Summary

In the essay “Yale Will Not Save You,” Wang recounts her time at Yale University as an undergraduate and the immediate aftermath. She recalls being an “overachieving child” (59) and teen, despite the symptoms of her mental health condition surfacing in high school. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder the summer before her freshman year at Yale, and directed to the university's Department of Mental Hygiene, where she was prescribed the mood stabilizer Depakote. She recalls being told by fellow students to never tell a clinician in the department that she was suicidal, because she would be remanded to a mental hospital immediately. She also recalls a woman named Margaret Holloway who used to recite Shakespeare for money on campus. Holloway (legend has it) was a former Yale student who had to drop out because of her...