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Posted on 05/12/2026 6:22:24 PM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
Has Ithaca gone to the dogs? A new memoir calls the Upstate New York city the “most depressing college town in America.”
Isabel Klee, a New Jersey native, has risen to social media fame through documenting her work rehabilitating medically complex and severely neglected rescue dogs — and showing their transformation from timid, shut-down animals into happy, thriving pets.
Klee’s new memoir, “Dogs, Boys and Other Things I’ve Cried About,” chronicles her coming-of-age years after high school and her early experiences living in New York City, but it also includes a blunt look back at her short-lived college experience in Upstate New York.
Before she became a social media phenomenon, Klee enrolled at Ithaca College.
In the book, she introduces Ithaca as a quaint, snowy town tucked into the Finger Lakes region. She describes Ithaca College as Cornell University’s rebellious younger brother — filled with artsy students, set against the shadow of its Ivy League neighbor.
But despite its bustling downtown and reputation as a progressive hub, Klee paints Ithaca as a difficult place for her.
She writes that the city is often referred to as “the most depressing college town in America,”
“I can’t say I disagree. I decided I hated college the month I arrived,” Klee wrote.
She describes her first semester at Ithaca as one of the darkest periods of her life, marked by deep depression, loneliness and self-isolation. A few months in, she wrote, her parents encouraged her to finish out the year despite her begging to come home. She agreed, clinging to the idea that at least there would be an end in sight.
But when the semester ended, Klee wrote, her parents packed up her belongings, hopped in the car and she never looked back.
(Excerpt) Read more at newyorkupstate.com ...
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Ithaca... I knew it.
>>But when the semester ended, Klee wrote, her parents packed up her belongings, hopped in the car and she never looked back.<<
Why did Mommy and Daddy pack for the daughter leaving college after one semister? She can not pack her own bags?
What was the purpose of the article here? To hawk boos?
Waste of time.
There’s a reason people throw themselves in those gorges
Watching the fog roll across Cayuga Lake with my father.
So glad I decided to go somewhere elese besides Cornell School of Law.
Maybe she didn’t have a car. And as a female, she probably had more than one suitcaseful of clothing. I recall taking items like several pairs of flats and high heels, a radio, record player, winter coats and boots, sport equipment, a sewing machine, towels, pillows, bedlinen, posters and books with me to my first semester.
Her depression could have been worse. She could have packed on the Freshman 20.
She was probably too stoned to do it herself knowing Ithaca.
Me too. OTOH, while Ithaca has numerous depressing aspects, I don't find most of them any different from other places I've lived, other than Upstate NY Winter weather. The weather Fall going into Winter does suck a lot. So if the author is not able to get over that, well then she's in for a tough time come Fall.
I've been through 50 Ithaca Fall-Winters, and you know what? I survived them all. But then, I'm not a young female college student prone to depression as a way of life.
She sounds like she wasn’t ready to leave the nest, to go to college, or mature into adulthood. She sounds chronically depressed and would have had the same problem no matter what school she went to.
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