<p>I went to a talk about Phan’s death and they said there’s a known phenomenon where once one student commits suicide the odds of another performing it increase drastically. It makes the concept seem a lot more real/possible to people that have been contemplating it, so incidents tend to happen one after another. The staff person talking with us said he’s been at Caltech for over 15 years, and this is only the seventh suicide during that time.</p>
<p>I’ve heard stories that the recent grad student’s advisor is known to be very harsh and not friendly towards their students, so that might have had something to do with it (people said the guy was a bit emotional).</p>
<p>During that session it was also mentioned that he had left a note, and in it he said he had faked feeling better so his friends wouldn’t try to stop him. Apparently this had been something he had planned on doing for a while, and, sadly, the services offered by the counseling center weren’t enough.</p>