Forum
I Was Here
In December 2023, shortly after my acceptance to Harvard, I traveled to Poland to visit all six Nazi extermination camps—where over 2.7 million people were murdered, the majority of them Jews. Those two weeks were emotionally exhausting and grueling. My instinct afterward was to mentally lock the experience away, to avoid confronting the weight of […]
Thoughts from New Quincy: High on Nationalism
America has the munchies. From sea to shining sea, from Doritos Locos Tacos to Manifest Destiny, this country was built on a bottomless appetite—insatiable, indiscriminate, and utterly divorced from actual need. Expansion wasn’t just policy—it was craving. A sudden, stoned hunger for land, for oil, for more. Why stop at thirteen colonies when you could […]
Dazed and Confused
The Knights have returned—not for glory, but to kill the same dragon, high and half-laughing. Everyone is tired. Not in the way sleep fixes, but in the way that lingers behind the eyes. The kind of tired that sits beneath conversation, beneath caffeine, beneath even the desire to name it. One night, I felt it […]
Food For Thought
With only five weeks left in my first year at Harvard, I’ve begun reflecting on the people and places that have made Cambridge feel like home. And surprisingly, despite everything that Harvard University Dining Services lacks (which is…a lot), Annenberg—affectionately known as ‘Berg’—is one place I know I will miss. Dining hall culture is a […]
Bon Appé-Temps: The Art of Savoring French Meals
There’s always something to do in the kitchen—something to chop, something to peel, something to stir. Last weekend, after tiring myself of reading, painting, and walking around my host family’s country home, I wandered into the kitchen, where my host dad’s sister was preparing dinner and the next day’s lunch. Eager for a task, I […]
Daylight Craving Time
If you polled college students, most would claim that their favorite time of year arrives during spring break, the winter holidays, or the last few weeks of school. For me, it’s the day that daylight saving time begins. Daylight saving time begins in early March when the clocks jump forward an hour and ends in […]
Harvard Makes it Rain
Harvard College just made a game-changing announcement: it’s expanding its financial aid. If your family makes $100,000 or less per year, congratulations—you get to attend Harvard for free! If your family makes $200,000 or less, do not worry—you still get a piece of the pie, because your tuition will be fully covered. For a lot […]
Comment if You Care
“So beautiful OMG.” “OBSESSED WITH YOU!” “Sickkk!” Scroll through any college student’s Instagram, and you’ll find comment sections overflowing with enthusiastic displays of praise. But look closer, and you’ll see a microcosm of college social dynamics. From heart emojis to sarcastic one-liners, Instagram comments can reveal not only how users seek validation but also how […]
A Broad, Abroad: Lessons from Stress
Despite my love for Eliot Dining Hall, I spent much of sophomore fall hopping between different Houses’ dining halls—not for camaraderie, but for answers to Stat 110 p-sets. Each week, hours of my life disappeared in crowded office hours, hovering around a teaching fellow in hopes of getting a single question answered about probability, Bayes’s […]