Missing Columbia student found weeks later writes op-ed on why she disappeared

A Columbia University student reported missing earlier this month and then found living alone in Brooklyn has broken her silence on why she disappeared in an op-ed in the New York Post on Sunday.

In the column, Nayla Kidd writes that she finds Columbia University alienating, and that she "went from star student to slacker." Things did not improve, she continued, "and I was almost finished with my sophomore year ... when I decided to start my new life."

The rising junior, who writes that she's not going back to Columbia, said she decided to skip finals, then "changed bank accounts, got a second phone number and deleted my Facebook page."

She was located by the New York City Police Department, student newspaper the Columbia Spectator said the university community learned in an email from the school's Vice President for Public Safety May 23.

That she told no one, she writes in the Post, was because she needed time to figure things out.

Alexandra Samuels is a student at American University and a USA TODAY College breaking news correspondent.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.