Comments | cindygerb: Life gets even less boring

cindygerb

Life gets even less boring

Dec 19, 2011 18:06

This transgendered MIT alumna. I wasn't sure what was going on when I found out she (he at the time) had left after one semester. In an evening-long conversation, she told me that that she had attempted suicide by jumping off the bridge onto the rock hard Charles River that winter and was paralyzed as a result ( Read more... )

Comments 4

harlock999 December 20 2011, 04:51:44 UTC

Ow. Ow. Ow. Maybe I was lucky that I was your basic loser nerd in high school -- MIT was Shangri-La by comparison.

cindygerb December 21 2011, 23:48:27 UTC

:) BTW, Ken, I have a stuffed Marvin the Martian doll.

paka December 21 2011, 20:24:54 UTC

You and presumably this lady are older than the last group of MIT alumni I met who didn't seem like people with a care in the world - was there a whole rash of students offing themselves/trying to off themselves in your generation which made the school rethink how it worked?

cindygerb December 21 2011, 23:47:42 UTC

I never knew it not to be a problem. Most alumni are fine because they made it through.

The suicide rate for MIT was one of the highest, and first year was pass/fail, you could drop classes very late in the semester, they did all they could to help us. If things have changed I would love to know about it.