When I first told my family that I would be double majoring in rhetoric and French, I faced confused and baffled responses. My parents expected me to follow my childhood passion for mathematics while in college, but sometimes, things just don’t work out. Throughout my academic career, I have been Read More…
Sometimes I am realistic to a fault. That’s not to say I never daydream or that I’m not adventurous, but I never seem to allow myself to make serious plans for the future, to avoid disappointment. Much of what I do is basically a last-minute decision — a combination of Read More…
I have always been enamored of the human body and all that makes us human. It’s the variation in the human experience that intrigues me. It’s the stories we yearn to tell, the values we have fought to keep or learned to let go and the insights we have gained from Read More…
That I’ve never outright failed a class must be some kind of minor miracle. However, that statement should be accompanied by a footnote indicating that while I’ve never failed a class, I have indeed received a “no pass” in three. To not pass a class is a gray area of Read More…
“The miraculous is everywhere … in our homes, in our minds,” a recent Sprint commercial circling the airwaves begins. The statement is made in a tone of awe by a deep-voiced male narrator while a series of images cut in after each other in rapid succession: hugely magnified blood cells rushing Read More…
I still remember that day in fifth grade like it was yesterday. “America is not a melting pot — it’s a salad bowl,” my teacher told us. “We have lots of different cultures — carrots, cucumbers, lettuce — but they don’t mix.” Ten-year-old me, eyes full of tears, rushed home to Read More…
One of the things that surprised me most when I came to college was meeting young couples around the area who met in college and are now married with children. For some reason, I’ve always had the impression that marriage was something to worry about after all the studying part Read More…
My first experience with suicide occurred in fourth grade, when a boy three years my senior hanged himself in his family’s garage. I didn’t know him that well, so I didn’t go to the funeral, but I remember trailing one of his best friends — that super cool seventh-grader I Read More…
Last year around this time I wrote a column detailing my disheartening attempts to attain a meaningful, paid internship for the summer. I turned to what seemed like a ridiculous and illogical alternative to earn a bit of spare change — stuffing facts such as “Who is the inventor of Read More…
Negative judgments about academic statuses like “freshman” and “transfer” are often justified by generalizations about the value of experience. But those ideas could use some rethinking. Does acquired experience really make us better students? Are students who lack experience really at a disadvantage? When it comes to freshmen, perhaps the Read More…
