Harvard student dies in dorm in apparent suicide

Anthony Fonseca, a Harvard junior, died Sunday morning in an apparent suicide.

Fonseca was discovered around 9:30 a.m in his college house by his roommate, who then notified a resident tutor and called the police.

Harvard officials would neither confirm nor deny the cause of death and are awaiting the medical examiner's results, however, no foul play is suspected.

Friends were notified of Fonseca's death on Sunday but did not hear about the apparent suicide until Monday morning. Those who knew him were shocked upon hearing the news.

Fonseca, who was concentrating in economics, was very involved on campus, active in the TV and video community and commonly worked as a deejay for parties.

"I can't understand it," said Debra Mao, president of Harvard-Radcliffe Television, an organization that Fonseca was active in. "We saw him every week and never thought of him as a troubled or distressed person."

"Everyone agrees it was a big shock," senior and friend of Fonseca's Lisa Feigenbaum said. "Everyone has a bad day but no matter how bad it is, you don't think about killing yourself. It just shows the severity of the situation."

"He was always out and about," said senior Suzanne Podhurst, who lived in the dormitory with Fonseca. "Everyone knows who he is, he was really sociable and funny and good-looking. He was a personality."

"Anthony was really fun to be around because I never really knew what he was going to say next," Feigenbaum said. "And he was a great dancer."

Although technically a junior, Fonseca was supposed to graduate in 2004, but took the 2002-03 academic year off. The reasons for his departure are unknown even to those who knew him.

"I don't think anyone knows why he took the year off," Podhurst said.

This is the second death of a Harvard undergraduate in just over a year. In December 2002, junior Marian Smith committed suicide in the same college house where Fonseca lived.

Fonseca's apparent suicide raises questions about the pressures facing college students particularly at Ivy League schools and the manner in which they deal with them.

"In the Ivy League, a lot of times, there is a pressure to give this portrayal that you have everything together," Feigenbaum said. "Sometimes the added pressure causes people to internalize these sorts of insecurities rather than seeking help before it's too late."

Senior Jeff Maki echoed Feigenbaum's sentiments. "You have a lot of very intelligent people who went to very competitive high schools and come here where they are no longer number one," she said. "Ivy League students aren't more suicidal than other students, they just push themselves harder in a very high-stress environment because they strive to be the best."

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