Reflection on Exeter’s Mental Health
By WILLIAM INOUE ‘27
Upon any website writing about prestigious boarding schools, the topic of mental health is always mentioned. In a society and time where the average teenager has to deal with amounts of stress in unprecedented amounts, mental health indeed does rightfully deserve the spot at the forefront of any discussion regarding academic settings. Yet, the same websites that put mental health at the forefront often take an extremely archaic and pessimistic viewpoint on them. I was shocked when I visited Shanghai over the summer, and the first thing my friends asked was why is the mental health at Exeter so bad instead of asking whether or not it was even bad. It is shocking how there seems to be already a pre-established notion that prestigious boarding schools such as Exeter have bad mental health. So, I take it upon myself as a student in Exeter to give a holistic view of my opinion on Exeter’s mental health.
In some sense, it is unfair to deem or categorize a large group of students under one assumption of their mental health. Yet, in a “bubble” like environment such as Exeter, peoples’ mental health inevitably becomes entangled. In some ways, I find that the most common source of mental health deterioration is traced back to the hyper-competitive nature of this academy. I think most students will agree with me that the main reason they chose this academy over others or even chose to leave their old school was so that they would be challenged further in their academic journey. Even more, I think most would agree with me that many of the students named previously are very competitive in both academic and extracurricular endeavors. When this sense of “competitiveness” continues on a large enough scale, people inevitably go through losses that affect their mental health horribly.
Indeed, not all Exonians have perfect mental health, but neither are we worse to the exaggerated extent that outside sources draw us to be. So, where does this pre-established notion come from? In some sense, it comes from exaggeration and assumption. People outside the “bubble” of Exeter and other boarding schools have almost no imagination or idea regarding what is occurring inside the schools. It is too easy for them to simply exaggerate the situation based on assumptions from the school’s publicly understood rigorous academics. Going back to the example mentioned previously with my friends, when I inquired where they got the information from, they assumed it since they saw I always slept late and was busy on weekends with homework. When I asked them how that relates to the entire school having bad mental health, they failed to conceive an answer.
I find it extremely unfair that the outside world has such a negative idea of mental health at Exeter; labels such as “pressure cooker” undermine the effort that both the student and the academy are putting in to make this school as fun as possible. Furthermore, the negative notions that people have regarding Exeter’s mental health are flat-out wrong. Exeter takes mental health seriously, with countless systems to aid and support students through even the hardest times. As a student, my experience here speaks tenfold louder than all external sources. I find every source that portrays Exeter as a “hell-ish” place with every student going through some variation of mental health issues to be ignorant and writing without evidence. While I must say that Exeter’s mental health is not perfect, it is on the rise and does not seem to be slowing down soon.
From the bottom of my heart, I find Exeter to be one of the last bastions for the acknowledgment and aid of mental health issues. Exeter never once downplays mental health, nor does it ever disregard students’ mental health issues. I hope external sources regarding these academies can have students inside each school speaking regarding their respective schools: and when it comes to Exeter, I am willing to talk for hours.