On the website for my former graduate program, there is a listing of grad students and their areas of study. My name and focus are still displayed there.

Yesterday, a prospective graduate student emailed me, wanting to know my impression of the program.

What do I tell her? If I answer, I have to start by saying that I left the program. I left for a lot of reasons, and only some of them are department-related.

Even though I'm sure it would be useful to her to hear what I have to say, I'm tempted to simply refer her to current students/alum. Maybe there's a part of me that isn't quite ready to admit all the reasons I left, even to myself.