At New York University, I started out pre-med, aspiring to be an anesthesiologist. One late night, holed up in the library, studying for the dreaded organic chemistry midterm, I went 22 hours without sleep. When my parents heard of this, they tried to dissuade me from my medical school plans.

“You don’t have to break your neck to make a living,” my dad said via Skype.

Eventually, I did switch out of the pre-med track, not at my parents’ persuasion, but because I realized I didn’t enjoy the subjects. I switched to psychology, after falling in love with the Intro to Psych class I took my sophomore year, and graduated with an honors in psychology.

I think it was my parents’ lack of emphasis on grades that gave me room to foster my own desire for achievements. I developed a strong work ethic of my own accord, instead of doing it to placate my family. Intrinsic motivation, as it’s known in psychology, is doing something because that activity is inherently rewarding. Extrinsic motivation is doing something for outside rewards — praise from parents, money or recognition, for instance. Goal pursuit directed by intrinsic motivation is not only more powerful, but exponentially more fulfilling. I believe that when parents oppressively push their children toward academic success, it prevents them from forming intrinsic motivation for scholarly accomplishments.

That’s not to say the harsh tiger parenting tactic isn’t effective. Statistics show that Asian-Americans tend to excel academically. They make up just 5 percent of the United States population, but constitute about 20 percent of the student body at Ivy League colleges.

This academic edge, however, comes at a hefty cost. Asian-American students have higher rates of suicidal ideation than white college students, and these pernicious thoughts translate into behavior. At Cornell University, there were 21 on-campus suicides from 1999 to 2006, 13 of which were Asian students. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Asians accounted for 42 percent of student suicides in the last 15 years.