The first column I ever wrote for The Herald was titled 鈥淚 did not like the first-year reading.鈥� Perhaps you remember that book 鈥� 鈥淭he Idiot鈥� by Elif Batuman. The pink paperback Brown mailed us the summer before our first year, with the picture of a gray rock on the cover. Our first homework ...
In a recent Washington Post op-ed, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang 鈥�96 leads a rallying cry against racism. Only instead of simply denouncing the recent rise of anti-Asian sentiment in America, he goes one step further.聽 In Yang鈥檚 view, simply 鈥渟aying 鈥楧on鈥檛 be racist toward Asians鈥� ...
I am guilty of it 鈥� giving opinions on things I know little about. Most of the time, the stakes are low. I argue with friends about sports teams that I never watch, music that I rarely listen to and shows that I have only ever seen once. My limited knowledge does little to prevent me from crafting ...
I was chatting with a friend the other day when I accidentally unearthed a source of deep psychological trauma 鈥� I asked her how math class was going. All the joy left her face in an instant, replaced with a curious mix of fear, panic and anger. Though this story is anecdotal, it reflects a rather ...
One day at the start school year, barely a month into my first year of college, I scurried off to the library in a dress shirt and trousers to print out ten copies of my resume, which I had only scraped together the night before. It was a tragic sight 鈥� the resume, that is 鈥� sparsely populated with ...
For the past few years, I have made New Year鈥檚 resolutions. For the past few years, I have also failed my New Year鈥檚 resolutions. This pattern is unsurprising. As someone who enjoys reading self-help books without actually doing any self-helping, I have always had a penchant for fruitless proclamations ...
Growing up, I would often hear complaints, usually from adults much older than myself, about the sorry state of modern songwriting. As a young, impressionable kid, I sometimes felt like they had a point. New songs were trite and uninspired. Surely, they could never match the poetic beauty of Leonard ...
I am your California stereotype: a warm-weather weakling who cannot handle any temperature under 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I shiver at the slightest breeze. A beanie is perpetually glued to my head. The winter jacket I bought before coming to Brown has already become a staple in my wardrobe. Or rather, ...
The other day during a math lecture, I raised my hand, and I asked a question 鈥� a stupid one. It was one of those questions that you regretted as soon as the words came out of your mouth. In that moment, I wished for a real-life rewind button or a spell for amnesia that I could quickly cast on the ...
With college application season in full bloom across the country, many university applicants will come into contact with college rankings. US News, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal publish some of the more well-known lists, though many more exist. Each operates in a similar fashion: quantifying the ...
