ESCALATION OF BULLYING AND SUICIDE IN COLLEGE

SHAWN A. FRED

DEVRY UNIVERSITY
ENGLISH 135
PROF: STROMP
12/15/2014
Due Date (12/17/2014

Shawn A. Fred
Dec 11, 2014 English: 135
Final Paper

Imagine this for a moment if you will, you’re walking to your dorm room from your last class of the day. You already had a rough day with all of your classes. To top things off you’ve been interested in this particular senior meanwhile you’re a freshman. Every time you summon enough guts to talk to her you tend to make a fool of yourself with her girlfriends there making fun of you, then to make things worse the same girls pass by in their vehicle and they proceed to yell out the window and bash you with unkind words that hit below the belt. One girl even throws her lunch bag out the window at you at you. Now you are covered with the mess that was in the bag and your feeling humiliated. You walk back to your dorm room and decided that “enough is enough”, so you pull a chair up near a wooden beam that hangs across the room. You tie a rope around the beam and tighten it, Then without hesitation you hang yourself. This is what happened to my best friend Luis Fernandez who moved to upstate New York from Puerto Rico to start his new life as an adult. What Luis experienced is what many would call being “bullied”. Statistics from various sources would show that about 100,000 college students miss class frequently due to fear of not being able to fit in with the collegiate crowds. Some are even afraid of being attack emotionally and even on rare instances physically from their peers. According to bullying statistics, 1 out of every 10 students who drop out of college does so because of continuous and repeated bullying. Since 2001 Over 1.1 million students are currently enrolled in 264 institutions of higher education in New York State. 80% are enrolled as undergraduates and 20% as graduate or professional students. 70% attend full time and 30% part time. About 42% are male and 58% are female. Based on national estimates, approximately 83 suicides are likely to occur each year among college and university students in New York State, 59 among undergraduates and 24 among graduate and