op-ed
I have been too quiet at times. I have actively chosen to be a passive member of the communities and organizations I am part of. There have been moments when I have held my tongue and kept myself from contributing to the conversation. I am not proud of that. I have also said too much. I have walked into encounters with only one direction in mind. I have not always been so empathetic to the opinions of others. I am certainly not proud of that either.
This is an essay regarding my perception of a personal hero, and how a short article by Neil Strauss changed it for the better.
They see me. They see me not. Write another paper, hand it in. They see me. They see me not. Take another exam, hand it in. They see me. They see me not. Write an application. Submit it. Maybe it’s for grad school or a full time job. The goal is to stand out, to catch someone’s eye.
This is an overture, and I am over churning the same problems over and over and over again. It’s like we’ve been chewing on the same piece of gum for so long, we’ve gone numb to its flavour, and yet it still sticks.
Dear editors, Reporter magazine: In response to your Oct. 27 story written by Frankie James Albin, I would like to expand on how members of the RIT community have the ability to report inappropriate behavior of a sexual or discriminatory nature.
The pace is different here. That’s the first thing I noticed when I moved to RIT. While I would have felt totally fine moseying on by, folks here would sprint from sunrise to sunset. Cultural differences, when combined with the vibrant energy of a college campus, collectively harbored this infectious sense of urgency.
I’m afraid of letting the people I care about down. I’ve got butterflies in my belly and the ache to prove it. The start of any semester can be rather tumultuous. Only a few days in, we realize the arduous nature of the workload we have taken on. Expectations quake as incentives wane and some students find themselves having to choose between the responsibilities they signed up for.
Dear President Munson and Provost Haefner,
Accessibility is a quintessential component for quality of life. Last year, I recall listening to a provocative conference keynote address by Patricia Moore on the humanity of design in its present state. Sitting in Booth’s Webb Auditorium, the crowd of students was eagerly poked and prodded by her piercing words as Moore shed light on the current weaknesses of the industry — areas of opportunity for us all in the crowd.
Where are you going? I ask myself this question before making all major decisions. It brought me to Rochester. It guided me to the flagpoles and roundabout entrance of the RIT campus, GPS chiming in with “turn left” and then “you have reached your destination.”
What I got out of the experience, how you can do the same, and why you should.
Editor's note for the March 2017 issue of Reporter.
Journalists and the community must work together.
A letter from Thomas Lasalle: "How RIT Hockey saved me from the depths of depression during a troubling time in my life and grew on me rather quickly."
I recently finished reading “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” by Chris Hadfield, one of the most decorated astronauts in history and the first Canadian to walk in space. This book was a treasure trove of little wisdom nuggets, but the one that stuck with me the most was Hadfield’s point of view on what he calls “the big moments”: “If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moments count, you’re setting yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time.”
I know I don't need to reiterate this, but it has been a painful election cycle for all of us. Finally, while this issue is still on stands, the beginning of the end will take the nation by storm. We will either have our first woman president, or our first reality television star. I'll let you guess which one I'm rooting for.
A letter to the editor about the recent election.
We need to stick together if we're going to get through the next four years.
Thoughts on the results of the election.
A response to a Views piece by Bailey Gribben on the subject of the legality of fanfiction.
I've seen people be critiqued on just about everything: their hair, their outfit, their choice of major, their hobbies, hobbies they don't have. I've seen people be judged for reading and for not reading, for enjoying something a little too much or too loudly or in the wrong way, for not smiling, for saying the wrong thing, for not saying anything. I've heard bystanders comment on every aspect of someone's life that they know nothing about.
We live in a culture full of technology that claims to unmask, disambiguate and demystify the obscure. We have Netflix to give us access to movies that would have otherwise been hidden to us and social media to connect us with people to whom we would never have otherwise had the chance to speak. We in the developed world have access to education, information and entertainment in unprecedented volumes.
My first ever editor's note ran in the Orientation Issue two years ago. It encouraged the students to wake up, get involved and get a little mad about the world around them. For my last editor's note, I want to encourage students to do one of RIT's buzzwords: innovate.