Essays

Picture a Typical Hard-working student. Each day she receives multiple assignments to complete for homework. She is involved in several extracurricular activities so she doesn't have much extra time. After sports practice, she struggles home lidden with books, to begin studying. On a typical evening she lies to work diligently for a couple of hours to complete her homework for school the next day. She has a rigorous schedule that includes honors and advanced placement classes so some nights she is forced to stay up very late to keep up with her classes. Other nights she has an extra packet of work to complete for her SAT Prep course. All thiswork puts a lot of pressure on her.

This may not seem like anything out of the ordinary and for many students it's not. The push to be overachievers and get into the top colleges has caused many high school students to take on heavier workloads and more challenging classes. This push to achieve, however, doesn't end once students Rich College. In fact, once they reach the top schools they worked so hard to get into, many students are forced to work even harder than they did in high school and instead of the push to get into the top college, it becomes the push to get into the top graduate school.

Graduate students at the country's top schools, in turn, fine the they must continue to overextend themselves in order tosacure jobs in their particular field. As you can see, there somthing wrong. America's educational system is seriously flawed because it puts too much emphasis on measuring achievement and not: enough on true learning.

The problem starts as early as middle school and perhaps even before student are weighed down with lengthy homework assignments  which may involve hours of their time each night in fact , U.S. students now have more homework then before and it starts atan earlier age.Specialiata teacher and parents alike tend to agree that homework is a very important tool. They say that the amount of homework students do as middle and high schoolers leads directly to their success rate in the future. Many studies have been done to prove the positive effects of homework. Some show that students who do more work score better on standardized tests. Homework these days has come to be a measurement, a way in which parents and techers can judge how good an education their students are getting.

The standard rule is the more homework the better the value of education. After all, parents and teachers alike want to see their students do well and that means scoring highly on standardized tests and getting into the best colleges. Thisis the way our society measures the success of its students and everyone wants to be successful so the push lately has been to encourage students to take on more challenging classes and tins provides them with more homework. In a recent TIME magazine article. During the past four decades, the suicide rate for teenagers and young adults has more than tripled Suicide has become the second leading cause of death among college students.

It is hard to investigate the actual causes of college suicides because while the statistics are rising and a few shocking stories have caught our attention, the number of deaths at any givenschool is very small and thus in-depth inquiries are very seldomdone, but there are several factors which can increase the riskof suicide substantially. Foreign students are more prone tosuicide than natives because many they become isolated. Theyoften can't find any familiar cultural or family ties in their new environment and thus concentrates solely on their work.

Those with suicidal tendencies may be more difficult torecognize in a college setting because instead of beingimpulsive and out of control, college students who are suicidallend to be withdrawn, quiet, and to draw little attention tothemselves. Those students, who move beyond depression tosuicide, may fantasize of a better world waiting for them.They are often very resistant to seeking help because they seeit as a weakness.

The academic stress faced by college students these daysis perhaps higher than ever before. They are faced with a newsituation when they reach college and must then struggle tokeep up with their new environment Many collages indents begin to feel worthless. They measure themselves only byacademic or athletic success. This can distort their perceptionof reality and cause them to blow things out of proportion.

The change in attitude may not even be noticeable to closefriends because students who begin to feel overwhelmed andhopeless tend to hide their feelings by immersing themselvesin work. As stated early they will usually not seek the help offor example, a guidance counselor, because they do not wantto seem weak. This feeling of hopelessness can become a bigproblem in situations where students are expected to performat a very high calibar for a long period of time. Jason Altom, considered anextremely gifted graduate student at Harvardllniversily, killed himself last August. He drank a liquid laced with cyanibe that he obtained from the chemistry lab, in which he is doing his doctorate work.

He was possibly the brightest student in the chemistryprogram, lie had been accepted into the most exclusive labgroup, and his doctorate project was harder than anything the other students had choosen, so it was a shock to learn of his death the news of his death, and the content of the threesuicide notes he left, one to his parents, on to the Chair of havard’s chemistry department, and one to his studentHis student advisor just happened to be world famous nobel laureate Elias J. Corcy. Corey was notorious for being on most strict professors in the department and the certainly had highexpectations.

The note altom had left for his parents wereeventually shared with a Harvard newspaper. It shocked his friends and fellow classmates by saying that his death could have been avoided altom’s not stated that his student advisor, Corey, had had too much control over his future he wanted Harvard to set up a new system which would distribute the power to other key people and he  wanted a committee setup to monitor thequality of life for graduate student.

At Harvard the student advisor over the studentas the student dose his doctorate work in the end, it is almostsolely the advisor who decides wheter or not a student getsa diploma. Another power student advisors have isrecommendation. Without a letter of recommendation fromfrom someone many students find it harder to get jobs oncethey have graduated. Since their student advisor is the onlyperson who regularly monitors their work, the student advisoris usually the only one qualified to write a letter ofrecommendation. !n this system it is easy to see how a studentcould feel over whelmed bv tlie power his student advisorhad over him and dismayed it he perceived some ill willbetween the two.

Altom had been having trouble in the final stages of hisdoctoral work. He had choosen an especially challengingproject for himself.He had to synthesize to different moleculesand then bond then s together. He had completed in synthesizing both molecules, but could not successfully bond them together.Apparently, Altom felt that Corey was unhappy with hisprogress. He had shared his concerns with some firends, butno one knew the magnitude of his anxiety.

Obviously, none of them ever thought he would go to theextent he did and many wonder if this incident should be awarning to us. Harvard and other top schools, where thepressure is intense, have begun to implement changes tocounteract several recent deaths, similar to Jason Altom's. Thestress he felt, as one of the brightest students, at arguably thebest school in the country, should give some insight into whatother students, who perhaps have a harder time keeping up.