… Camus writes about suicide.
Although every suicide is private and enigmatic, certain types of people seem particularly susceptible. Two years ago, Cal Tech experienced a cluster of suicides among Asian American students. A writer in Time magazine notes:
[C]ertain sub-groups of the Asian American community have higher rates of suicide compared with the nation as a whole — in particular, older Chinese women and Asian American students.
Satto Tonegawa, a student at MIT, and the son of a Nobel Prize-winning MIT professor, probably committed suicide (suicide has not been officially confirmed) two days ago in his dorm room.
October 27th, 2011 at 10:48AM
The poor student was class of ’15 – that made him a freshman (or first year student, as we say here). Hadn’t been seen in a week? No one had said anything until now??
“…classmates and dormmates of Satto, as well as to the graduate resident tutors, housemasters and others in the student-life system who knew and worked with Satto.”
Very sad all around.
October 27th, 2011 at 11:01AM
Michael: Yes – I thought it was striking that a week had passed…
October 28th, 2011 at 7:37AM
International students are often lost in the mix, the wives of grad students are especially vulnerable and often invisible to schools.
November 1st, 2011 at 1:32AM
[…] Tonegawa’s suicide (for an earlier post, go here) has been confirmed. These deaths, of a freshman and a sophomore, are immensely sad; they also […]