A Climb Out of Depression, Doubt and Academic Failure - The New York Times

Varsha Srivastava, 20, appeared to have the perfect college experience at Boston University. She was in the College of Communication, worked on a campus podcast, was a swim instructor and played club water polo. But emotionally, she was falling apart. Her story has been edited and condensed. I grew up in the Silicon Valley, where the norm is that you excel in academics. A lot of my friends were going to school at the [Universities of California] but I didn’t get into the ones I wanted, or they didn’t have what I wanted. B.U. is a great school, but I wasn’t very happy there. My parents were paying too much for school and for me to fly across the country. I never had problems making friends, but I wasn’t committed at B.U. But I felt this pressure to have a great freshman year. I use social media a lot, and all my friends looked like they were having a great time. I’d go to holiday parties, and when I was asked about Boston, the only honest thing I could say is that it was cold. I didn’t

Varsha Srivastava, 20, appeared to have the perfect college experience at Boston University. She was in the College of Communication, worked on a campus podcast, was a swim instructor and played club water polo. But emotionally, she was falling apart. Her story has been edited and condensed. I grew up in the Silicon Valley, where the norm is that you excel in academics. A lot of my friends were going to school at the [Universities of California] but I didn’t get into the ones I wanted, or they didn’t have what I wanted. B.U. is a great school, but I wasn’t very happy there. My parents were pay