Making It Through College With A Mental Illness

 

By

William R. Jiang, MLS

 

Structure of the book

Introduction

    1. Who I am.
    2. who this book is written for.
    3. Why this book will help the reader. (Consumer, Family Member, Mental Health Professional)

     

    I. Preparing and financing for an education

    1. Educate yourself on the type of education you are looking for.
    1. i) Know Thyself and your wants and skills and limitations
    2. ii) Web resources to check for information on colleges.
    3. iii) Books to look at to help you in your quest.
    b. Funding your education
    1. The necessary evil that is FAFSA.
    2. Special rules for grant information for disabled students
    3. Grants
    4. Loans: good or bad? Stafford, Perkins and their Ilk.

     

    II. Your First Day of Class

    1. Your presentation of yourself as a student (be well groomed), duh!
    2. What you need to bring with you to the first day of class (laundry list)
    3. Be prepared to be assaulted by syllabi.
    4. Don’t be psyched out by the professor. However, make a realistic appraisal of the class: can I do it? Try to find out rumors about the class and professor.
    5. What your classmates don’t know about your illness isn’t their business just yet (Keep it to yourself).
    6. Take notes.

     

    III. Your First Semester

    1. Financial Aid (Check up on their dumb asses)
    2. Pace yourself (Don’t take too many classes.Be realistic. And study constantly and don’t cram.)
    3. Getting into the routine of being a college student.
    4. Socializing on campus
    5. Don’t slack off!
    6. Strategies for not failing: Make friends to split the work with. And get telephone numbers just in case you miss class notes.
    7. Try not to get too angry with the cafeteria food.
    8. The Library
    9. The All nighter and No-Doz.
    10. Finals: The crunch time when everybody stresses!
    11. Appraising your first semester.

     

    IV. What happens when you are re-hospitalized during school?

    1. My experiences at StonyBrook and Queens College

      i) Regroup and try to salvage what you can. Talk to your professsors.

    2. Don’t beat yourself up.
    3. Come back as a fighter, with new wisdom.

     

    V. The saga continues

    1. avoiding burnout
    2. keeping yourself mentally motivated
    3. achieving objectives
    4. being patient with yourself
    5. keeping the end in sight.

     

    VI. Graduation!

    1. Where do we go from here?
    2. Looking back at it all.
    3. Looking to the future.

     

    VII. Endnote

    VIII. Appendix

 

Check out some other stories I have written!

kd3qc@yahoo.com

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to my book! My name is Will and I’m going to walk you through the steps necessary to graduate from college despite having a mental illness because I’ve been there and done that. Tall order? Not as tall as I am. I overcame that hurdle twice in my life.

The first time I was hospitalized was at Stony Brook Univesity out in Suffolk, Long Island, where I was attending classes as an English major. A psychotic break is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I wandered about the mental ward thinking I was a saint capable of absolving sins from people by my just being near them, just like that guy from the movie Amadeus where at the end he ends up in an asylum saying he absolves the people around him after he confesses to the priest about killing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The ironic thing is that I am not a religious person at all when I am completely sane. Amazingly, I graduated from StonyBrook University on time despite having two major hospitalizations for my paranoid schizophrenia. Maybe if I had taken a little more time to relax and exercise during my days at Stony Brook I would have stayed sane.

Next, I for my graduate degree I went to Queens College and made it out of that program in three years with a masters in library science. The Queens College Library Science program is a one-and-one half year program, but I knew I had to pace myself, so it took me a bit longer. Initially, I thought I’d become a children’s librarian; however, it became apparent that the electronic aspect of information would become my demenses. I had no idea how much technology would be involved in the libraries of today when I enrolled. The technology was good to me, and because I had an affinity to the electronic medium I thrived at Queens College. Because I paced myself, and I took my time, I didn’t have a hospitalization during my stay at Queens College. That was good because I hate having psychotic breaks.

If you are grappeling with mental illness and want to go to college, or you know someone who has a mental illness that wants to go to college this book is for you. Possibly you are a caretaker of people with mental illness that want to go to college. This book is for all of you, but mostly it is for the people grappling with the illness. I have designed this book with the steps necessary to succeed in college despite having a mental illness. I hope this book serves as a beacon of light that gives gives hope.

Sincerely Yours,

William Jiang, MLS

 

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