"Many people believe that university students live carefree lives, but actually, they are under huge pressure from society and their families. Many look optimistic, but, in fact, they are introverted. This is a common characteristic shared by many suicides," said Lin Guirui, a psychology professor at Capital Normal University and director of the Beijing College Students Psychology Education Research Center.
"The Fudan poisoning tragedy sounds like an individual case, but I think our education system is the soil that breeds such horrible crimes. The ultimate goal of education should be the cultivation of personality, ideals, an outlook on life and values, good human relationships and communication skills. Unfortunately, our education system places too much emphasis on the cultivation of skills that concentrate on the trivial and neglect the essentials," said Lin, who has been researching the psychological health of students for 20 years.
"I've studied many campus suicides and criminal cases. I've come to the conclusion that if a person doesn't have a healthy personality and outlook on life, the skills and certificates they gain are irrelevant. They may cause great harm to those around them. The education authorities and many universities are calling for student counseling to be taken more seriously, but the truth is that little has been done so far. At most universities, the psychological health of students is still being ignored," she said.
This is partly the result of uneven distribution of resources, according to Lin. For example, the education department demands that every university and college has a counseling center for students, but it's not unusual to find universities with more than 10,000 students that only employ one full-time counselor.
"What's worse is that, because of a lack of investment, teachers and the staff of school counseling centers are often poorly paid and have little chance of promotion, so it's hard to guarantee the quality of the counseling on offer," said Lin.
Zhang Jiming, a senior psychologist at the students' counseling center at Beijing Normal University, considered Huang's case to be an isolated incident.
"Fatalities arising from trivial matters usually occur among undergraduates, who are struggling to acclimatize to life without the daily care of their parents and need to learn how to share and forgive. In the postgraduate phase, cases such as this are rare," he said.
Zhang said the case is shocking, but people should be wary of jumping to the conclusion that college students' psychological problems are more serious than those of previous generations.
However, he also admitted the lack of counseling is a weak point in Chinese universities. "Psychological education is a long-term project. When students came for counseling, we discovered that more than 90 percent of them had not received psychological education.
Survival tactics
"In terms of treating problems in social relations, I don't think there are many differences between China and Western countries," said Cynthia Feng, 26, who spent six years studying in the United Kingdom and United States.
"I have heard that many cases of campus violence were caused by psychological problems. For example, a professor refused to allocate good projects to students who disagreed with them, or, sometimes, the professors and students were fighting over the same lover.
"In some cases overseas, campus violence consists of a lone gunman who injures a number of people; few cases of one-on-one revenge have occurred. However, in China, fatalities are often triggered by trivial matters and occur between two people or a small number," said Professor Lin.
"It may be that the problem lies in cultural differences. Westerners are likely to be more upfront about a grievance, while the Chinese usually attempt to avoid confrontation at all costs," said Lin.
2 killed, 1 injured in man's street knife attacks in Beijing
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