For this assignment, I watched the documentary (Un) Privileged: The Cost of Being Poor at an Elite Institution. This documentary focused on low income and first-generation college students from several elite schools such as Trinity College, Vassar College, and Columbia University. These students all came together to discuss the challenges they were facing at their elite institutions. Each individual student thought they were the only ones who felt the way they were feeling until they actually talked it out with other students who were going through the same thing. Their institutions were not providing the proper resources for low income and first-generation students to succeed. Because of this, these students are feeling like they do not belong at their institutions. But, it helped them to talk to other students who were experiencing similar problems which made them know they weren’t alone. This documentary will be helpful in my research because it showed that these students not being able to fit in at their institutions is affecting their mental health and other aspects of their lives.
There were two quotes in particular that stood out to me. First, one of the students said: “We can see the numbers of our friends and fellow classmates that are battling depression, battling anxiety, because they vocally say that ‘I don't fit in here’ or ‘ I don't feel comfortable at this school because they don't see people who look like them, they don't see programs that are geared towards them” (12:33-12:50). This quote will be beneficial for my research because it shows that students are struggling to fit in at their schools which affects their mental health. Not fitting in can severely impact someone's mental state leading them to become depressed. Additionally, another quote I found helpful was when a student stated, “I don't really know how to take care of myself mentally because there are nights here, long periods of time here, that I realize I'm not happy and I don’t really know how to integrate myself”(18:05-18:15). This quote will also be helpful in my research. Being able to take care of yourself mentally is very important, and if you are unable to do that, you will be unable to do other things in your life. Mental health is probably one of the most important things in an individual's life, and once it starts to deteriorate then other aspects of one’s life will slowly start to turn as well.
This documentary can be watched at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZUsjhlRFnw
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