by Nicole Howley

Dunder Mifflin Regional Manager Michael Scott once said in an episode of The Office, “Presents are the best way to show someone how much you care. It’s like this tangible thing you can point to and say, ‘Hey man, I love you this many dollars worth.’” Although I enjoy hearing the majority of Scott’s personal philosophies, our opinions diverge on this matter.

Presents can be a tangible way to show people how much you care, but money is not the best way to measure this...

I do not doubt for a moment that the semester system will work out for RIT in the long run; it might take a few years to stabilize. Unfortunately, current RIT students are not enrolled a few years from now. We are enrolled in the present and the likelihood is that by the time the semester system reaches a happy equilibrium, most current students will have graduated.

I entered RIT as a first year student during RIT’s last academic year on quarters. The academic environment I joined was well established and well understood by students and faculty alike...

Refined grading is bad for RIT and its students. To justify a change to a plus-minus grading system, there should be clear benefits that outweigh the negatives. Unfortunately, the positives, if there are any, pale in comparison to the negatives. RIT has changed a lot since the decision was made to implement plus-minus grading and it is past time to challenge this implementation.

According to the President’s page on the RIT website, RIT exists to enhance education for students, place students in good careers and advance societal knowledge. Everything the university does should be measured against that purpose...

Not all RIT policies are designed to be a hindrance to students; Some are designed to do the exact opposite. Consider parking tickets, we all know that they suck...

To me, beards are basically bundles of fluff, fuzz, magic and self expression. Although I am biologically excluded from growing this magical facial fuzz, I still enjoy gazing at them from afar and stroking them whenever the situation permits...

No shave November is my least favorite part of the year. I don’t like beards and I’m not alone...

I’m a multitasker. Between classwork, writing for Reporter and project managing the development of Reporter’s new website, a second (or third) set of hands would be wonderfully useful...

“I had somebody open up the detergent tray … put whatever they were going to put in there to wash their clothes and they threw money in there because they thought that’s where the money went as well...

Imagine you are walking down the Quarter Mile; there is not a cloud in the sky and the temperature is just right. All is good in your world today...

“Mandatory attendance policy” is a term that most college students tend to cringe at. In college, most of us students assume that we’ll be treated as adults and we’re told that it is now our duty to manage our priorities, time and life goals entirely on our own. A flexible attendance policy could be a better alternative. Not only could it be applied only to first-year undergraduate students but it could even give leniency for freshman. Some professors may require partial attendance, but instead of absences penalizing the student directly, there could be rewards for attendance instead or just more motivation to attend via the curriculum...

Classes that do not quite “tickle your fancy” are a part of college life. Whether or not you attend those classes is your choice and as long as you do well, who cares, right? Unfortunately for students, the importance of class attendance is subject to each individual professor’s preference. Professors should not implement policies of mandatory classroom attendance. The only thing that is accomplished by forcing students to attend class is the creation of a stagnant classroom environment that nobody wants to be a part of.

College students are adults. As adults they make their own decisions and are accountable for any repercussions of those choices...

Every year, Black Friday atrocities are reported. According to Latinos Post, in 2012 two individuals were shot in outside of a Walmart in Tallahassee, Fla.. In 2011, over 20 shoppers, including children, were injured at a Walmart in Los Angeles after another shopper sprayed pepper spray, according to USA Today. The Daily mail reported in 2010 that a man was trampled in a Target in Buffalo, NY. This list goes on.

It’s no secret that Black Friday is dangerous to the shoppers that are involved. What I want to talk about is the poor and unethical treatment of the thousands of individuals who are forced (and when I say forced I do mean it) to work on Black Friday every year...

Illustration by Emily Gage

It’s been a long day and you need to unwind. But there are still homework assignments that need to be completed, papers that need to be written and you are going out with your friends later...

You can usually tell when the post office has distributed junk mail without even checking your box...

I’ve killed a man and I would do it again. I have done it again. I’m not a serial killer or a blood thirsty murder; I’m simply a college student who occasionally plays a round of Call of Duty with my friends.

Today’s media is full of stories of senseless acts of random violence and death and, somewhere along the line, violent video games, and the supposed psychological effect they have on players, was turned into a hot button issue. While a lot of high profile media outlets would like you to believe video games are too violent, and that playing them leads to violence, I would like to argue the contrary...

“Men most often feel the effects of our patriarchal society as it impacts the women closest to them: their sisters, mothers and friends. Feeling disconnected from the movement, some men may have trouble relating to feminism...

“Cute girl.” “Everything's got a price. How much you want for the lady?” “I'll give $1 for the lady.” “C'mon man she's worth more than that. $2.” With a few grammatical edits, this is how the comment stream proceeded on the RIT Free & For Sale Facebook page this past Tuesday. A male student had posted a picture of a girl holding a long board he wanted to sell. There were only a handful of comments about the longboard and even less about the objectification that was taking place, although one commenter did ask, “How much for the misogyny?”

This objectification of both men and women occurs all over the United States, but with 32.8 percent females versus 67...

For some reason, people are nice.

A few months ago, there was a surge of this niceness and there were three posts about me on some of the anonymous RIT Facebook pages. The first was on the RIT Complements page and that was followed by another two on RIT Crushes. One of the crush writers submitted the message, “I’d sometimes see this girl in the tunnels with the purple spiked backpack. I don’t know, but I have a gut feeling and I’d like to get to know her.” I am the girl with the spiked backpack, and I’m sorry but the feeling is not reciprocated...