Mental Illness Among Grad Students

In an article entitled "The Pressure Mounts", by Carolyn Butler in the April 11, 2005 U.S. News and World Report (to which there is no hyperlink), Carolyn states that graduate students are under a termendous amount of stress, causing increased mental illness. A study of University of California-Berkeley granduate and professional schools indicated nearly half the students said they'd had an emotional or stress-related dilemma that sigmificantly impaired their well-being or academic performance in the past year, with 54% of all the students experiencing depression and 1 in 10 having seriously considered suicide. Similarly, a study of law students in the class of 2004 at two institutions found that 63% exhibited significantly higher levels of depression in their final year than they did when they began their professional education. "Students come to law school as quite highly motivated, idealistic, happy people, and then it crashes," says Lawrence Krieger, clinical professor at Flordia State University College of Law in Tallahassee. Graduate school with its competitive climate, relative seclusion in the lab or library, numerous financial concerns, and constant worries about future employment is a hot bed for potential psychosocial triggers. Are these problems on behalf of the schools, students or both? Are graduate schools to demanding or are students not prepared enough or both?