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I received this email from a young person the other day, and all I can say is: I cannot understand how we’ve allowed the deranged lunatics who are doing this to him to claim the moral high ground.
This isn’t pleasant to read, but as you’ll discover, it needs to be read:
I am a college student at a major US university pursuing a degree in STEM. A few years ago I was diagnosed with a very mild form of schizophrenia. I am considered extremely high functioning. I have friends, do well in school, and I am able to hold a part-time job where I get along with everyone.
Ever since the lockdowns began, our school has treated us in a manner that can only be described as abusive. Our online education has essentially meant that we have to teach ourselves, because our instructors won’t. The workload for every single class for everyone I know doubled as soon as we got sent home, since every instructor believes we have all the time in the world now. Homework and exams have been made more difficult in an absurd attempt to prevent “cheating.” (This is their own explanation.) They have given us no resources to work with, and instructors treat us in an almost combative manner.
I am a hard worker, but I can’t do this anymore. Last semester, I was working for about 16 hours every day, seven days a week, with no outside assistance outside of our halfhearted lecture videos. Near the end, I had five weeks in a row where I worked for 48 hours straight with no sleep to try and make deadlines I couldn’t even hit. A friend of mine was falsely accused of an academic integrity violation, given virtually no chance to appeal, and is now on probation for the remainder of his time here.
Our families are paying a fortune for us to teach ourselves through YouTube.
Walking onto campus feels like going to a wake. There is a morose atmosphere in the air, and everywhere is as quiet as a library. There is absolutely no social interaction except amongst friends who already know each other. There are volunteer students who act as the school’s Stasi to enforce covid guidelines.
I myself am reduced to a broken mess. I feel like I have nothing. All my friends are depressed from stress and work. My family cares for me but doesn’t know how to console me. The doctors just want to experiment with a cocktail of medications that have every side effect imaginable, and they aren’t even confident it would help me. I have nobody anymore.
I have always appreciated the work you and others have done to help advance the cause of liberty. I know you were aware of how much of a racket higher education was before all this madness again, but now it feels like a hostage situation. I can’t think of ever starting a family now if my child would have to go through this just to do decently well in life. I needed to write this so I could know that someone out there understands what they are doing to us.
I can’t stress how bad it is, sir. There are freshman killing themselves here. My mental health can’t take this. I fee like my youth has been stolen from me, and turned against me. Life doesn’t feel worth living anymore.
Please never stop fighting against this. This is a horrific institution run by genuinely evil people. The people at these universities are more soulless than anyone in office. People like you are all we have left.
I am truly speechless.
Even before the virus fiasco, we lived in a society in which major institutions treated people like you and me with open contempt.
Things are suddenly far worse.
The K-12 system isn’t exactly our friend, either, needless to say.
The well-known “serenity prayer” is probably the one good thing Reinhold Niebuhr ever did: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
I can’t change the university or K-12 systems.
But I can create parallel institutions, which is what I’ve done with Liberty Classroom, for adult victims for educational malpractice, and I helped create the self-taught Ron Paul Curriculum to give parents a top-notch alternative to the K-12 indoctrination factories.
My own site throws in $160 in free bonuses along with the curriculum, so check it out to see if it’s right for your family:
http://www.RonPaulHomeschool.com
Read the original article at TomWoods.com. https://tomwoods.com/student-writes-my-college-has-become-a-covid-prison/
Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is the 2019 winner of the Hayek Lifetime Achievement Award from the Austrian Economics Center in Vienna. He is a senior fellow of the Mises Institute and host of The Tom Woods Show, which releases a new episode every weekday. Visit https://tomwoods.com