Paly student tells of school stress

Context: cluster of suicides in Palo Alto schools

Recent article in the Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-sili...

An article from Vice in September:

http://www.vice.com/read/student-teaching-0000748-v22n9

NPR interview with a student from May:

http://www.npr.org/2015/05/10/405694832/in-palo-altos-high-p...

SF Magazine article in May:

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Why-are-Palo-Alto-s-ki...

It's more than that, unless you consider investing your physical health part of the deal too.

As a current mechanical engineering junior, the expectations have gotten really quite insane. In order to graduate on time you have to be taking 15-18 credits of the hardest classes offered at university. Right now I'm in an 18 credit semester, and next I will be taking 17 credits. Currently I'm in fluid mechanics, finite element analysis, engineering statistics, thermodynamics, and advanced multivariable calculus.

I average about 4-5 hours of sleep. The level of stress associated with this major is making me lose my hair at 20 years old, and I've also developed this weird problem where I profusely vomit several times a day.

My experience through high school was very similar. From grades 9 to 11, I woke up at 6 each day to take a bus to another school to take an engineering class. I then had 7 other periods of the day, each with a 43 minute class (by 11th grade, I gave up lunch to take another class, so I had 8 consecutive periods of class), where teachers assigned ridiculous amounts of homework and made incredibly difficult tests to somehow test us.

In twelfth grade, I stopped having to wake up at six, but I then replaced that with six AP classes. Somehow, I managed to do well on all the exams, but I was always stressed, always on edge, always anxious. On top of this, I had all of those college apps, and since I was overly ambitious, I applied to like 20 schools, almost all of whom had lengthy, frustrating supplements.

Then, of course, there were the extracurriculars, all those bullshit clubs and activities I did to plaster on my college application, and the added pressure of every other honors student competing for grades, classes, research positions, internships, and leadership positions, and all the other nonsense that seemed to matter so much back then. School would feel like a pressure cooker, where the tension would just build and build without reprieve.

And then there were all the normal social pressures of high school. Were you invited to parties, or were you not? Did you drink? Did you smoke? Were you getting laid, or were you not? Who were you taking to prom/junior prom/spirit week dance/freshman dance? Were you "cool," or were you not? This dissipated a bit by senior year, as people matured, but the underlying tension was always there.

I thought that March of senior year would be my happiest moment. All my efforts, all of my sacrifices, would pay off. And they did, in a way. I got into multiple fantastic Computer Science schools.

But that joy I thought I'd feel never materialized. I'd idealized accomplishing something, of getting into a top university, so much, that the actual accomplishment could never really compare. All I really felt was emptiness, and I sinking feeling that I'd wasted a fuckload of time.

Now, here I am in college, where everything feels pretty similar. People compete over internships instead of colleges, but nothing has really shifted. The competition is just a lot harder. But, I'm a junior now in college, and I think my experience here has been much better. I've learned to finally stop giving so many fucks about everyone else, and focusing on what I want. I think its brought me better results too.

Sometimes though, I do wonder: what's the point of all of this? Why do we chase after prestige and money as if they're all-solving panaceas? And what am I going to do after I graduate, get that "amazing" job I've been striving for, and don't have any set goals to lust for? What will I do next?

Education in Asia, especially the main cities in the developed nations (Shanghai, Singapore, Seoul etc. ) is pretty much exactly the same. There's many purposes to an education, manifest and overt ones. For example, keeping youths neatly congregated and managed in singular locations, socialisation into specific social archetypes of value etc. We may say that an education is about Finding Your Passion and Being An Educated Person or to Engage Civil Society. But that's pretty much just what we're saying. Tax dollars are the votes at hand, and capitalist society really doesn't value An Education over a populace well-educated to obtain economically-productive jobs that produce tangible wealth.

We want to reverse this trend (overly competitive schooling systems) as much as we want to value philosophers and humanities scholars and artists. Enough to say it, but not quite enough to pour copious amounts of money into it. As students we're told to shoot for the sky. Study harder. Get straighter As. That's best for (capitalist) society. Every human resource neatly and fully expended. Maybe things will change when the data illustrates how people who like their jobs or areas of study are more productive. But that's a big if. The status quo seems easier.

But you don't understand: that's what everyone else in the program is doing too.