Plath went to Smith College. After her third year, she became a guest editor for a magazine called "Mademoiselle", and spent a month in New York City. At this time, she became depressed. She tried to kill herself by taking too many sleeping pills. After she took the pills, she crawled underneath her house, but she was found and taken to hospital. She went to a mental hospital called McLean Hospital and was treated for her depression. She was given both insulin shock treatment and electric shock therapy. She began to improve and returned to Smith College for the second semester in January 1954. She graduated from Smith College in 1955.