I’m not a particularly devout person. I don’t subscribe to any cults or fringe subcultures. (In the interest of transparency, I do follow Kylie Jenner on Instagram.) And I’ve never really wondered what happens to us after we kick the proverbial bucket. But if there ever is an apocalypse that reduces ...
The iconic Rabbi A.Y. Kook once said, “I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.” This statement encapsulates the visceral obligation I feel to the Jewish community to react: to scream when swastiskas stain high school walls, to ...
This summer, students received word that Brown is switching the management of its student health insurance plan to Gallagher Student Health, an insurance company that provides plans for a multitude of universities nationwide. While this might seem like a technicality, the change creates another difficult ...
On the one hand, we have Harriet Tubman, a humanitarian and abolitionist who dedicated her life to fighting for the freedom of enslaved people. She risked her life as a spy for the Union Army, spent years guiding others to liberty and eventually became the most famous “conductor” on the Underground ...
You can learn a lot about a person over a meal. My best friends at Brown share my love of food and, in many cases, a similar eating schedule. Every fall, I cherish the inaugural dinner of the semester, before classes start and when the only people in the dining halls are athletes and students participating ...
I entered Brown with big aspirations, wide eyes and a hope for something incredible. Like many of my peers, I was the valedictorian and president of many different clubs in high school. But after my freshman year, I soon realized that almost every Brown student was accustomed to past success. Brown ...
I cannot begin to quantify the number of parties I have attended with Steff and Stefan where we have taken over the music. From tiny dorm rooms to large bars, the three of us are constantly arriving somewhere, deciding we want to hear something different and asserting our musical tastes on everyone ...
My senior year of high school I wrote a paper for my AP Language class trying to figure out what makes going to college worth the money. I could not actually answer the question, so the resulting paper was tragically bad. I argued that experiences combined with academics define college, making it a ...
You bend down to tie your laces. You think the shoes are funny-looking. They are made of cowhide, and you have never worn ones like these before. You are traveling to America! Better wear something nice! You giggle at their old-fashioned ideas.
Homesickness has plagued me for longer than I would like to admit. One of my only memories from pre-school is crying by the classroom door after my mom dropped me off for the day. Once my parents went back to Pennsylvania after visiting me during family weekend of my sophomore year of college, I got ...
I have often been asked what my favorite book is or asked friends what their favorite books are. This is always a curious question, mostly because it offers an opportunity to learn about what the other person cares about without having to make them feel uncomfortable. In this same fashion, I will give ...
In 1982, an incoming freshman from New Jersey met his roommate, an international student from Pakistan. In their initial conversation, Andy Lazris ’86 and Syed Ejaz Husain ’86 MD’90 both quickly acknowledged that neither of them drank, but they agreed to begin college anew, attending a frat party ...
In high school, I started a Tumblr account with the username, “peoplecartographer.” I titled the blog “Atlas” and wrote a short description: “A collection of maps. An exploration of the world.” My posts featured maps I found online — including a map of terms used in the United States to ...
Making your way to the top of College Hill is not always easy. In the fall of 1982, fresh off his flight from Islamabad, Pakistan and totally alone, Syed Ejaz Husain ’86 MD’90 trekked up the uneven cobblestone sidewalk with his suitcase encasing all of his belongings for college. The young international ...
Inspired by the mother of the protagonist Sam in “Transformers 2,” my dad proudly paraded through Keeney on orientation day with my baby shoes around his neck (or “baby booties,” as Sam’s mom calls them). I took my first steps in these tiny red shoes. They flew with me across the Pacific from ...
With Commencement just 31 days away, many of my fellow seniors find themselves in the throes of a full-blown existential crisis. Last September, I wrote myself “A pep talk for senior year,” in which I found cause for optimism despite “a general sense that the world into which we were born is dissolving ...
In the wake of the 2016 election, numerous articles were written placing at least part of the blame for Hillary Clinton’s defeat on America’s urbanites — simply for living where they do. City-dwellers, the logic went, were essentially self-gerrymandering, diminishing their political impact by ...
Congratulations to the 2,722 students — of a record 32,724 applicants — admitted to Brown for fall 2017. It is no surprise that Brown (which accepted a record-low 8.3 percent of applicants this year) and the other Ivy League universities have become increasingly selective over the past decade, as ...
Unpopular opinion: 4/20 at Brown sucks. Seriously. The marijuana-centric celebrations of 4/20 indulgently highlight inequities and entitlement while staging an exclusive takeover of public spaces. I’m reminded of this every year, and 2017 was no different. The last thing I want to do is take a gratuitous ...
Last Wednesday, Fox News finally dismissed the host of “The O’Reilly Factor” after years of silencing sexual assault allegations with settlements. Bill O’Reilly earned Fox News $446 million in advertising revenue over a span of two years, a figure that dwarfs the $13 million the company paid ...
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