Why Formerly Missing Student Nayla Kidd Went Off the Grid

Former Columbia University engineering student, Nayla Kidd who was presumed missing spoke out about why she went off the grid. In her NY Post article, she details why she had to “escape” her Ivy League life.

“I needed to break from my old life of high pressure and unreasonable expectations,” Kidd explained.

Missing Columbia University Student Nayla Kidd Found Safe

After attending Columbia she no longer found gratification in academia. She attributes her success in her high school academic career to a “small, tight-knit community” of student and teachers and describes Columbia’s environment as unwelcoming and alienating.

Kidd had made the decision to leave school, changed her number, deleted her Facebook profile, switched bank accounts and moved from Harlem to Brooklyn in an attempt to regroup.

“I wanted time to make sense of my situation alone and have the space to comprehend it,” she said in the article. “I felt like sharing would force me to explain something I hadn’t even figured out myself. It wasn’t normal to just quit school. But I never expected it to get so out of hand.”

Now that the ordeal is over, Kidd seems optimistic, detailing the plans she has for herself, “There are a lot of different things I would like to work on and develop now. I want to make and produce music and work on my writing.

“I want to continue my modeling career and see if I can make money doing freelance gigs. I’m back in touch with my friends and family, but I’m not going back to how things used to be,” she asserts.

Kidd plans to continue living in Brooklyn and has no intentions of going back to school. “I finally broke down because I was living the life I thought I should be living instead of living the life I want,” Kidd concluded.

Read her full story here.

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