The classroom has evolved throughout the years. Handwritten notes and chalkboards have slowly changed to Google Doc tabs and PowerPoint slides. Lengthy textbooks are now available online and in condensed formats. And technologies like AI allow students to rapidly consume information. With the add/drop period behind us, most students have already learned which of their […]
At Harvard, midterm season sees students celebrating a 48% because it’s above the class average. Yes, Stat 110, I’m looking at you. Every semester, these midterm scores bring about an onslaught of headlines from news outlets that haven’t written about Gen Z’s “academic decline” in a while. It’s nothing new. But the question remains: is […]
Michael Jackson moonwalking away after pilfering your KFC order. SpongeBob SquarePants getting pulled over by highway patrol. Peter Griffin duking it out with anime characters. These absurd scenarios, once confined to dreams or fanfiction, can now be conjured in seconds through OpenAI’s new video-generation model, Sora 2. All it takes is a few keystrokes and […]
Laura. Pérez. Cremer. When I turned 14, I began to feel a visceral rejection towards my first surname: Pérez. In Spain, every citizen’s ID includes both surnames—usually the father’s first, the mother’s second. In most cases, it is that of the mother’s which is left in second place. And like most things placed second, it […]
It starts with a story. Two teenage girls in a quiet suburban house whisper about a cursed videotape—one that kills anyone who watches it seven days after viewing. They laugh, half-believing, half-scared, until one admits she’s already seen it. That night, the curse keeps its promise. I first saw “The Ring” in high school and […]
“Do the readings.” I open Canvas to see what my assigned reading is for the week. A 35-page research paper, a chapter from a book written in 19th-century jargon, and a seemingly endless textbook excerpt on convoluted theory. Professors, TFs, upperclassmen, even Dean Amanda Claybaugh in the freshman training modules, repeat this mantra: “Do the […]
Once again, the time of the year has snuck up on me: it’s October—or, as it’s esoterically translated in German, Oktober—and that means it’s time for Oktoberfest (literally “October Festival,” another toughie to figure out). Now a college sophomore, it’s been two years since I’ve celebrated Oktoberfest in Germany with friends. While I haven’t shuffled […]
Sir Galahad: Growing up, my dad had one rule for tree-climbing: if you can get yourself up, you can get yourself back down. I would scurry up branches as they bent under my weight until I sat perched too high on limbs too thin; the ground looked impossibly far away. When it came time to […]
In response to the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk, many prominent conservative voices have proclaimed that a state of “war” has befallen the nation. A war of ideology, left versus right, “our truth” versus “their truth.” Amidst the trigger words and headlines, we must take stock of where we are as a nation and ask […]
This summer in London, I visited the Tate to see Do Ho Suh’s installation. Entire apartments were remade in translucent fabric: doorframes, corridors, kitchens, even the seams and edges of walls rendered in color so thin it felt like memory given form. They are monuments to impermanence, preserving the memory of rooms that no longer […]