So I’m in my dorm room at the University of Michigan, writing a poly sci paper due in 12 hours when Michelle knocks …
“Can we talk?” she says. “Alone.”
I can tell right off that something is very wrong. Michelle always beams me a smile, sure as sunshine, but not tonight. She avoids looking at the guys in the TV-lit lounge. As she slips into my room, I can see her eyes are red. Then she just starts talking.
“I’m bombing biology. My roommate hates me. And my mom’s going to kill me when she sees her credit card bill. Maybe I should save her the trouble," she whispers, clutching a white-capped pill bottle. “I wish I could change everything. I just want to start over.”
Whoa. As a new resident director, I was told to expect this, was told that one in 12 students find college so overwhelming that planning their own death seems preferable, and some actually go through with it.
Now, here it was. Michelle and I talked a long time that night. I gave her UM’s crisis line and referred her to the student counseling center. I don’t know if any of this helped. But she survived and wore that sunny smile at graduation.
This may seem like a downer. But it’s one truth about college that seldom gets talked about. College viewed from high school looks like an amusement park. The freedom, the new classes, the dorms, the sororities — what could be better?
But viewed from, say, December of freshman year, it can feel like a roller coaster about to jump the tracks. The freedom isn’t really free time, the classes are impossible, the dorms suck (or the commuting sucks, take your pick) and there’s never enough money. Sometimes, you just want to puke.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved college, but there’s a lot I would do differently based on what I know now, things that would have saved me time and money and headaches. (Playing two weeks of all-night video games for instance — not a good idea).
So I thought: what if we gave everyone access to the best advice from students who have gone through all this stuff, who know what works and what doesn’t? That’s what EduGuide, our magazines and this website are all about. After all, everyone wants you to succeed in college, but no one will tell you how unless you ask.
Bryan Taylor, founder and President of EduGuide, is a first-generation college graduate whose studies took him from St. Clair Community College to The University of Paris. He never wrestled with suicide, but once calculated how long he could put off a term paper deadline by "accidentally" cutting off his little finger.