Friends of a student believed to have taken his own life at Cambridge University have claimed that a high-pressure academic culture has contributed to worsening mental health on campus.
With five suspected suicides in the past four months, the university has set up a rapid response group involving health professionals to review the recent deaths. The first has been confirmed as suicide by a coroner; the rest remain subject to inquests.
A friend of one of the students said she believed that Covid, combined with a pervasive culture to be a good academic, had contributed to the deaths. “Welfare support at Cambridge is quite strange,” she said. “They prioritise the academic so much that welfare is all about ‘what can we do to make you get better grades’. [My friend] who died, there are a lot of things the college probably did wrong, that I think they should change.
Friends of a student believed to have taken his own life at Cambridge University have claimed that a high-pressure academic culture has contributed to worsening mental health on campushttps://t.co/8bT5Y83v92
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