My most resolute commitment this summer was to dutifully neglect my glasses as much as possible. I read, I scroll, I write emails, yet — against the constant pleading of my mom —I disregard the brown frames that sit somewhere in my room. When I first got the prescription for my reading glasses freshmen ...
“Shopping period” has always struck me as being too consumerist a term, too readily embracing a transactional conception of education. An education has to be earned, not bought. But, because my philosophical objection won’t get the University to rename its long-standing tradition, my only option ...
The past two years have been fraught for Democrats. In the aftermath of the calamitous 2016 presidential election, ideological fissures within the party have widened as progressive insurgents have found traction in recent months. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in 2016 portended a wave of challenges ...
Many of us spent the early part of our childhoods making friendship bracelets for playground buddies, only to watch those friendships fizzle within months of the symbolic union. Whether it was because of distance, different social circles or being seated apart in homeroom for too many years in a row, ...
The Democratic National Committee took a critical step here in Providence this past June, passing a resolution that banned political contributions from the fossil fuel industry, namely oil, gas and coal companies and their associations. The need for such a resolution was meant to address the industry’s ...
On Sept. 20, 2017, the biggest hurricane to ever hit Puerto Rico destroyed part of my home, left my community with a lack of interconnectivity for weeks and forced millions to live without necessities, including food and water. As a third-year student at the University of Puerto Rico, I was uncertain ...
I have spent hours flipping through past versions of Brown. The walls of The Herald’s office are lined with copies of the paper’s bound volumes dating back to 1892. Looking through them, I get swallowed up by the names of familiar places shrouded in unfamiliar sentiments. In 1968, one student said ...
A magazine cover inspired me to change my concentration from the sciences to the humanities. Had someone told me then, as a freshman, I would never have believed it. But here I am, more satisfied than ever with my decision. I started Brown set on concentrating in health and human biology. As soon ...
The summer before my first year at Brown, whilst deep in the throes of high school nostalgia, I stumbled across a Huffington Post blog titled, “Letting Go of Your Memory Ghost.” It began: “Do you know what a memory ghost is? It’s not an actual ghost of course. It’s the pizzeria that takes ...
I’ll never forget my father’s last words to me before I started college: “Michelle, every single person at this school is going to be smarter than you.” I still remember that moment so clearly, standing on the sidewalk outside of Keeney Quad in the relentless August heat. I was in a beloved ...
Like many first-year students, I arrived at Brown with bright eyes, elated to begin college at what I considered the perfect school. This was my chance to live the dream: the American dream my parents had worked so hard to realize, immigrating to the United States so their children could have a better ...
My apartment building’s superintendent is the most reliable man in my life right now. Paul is an employee of Mitrelis Enterprises, a business housed in the basement of our building. Our landlord, Andy Mitrelis, is an 88-year-old Greek man who owns eight properties in Rhode Island, a mix of residential ...
I distinctly remember the dread that filled me when I sat down to write my “Why Brown?” essay five years ago. Scattered across my desk were brochures collected from dozens of college fairs, and my browser was clogged with 20 or so tabs of college websites and student forums that I had been scouring ...
As an applied math-economics concentrator, I’ve spent my undergraduate career learning about different ways to quantify the difference between an expected value and a true value. I’ve spent hours poring over notes and problem sets on concepts from mean squared error, which measures how close an ...
My first day at Brown, I remember excitement and nerves. The smell of a fresh coat of paint as I walked into my dorm, the flash of a camera bulb as I took my ID picture. But most of all, I remember stepping into my first modern culture and media class. Opening the heavy oak door of Wilson Hall, pushing ...
When I left Puerto Rico to go to college, I had no intention of returning. I never felt quite at home there, in part because I did not look, speak or think like those around me. My mother is Iranian, my father is a Jew from Argentina, and I grew up speaking primarily English. This made it hard to relate ...
President Trump has many betes noires — his enemies, some of his friends, germs and sharks, to name a few — but none is more despised than the “FAKE NEWS media.” And nothing the FAKE NEWS media does winds him up more than when it quotes “phony unnamed sources” on dysfunction in his White ...
In 2017, the University undertook a massive fundraising campaign to remove financial barriers to accessing a Brown education. The Brown Promise initiative raised enough money to eliminate loans from undergraduate financial aid packages starting in the 2018-2019 school year. This is a fantastic step ...
Let’s talk about relationships. The word has romantic connotations, but in reality, relationships are central to every part of our lives, from the personal to the professional. So isn’t it surprising that there are no courses offered at Brown intended to help students develop critical soft skills ...
On Apr. 17, The Herald published spring poll results that found many students report stealing regularly from Brown eateries. When asked to explain their behavior, students expressed the belief that stealing helped them derive more of the value of their meal plans. For example, one student explained, ...
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