stop, breathe, and get the opportunity to take control of their own lives.
My husband and I both see now that his coming home was absolutely the right thing. The best paths are not always straight ones.
@calla1 Everyone takes a different path to get to where they need to be. Good for your son for realizing that his path last fall was not the right one for him, and taking steps to correct that.
My car is packed full for departure tomorrow morning! I can’t believe DD is going back already! She organized and packed yesterday as she had an unexpected day off which left today free. So she got to go into Boston and spend the day with her BFF and another friend and visit another BFF. She had a wonderful day (and even got to experience the train delays DH has been dealing with for the past couple of weeks - her quote “we were probably the happiest people on the train!”) And another of her BFF’s who’s been on the Cape all summer is going to stop by shortly to surprise her to say good-bye. And then tomorrow we get to move into the fourth floor with no elevators!
We packed the car this evening and depart for Philadelphia in the morning. D can’t move in until Saturday morning so we will relax tomorrow evening and then get her into her 3rd floor dorm room. The availability of an elevator is still a mystery. Fingers are crossed. We will then have a nice dinner with D and BF Saturday evening and return home on Sunday. Her classes start on Monday. She has changed majors from bio to psychology. She shadowed with an Occupational Therapist this week and really enjoyed the time working with younger kids. Let’s hope the psych major will work out for her.Happy moving and return to school to everyone.
Haven’t heard much from my son lately. Classes started Wednesday. He does seem happy with his courses – so far. Has been working moving jobs in the community where he goes to school. His girlfriend got the sweet treats I sent her, and she forwarded a gas gift card to him. Hopefully, he will have a moment this weekend to chat.
Did the trek (actually flight, car rental, BBB/Target runs, etc) a week ago, moving son back into New Orleans and his school…can everyone say HOT & STICKY!..and not just the beignets…he seems happily settled into his dorm and very pleased with his single in the Honors dorm…has started his 10 hour/week job on campus and acquired a cheap bike to toodle around campus and NOLA. Classes begin on Monday…still committed to Biomed Engineering.
How timely, @vandyeyes! My S16 was looking through the huge volume of college email he’s gotten since August 1 and saw that he was offered an application fee waiver for Tulane (among others). It had been on our list but I don’t know if he’d given it much thought; now he’s more interested as they seem interested in him. This would be a reach for my son given his grades, we had a nice chat at lunch about going for it. Glad to hear your son is happy.
Can’t remember if I reported that I dropped off S14 at his school on Monday. That was the first possible day; figured it would allow him time to do some part-time job searching and to meet with career center to prep for the September job fair. He needs all the help he can get to line up a full time co-op job for the summer in his field. I’ve been trying not to bug him too much, just a few texts back and forth so far on things he forgot and needing help setting up a new printer.
My d14 drove to school a week ago Tuesday. Her work-study job at the campus post office hired her to work and got her into her dorm early. Some dorm! A campus apartment with 4 single bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, nicely furnished living room, kitchen with dishwasher, and a laundry room! Her boyfriend went up early too because he’s doing a coop and they wanted him to start asap, which I am sure was a motivation for her to leave early.
She did really, really well second semester of freshman year, well enough that the medical school dream is within the realm of possibility. Hoping she will do just as well this year with a very rigorous schedule. Classes start Monday.
@oldmom4896 My son applied for one of those post office jobs but didn’t hear back. Guess he should have talked to somebody. Glad to hear your D did so well and that she scored a spot in the swanky apartments!
I moved my son into his apartment at his new townhouse. It was happy chaos in their townhouse with three of the four boys moving in yesterday. The fourth had moved in the weekend before. All four are Eagle Scouts with a lot in common. Move in this year required a UHaul since they needed furniture. We split the UHaul with one of the other kids. Two of these boys were in my son’s Boy Scout troop and the fourth young man (should stop calling them kids, right?) lived in their dorm last year. My son had a completely different spirit and mood moving in this year than he did last year. After getting most of his room set up, we ran out to get some lunch and he told me “I have no negative emotions about any of this right now, unlike last year and I’m in the exact same position that I was in before with a new school and everything.”
Phew. I hope this is a fresh start for him and things go smoothly at his new school. The statement someone made earlier about people pushing them in their junior and senior years. My son had only applied to Michigan originally because he thought people expected him to go there. I suspect that’s why he went there too. It wasn’t the right place for him, but hopefully this school is.
My biggest concern now is that he’ll forget his priorities living with his friends!
Moved DS into a college owned apartment to start sophomore year. All went well. He’s excited to actually dig into his engineering classes this semester. The apartment is an order of magnitude nicer than the first one his mother and I shared as young professionals. It’ll be interesting to see how the food situation works out. He and his roommate share a full kitchen, so they plan on managing some meals that way. But I think he’s underestimated the time required between preparation (which I’m sure he’s considered), and shopping and clean up (which I’m sure he hasn’t). So, with his studies and the rowing team, he may find out he needs to go back to the 19 meal plan.
@calla In my freshman orientation class (I am an academic advisor to about 20 new students each year) we talk about paths of our own making. Many, many of my students, almost all first gen, don’t know if the path they’re on is one of their own or one that’s been pushed on them. Lots of students with dreams of careers in health care, for instance, want those jobs because they’ve been lead to believe that’s where the money is and they believe they are going to college to get a “good job” rather than an education. If the “good job” isn’t readily apparent from the major and available immediately after graduation, it’s not a good track. Very tough, and lots of pressure on these kids.
Congratulations for realizing so early on your son needed to step back. I wish more kids had that kind of support.
In other news, d left yesterday morning. I did not take her this year because I had to work at my own college. I was disappointed, but I’ll get over it.
