Columns

Column

The Biggest Misconceptions About College Life: The best four years of your life

By Stephany Sestini | April 12

“Legally Blonde” (2001), “Neighbors” (2014) and “American Pie 2” (2001) are just a few examples of Hollywood’s many attempts to portray an unrealistic stereotype of college life. Of all the phases we experience throughout our lives, from learning how to read to seeing our grandchildren grow up, many claim that college is by far the best out of them all. “It will be the best four years of your life,” my family said. Growing up, all I cared about was working as hard as I possibly could to get into a prestigious university; I was more than ready to experience the most unforgettable and thrilling four years of my life. You can imagine my disappointment as I began my first few weeks as a first-year when I slowly realized that college life was not even remotely similar to how Hollywood movies and my relatives had depicted it. The ultimate truth is that the four years you spend in college might be the best of your life but they also might not.

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Columns

A Compendium of Actors: Lily Collins can do it all

By Henry Chandonnet | April 12

Often, we try to box actors and actresses into their appropriate category: indie actor here, big-budget action star there. This column has surely fallen prey to that same difficulty, establishing genres and niches that actors may unilaterally fill. Still, actors are not monoliths. They can do what they like, take on the projects they want and thus spread their talents far beyond a singular career pathway. This multifacetedness is exemplified by Lily Collins, an actress who takes on both trashy Netflix shows and prestigious Oscar films and does so with ease. This is a testament to her talent; Collins is able to tackle a myriad of roles, making her a jack of all trades.

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Columns

Sports and Society: America’s game drain

By Oliver Fox | April 12

Brittney Griner, the WNBA megastar and two-time Olympic gold medalist, has been detained in Russia since February. That’s obviously crazy, but not for the reasons you might think. 

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Columns

The Art of Good Soup: Lucky and charming

By Sadie Leite and Ellie Lester | April 11

We are tired. Sadie has purple feet (and them dogs are BARKING). Ellie ate salsa for breakfast. With salt. But it was pico de gallo, which makes it a little better?

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Column

Kate in Paris: In Bordeaux

By Kate Seklir | April 11

This weekend, along with the rest of the Tufts-in-Paris program, I boarded an early-morning train from Paris’ Gare Montparnasse and set off toward Bordeaux, a city in the southwest of France and a part of the country’s Aquitaine region.

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Ethics of the Environment: The consequences of fast fashion

By Ethan Jaskowiak | April 11

Perusing through stores like H&M and Forever 21, it’s difficult not to be struck by how affordable clothing has become and to wonder how clothing companies, especially those known as fast-fashion brands, can peddle clothing so cheaply. Most people are aware of the textile industry’s connections to child labor and worker exploitation in developing nations, but it is also important to address the industry’s heavy contribution to our worsening environmental crisis. 

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Columns

Public Cinemy No. 1: Narrative corruption within ‘The Dropout’

By Sacha Waters | April 8

I will admit I love Hulu’s “The Dropout” (2022), a highly-anticipated miniseries on Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. It’s beautifully written, beautifully shot and beautifully acted. Even teachers at my high school, Holmes’ alma mater, have commented on how well the miniseries captured Holmes’ eccentric character. But the show occasionally falls into the pothole of becoming what it means to analyze: America’s obsession with narrative smoke and mirrors.

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Columns

The Intangibles: My NBA momentum winners losers

By Aiden Herrod | April 8

Momentum in basketball is everything. Teams that are playing their best basketball in the crunch months of March and April are often more likely to succeed than higher-seeded counterparts who did all their winning in November and December. This creates final standings that can mislead the casual or even seasoned fan when bracket-filling time comes. Ultimately, my favorite picks for the NBA Finals are the teams that win the most games after lineups have been tweaked, film has been analyzed and chemistry has been built.

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Blue, Brown, & Green — Monkey see, monkey do

By Natalie Brownsell | April 8

Boston and its surrounding cities are beautiful places. One thing decidedly not beautiful is the litter that mars the woods and streets throughout Greater Boston. Unfortunately, I have, at times, seen a similar scene on campus. Though Tufts facilities might clean up litter occasionally, the responsibility for keeping our campus beautiful is a community-wide one. Littering is a serious problem in the U.S.;in a national litter study done by Keep America Beautiful in 2020, it was determined that there were “nearly 50 billion pieces of litter along U.S. roadways and waterways” throughout the country. That equates to 152 items of litter for every person in the United States per year.

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Columns

Micro-Trend of the Week: So you were wrong: A survival guide

By RaiAnn Bu | April 7

After seven weeks of hard-hitting fashion journalism, the well has run a bit dry. There’s nothing else to report on, a lull as the seasons transition. So instead, I have constructed a guide based on learned and lived experience on how to survive wasting your money. 

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Potty Talk: A celebrity in our bathrooms

By David Wingens | April 7

This week, rumors flew around Tufts’ campus. Everyone could feel a disturbance in the plumbing as someone of great import was touring our bathrooms. Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, was hanging out in the Campus Center trying to make new friends. In that process, she probably ended up using at least one of the Campus Center’s many bathrooms. In the wake of this monumental occasion, I chose to take on what are likely to be some of the most trafficked facilities at Tufts University — the Mayer Campus Center bathrooms. Specifically, I will attempt to tackle both the Hotung bathrooms and the all-gender bathroom.

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Columns

Managing Multipolarity: Turning to Tojo

By Daniel Chung | April 6

Welcome to the second installation of a two-part series on Japan’s grand strategy and future as a great power. The first part can be found here.

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Talking Transit: How Tufts could get students to take the T

By Chris Duncan | April 6

We’re lucky enough to be offered discounted T passes through the university, so if you want to have unrestricted access to the T for a semester, I’d encourage you to check that out. However, you might want to make sure you ride the T enough to justify the price tag.

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Columns

K-Weekly: BTS gives a stellar Grammy performance, again

By Odessa Gaines | April 5

BTS once again showed the world why it’s on top on Sunday night with its performance on the Grammy Awards stage. The seven-member boy band has seen overwhelming amounts of success since it debuted back in 2013, breaking records with regularity in South Korea and abroad. The band members are known not just for their comedic timing, good looks and charisma but for their beautiful lyrics, lifting vocals and mind-blowing dance moves.

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Columns

A Compendium of Actors: The fate of female-led films at the Oscars

By Henry Chandonnet | April 5

The 2022 Oscar nominees for best actress represented five separate films, none of which received nominations for best picture. This was for myriad reasons, whether it be film quality, intended audience or rampant commercial misogyny. Nonetheless, it represents a broader issue of equity in the film industry: Actresses are either given bad movies to make the best of or great movies that aren’t allowed to grow.

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Columns

Kate in Paris: Visitors

By Kate Seklir | April 4

Two weeks ago, thanks to several Tufts friends who came to visit Paris (and me), I had the chance to reexperience the city through their eyes and feel the excitement of Paris all over again.  

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Ethics of the Environment: The dark side of cannabis

By Ethan Jaskowiak | April 4

As cannabis legalization continues its march across the country and investment in legal cannabis continues to grow, many previously veiled aspects of cannabis cultivation have come to light, including a surprisingly damaging environmental cost. High water and energy usage, pesticides and fertilizer poisoning, degradation of public lands and potential ozone effects have all been linked to cannabis cultivation.

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Columns

The Art of Good Soup: Oh, ginger!

By Sadie Leite and Ellie Lester | April 4

This week we went home. A place that loves us and cares for us and sometimes does things to us like making us fall asleep in our friend’s bed across campus and walk home at five  in the morning because you swore you would just take a nap. No? Just Ellie? Anyways. 

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Columns

Sports and Society: New York's problematic solutions to sports and pandemic

By Oliver Fox | April 4

Vaccine mandates protect people. That has been the position of the New York City government since ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio began the private sector mandate in December. Last week, that position stayed the same in theory. Unless, apparently, you’re Kyrie Irving. Or Aaron Judge. Or Anthony Rizzo, Jacob deGrom or any rich and powerful New Yorker with enough pull to get an exemption.

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Columns

The Wraparound: Panthers, Rangers triumph on Deadline Day

By Timothy Valk | March 31

Deadline Day in the NHL has come and gone, with some intriguing movement and surprises taking place. Now that general managers have put down their pencils, clubs will jockey for playoff positioning in the home stretch of the regular season. Let’s take a look at some of the winners and losers from last week’s trade deadline:

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