As I enter my senior year at Brown, I’m watching everyone around me make decisions that, on the surface, seem life-defining. What will our futures hold, and what is the best way we can shape them? For some, this question starts early. Many students in my class already know where they will be working ...
COVID-19 is still going around. Despite declining case counts nationwide, our country currently faces about 55,000 new infections and hundreds of deaths a day. At Brown, many of us know peers who have recently ...
Self-censorship must have existed since humans first formed groups. Some powerful majority always decides which values, ideas and ways of being are permissible, and those who transgress these norms face the backlash of the community. As a result, we often censor ourselves, filtering out certain thoughts ...
I deeply appreciate and agree with many of the views expressed in the Sept. 14 op-ed by Sean Fischer ’23, “Brown must embrace contentious conversations to discourage a persistent culture of self-censorship.” I welcome its clear articulation of the value of confronting viewpoints that are different ...
In 1991, the Federal Highway Administration revealed that the total cost of the Interstate Highway System was a whopping $128.9 billion, or about half a trillion dollars in 2016’s money. In 2019, state and local governments spent $203 billion to maintain existing highways and roads, only 37% of ...
On Aug. 28, the Burning Man Festival returned to its home in Black Rock City after the event had moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you had to pick the most important component of a healthy relationship, what would it be? For me, the answer is clear: the ability to have honest and difficult conversations. Candid dialogue has the ability to sort right from wrong, to build trust and to encourage learning between partners. ...
As I heard a student’s impassioned speech advocating for the forceful unification of my country, my frustration began to boil over. I rushed to the restroom, only to see my teary reflection staring back at me. Quickly drying my tears as the bathroom door opened, I wondered when I had lost my ability ...
On move-in day at Brown and college campuses across the world, millions of students race through superstores looking for dorm supplies. The items they purchase reflect the latest environmental trends. “Climate neutral certified,” one shirt promises. “Powered by plants,” a laundry detergent ...
Over 30 years teaching at Brown, I have had the privilege of working with many talented students who have thrived through difficult academic challenges and gone on to wonderful careers in academia and the professional world. But, for a few years now, I have been noticing a deterioration in the quality ...
Midway through my study abroad experience in Paris, I was sitting in my European-sized single when I got a text from my dad at midnight. “Don’t panic, but call your mom.” I called my mom, who was in pieces. After a fall, my 86-year-old maternal grandmother was unconscious in the hospital. My ...
Seventeen years ago, as a freshman at Brown, I wrote an op-ed for The Herald responding to the vandalism and destruction of synagogues and Jewish-built
When it comes to love, words often fail us. Some articulate love as warmth, others as “a madness of delight; an obsession.” My favorite description of love, from Iris Murdoch, is “the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.” Yet no words can quite capture ...
In the 1950s and 60s, Interstate 95 was constructed through Providence, displacing city residents and cutting neighborhoods ...
This year’s Commencement Magazine marks the end of our class’ collective journey through Brown, and more broadly, a world irrevocably transformed.
Finding the words to adequately reflect on the beauty, triumph and at times difficulty of navigating this university is an exercise that is daunting yet necessary. It is my hope that my own personal narrative and understanding of my Brown experience will guide you, uplift you and empower you. ...
This winter break was my last time home as a college student and my first time holding an American phone number in Spain. More than needing to be available to my classmates on College Hill, my 401 number signified a transition that would have seemed insurmountable to my first-year self.
For as long as I can remember, my attention has escaped me. It has always been in a million places at once, split a million different ways. But at some point in my educational journey, I figured out how to direct it toward the standard markers of student achievement — academic excellence, extracurricular ...
When I was young I remember looking up at the night sky and the stars that lay over it like white specks on a dark canvas while soft tones of mariachi danced in the background. One of these nights, I asked in gentle Spanish, “Papá, Mamá, qué son esas luces en el cielo? Si agarro una escalera ...
Entrepreneurship runs in my blood. I am a proud first-generation Mexican American. My upbringing has been characterized by humility and filled with adversity. Both my parents risked their lives crossing the border to come to this country, in hopes of providing me and my brother with a better life ...
Solutions by The State News
