Humans of MIT: Tarun Kamath
I knew that this happened to people, but I didn’t know that it was happening to people that I was close to.
When senior year of high school came around, I grew close with my friends and started to learn about their personal mental health struggles. They were struggling with depression, anxiety, and other things that I didn’t know were so prevalent. It was shocking. When I asked why this never came up, they said that there never was a place to talk about these things.
Coming into college, I decided that I wanted to create an environment where my friends and peers could talk about mental health, because I think mental health is just as important as physical health. The goal of Active Minds is to reduce the stigma around mental health on college campuses, and I have found my calling there.
I hope to have made a tangible impact. These aren’t the kinds of things that you can really see. But every year, it seems the MIT administration and students are becoming more aware of mental health issues, increasing the number of groups focused on addressing mental health openly. And it’s really remarkable.
Tarun Kamath is a member of the Class of 2020.
This article is part of a collaboration with Humans of MIT. For more content like this, please visit their Facebook page.