So this is my first post here on CC. When I heard about yet another suicide, I felt an obligation to post something about my experiences in Williamsburg.
I graduated from UVa a few years ago. Currently, I’m a W&M graduate student, but I plan on transferring to a different university because I am so fed up. The W&M faculty and staff are incredibly passive aggressive, selfish, dishonest and difficult. Maybe I am being harsh, but after working for the school for 1 year as a teaching and research assistant, I feel incredibly cheated. It almost feels like the program admissions faculty looked at my attractive UVa credentials and pretty much embellished/exaggerated everything about this program in order to get me to matriculate. My fellow classmates come from no-name universities with low GPAs. Graduate coursework is a lie. In my program, you are placed in a graduate class that is “disguised” as a undergraduate level class via the art of cross-listing. So I am essentially “retaking” my undergraduate courses with annoying juniors and seniors…
When I expressed a desire to transfer and confided that I was feeling depressed, my advisor immediately suggested a medical withdrawal out of the blue. (My academic performance was fine, by the way). From my experiences and what I have heard from other students, W&M often pushes for medical withdrawals to avoid having to deal with depressed students. Unlike UVa CAPS, W&M health center’s options for support groups and counseling are pretty lacking. Some students end up seeking medical support at private psychiatric establishments off campus. This is not the case at UVa. Many of my friends have gone to UVa CAPs and expressed praise and gratitude towards the program.
Conclusion: I am definitely not letting my future kids go to W&M. (JK…but not really lol)