Nic Leaves the University of California, Berkeley

Nic Leaves the University of California, Berkeley marks the collapse of a college beginning that first appeared promising. After arriving at Berkeley with his family’s help, Nic Sheff becomes increasingly dissatisfied, withdraws from regular contact, and is reported missing by a roommate. When he finally speaks to David Sheff, he says college is not working and describes feeling depressed. The account makes his departure consequential not as a clearly documented administrative act, but as a turn in which college, drug use, and emotional distress can no longer be easily disentangled.

Arrival and Early Expectations

In August, Nic decides to attend Berkeley. On a warm afternoon, David, Karen Barbour, Jasper Sheff, and Daisy Sheff drive him there to settle in, stopping for pizza before reaching Bowles Hall, an old Tudor dormitory. Jasper is impressed by the building and calls it a castle. The family helps Nic carry his luggage through the stone archway and up two flights of stairs to his room, where they meet his roommates unpacking. Their first impression is of a serious, studious group; one roommate is assembling a home-built computer, while another has a stack of CDs that suggests a musical sensibility far from Nic’s own.

The difference becomes a moment of joking confidence rather than immediate conflict. Nic hugs each family member, laughs when David mentions the music, and says he will introduce his roommates to Marc Ribot. The scene gives his departure the shape of an ordinary transition: a family delivers a young adult to campus, helps him move in, and leaves him among new people. The early warmth matters because it contrasts with the later uncertainty. Nothing in the family’s practical help, or in Nic’s easy humor at the goodbye, reveals how quickly his connection to the college will weaken.

A Promising Start Unravels

In a call a few days later, Nic sounds engaged by his classes, particularly a painting course. His next reports are less positive. He cannot make stretcher bars for his canvases without them coming out crooked, and carrying the canvases across campus feels burdensome. He also complains that teaching assistants, rather than professors, teach his other courses. These are concrete frustrations, but the account does not present any one of them as the decisive cause of his departure. Instead, they accumulate as signs that the daily work of college is not matching the opportunity David hopes Nic will learn to endure.

As the calls continue, Nic seems distracted and stops returning them regularly. David does not know what is happening, but reads the silence as evidence that things are going badly. When Nic does check in, he says he has been staying with friends and is more interested in the underground music scene than in school. David encourages him to persist through the difficult beginning and reminds him that the opportunity could still prove worthwhile. He also suggests that Nic speak with counselors at the health center or contact his therapist, who has left open the possibility of continued support. Nic agrees that this is a good idea. David hopes he will follow through, while recognizing that hope alone does not ensure he will seek help.

Missing from Campus and the Call Home

A week after Nic agrees to consider support, one of his roommates calls David. Nic has not shown up for several days, and the roommates are worried. The report turns private distance into an urgent absence: David has already noticed that Nic is not returning calls, but now people sharing his campus life cannot locate him either. David is distraught. The evidence does not describe where Nic has been during those days or what happened while he was away; it establishes the roommates’ concern and the family’s lack of information, rather than filling the silence with an explanation.

Two days later, on a late fall afternoon, Nic calls and admits that college is not working. He says he was not ready for it, needs time to work on himself, and has been having a hard time and feeling depressed. David assumes drugs are the problem and raises the possibility of rehabilitation. Nic, however, says he is not using much. The exchange leaves the central question unsettled: Nic names depression and unreadiness, while David fears drug use, and neither account by itself resolves what has brought the college attempt to an end.

Uncertain Causes and Significance

David’s account places Nic’s explanation within a wider uncertainty about young people, depression, and substance use. He considers the possibility that drugs may be used to cope with depression or other mental-health problems, while also recognizing that substance use can become the focus of attention for both children and parents and may obscure deeper difficulties. Consulting experts does not produce a simple answer. Diagnosis, particularly in adolescents and young adults, is complicated because mood changes and symptoms associated with mental-health disorders can resemble signs of drug abuse. Drug addiction may also worsen an underlying problem and become so intertwined with it that the boundary between them is difficult to identify.

That uncertainty is central to the event’s meaning. Nic’s decision to leave college cannot be reduced, on the evidence given, to academic frustration, depression, or drug use alone. The narrative supplies the sequence—initial interest, mounting complaints, less contact, a roommate’s warning, and Nic’s eventual admission—while withholding a definitive diagnosis or a complete account of his days away. The departure therefore marks both an immediate loss of the college plan and a larger problem for David: how to respond when a son says he is struggling, yet the causes and appropriate help remain unclear.