Having grown up between Kaohsiung and Tainan throughout the first 18 years of my life, I missed the bike rides along Pier-2, the douhua bowls from Anping, the pebble trails at Meishu Park, the chicken noodle soup at Din Tai Fung, the monkeys on Monkey Mountain and all the familiarities of home. At any and every inconvenience I experienced during my day, I always had the comfort of going home to tell my mom. Whenever I needed a bellyful of laughs, my brother's bedroom was only two steps away from mine. If I felt any cravings for my grandmother's home-cooked meals, I could hop on a three-dollar train ride anytime I wanted. It is thus an understatement to say that I found adjustment to Hopkins challenging. I cried on every plane ride back to Baltimore whenever I had to go back to school from break.

Then, during the winter break of my junior year, I was flying back to school, and I realized that I did not cry. In fact, I felt so excited to see my friends after four weeks away from them. My best friends became my family, and Baltimore became my home. I felt proud of myself for growing up. It is perhaps the first time I realized that I had found a second home, one I could return to through the people I had found in Baltimore.

When I first came to Hopkins as a freshman, I constantly felt an ache in my heart. Most of my sources of safety and love were now a 24-hour travel time away. Snow is cute, but only on the first day. The cold weather is sometimes unbearable. The sun sets at 4 p.m., and the gloom constantly hangs over your head. I missed Christmas for the first time in my life.

To cope with homesickness, Enoch and I dug through old recipes from our families and tried to recreate flavors that remind us of home. There is no meal more hearty than a warm bowl of Bak kut teh, or my dad's signature kimchi stew. On slower weekends, we watch Taiwanese films like Man in Love and Someday or One Day. Through staying in touch with food and culture from Taiwan, I found that home was something I could carry with me.

My friends were also very much my home. I grounded myself in them as they carried me through my lows, homesickness and all the messy feelings in between. Through them, I learned that friendships can take shape in many different ways. It can be wholesome, like splitting Oreos with Mia and celebrating birthdays at Dua's. It can be on the floor of my tiny studio at Jefferson, scattered with Goldfishes, Quadratini's, Chips Ahoy, you name them. Nay's glasses might be fogged up, and chances are Ru lost her contacts again. Naomi might have also spilled some milk on my floor. Friendship can also be a bit chaotic, like waxing Shreeram's arm hair at Nina's, or Ayan and Ramya bouncing around the biomedical engineering design studio with a mannequin and fake arm, or Gloria carrying a panda and me smooching a photo of Samantha. Friendship sounds like Adarsh's cackle and Momo's giggle.

That is the thing about friendship and people. When you click, you click. You do not need to explain why or how you get along or why you choose to keep them. As I close this chapter of my life, I believe that the intensity of my friendships in the short time that we spent together is just a glimpse of the lifetime we will have together. I feel so lucky to have found people that I love. People with whom I laugh until I have tears in my eyes. People who challenge my opinions and thoughts. People who love unconditionally.

If you are reading this, thank you for always embracing me with such warmth. Although I do not know where I will be next, there is no doubt that I will carry a piece of the people I met here to wherever I go, and that is because you remind me of home.

Claire Chung is a senior graduating with a degree in Biomedical Engineering from Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

With the end of my first year drawing near, I have taken it upon myself to explore and experience the little things: from entering the everyday buildings I pass by, but have yet to step foot in, to finally trying out the dining options at the student center. One such little thing I didn't experience until recently was building a sandwich at the Hopkins Café deli bar. I'm not entirely sure as to why it took me almost the whole school year to finally decide to visit this station as it is a go-to for many students. In fact, it's a little ironic as well because one of my favorite places to eat at is Panera Bread. I love getting their sandwiches, accompanied with a side of your choice, and I always without fail get their in-house chips. A sandwich and a bag of chips - it satisfies your appetite and is an easy grab-to-go meal. The perfect pairing. Unfortunately, there is no Panera Bread on Charles Street or St. Paul Street (it would be a dream come true if there were though!), so naturally it would make sense that the sandwich station would be the one I gravitate toward the most. Although that wasn't so at the start of the semester, it is the case now.

Sourdough bread as the base, chicken for protein, lettuce, tomato, pickles and banana peppers for the toppings and for the cherry on top, a generous drizzle of balsamic dressing. This has become my fixation for the last week or so, as I have without hesitation been getting this sandwich for lunch. It still hasn't lost its spark, and I hope it never will. Moreover, at the end of the station, there is a basket of in-house potato chips. Sometimes they are regular potato chips, but what elates me even more is when they are Old Bay flavored.

As a Maryland native, Old Bay seasoning has always been a staple in my family kitchen. From seasoning shrimp to Brussels sprouts, Old Bay seasoning somehow finds its way into anything and truly has the power to enrich the savoriness of any food. However, its role goes beyond seasoning food. Even just the smell of it has the ability to transport me back in time to summer moments when I am indulging in crabs after a long day spent at the beach. My family and I have a tradition of going to Ocean City, which many consider to be the best beach destination in Maryland, though there are not many options to begin with. The water isn't as crystal clear and majestically blue as the water in the Bahamas, but the waves in Ocean City sure know how to make an appearance as they are far from politely crashing to shore. After spending most of the day lying out in the sun and boogie boarding, there is only one perfect way to end off the day: cracking crabs and conversing.

Print newspapers spanning across the table. A whole roll of paper towels positioned at the side of it. Mallets in our hands. We are prepared to feast. Fresh steaming crabs that have been bathing in Old Bay seasoning get poured across the table. Crack, twist, eat and repeat. It is a repetitive act and for the amount of labor put into extracting the meat from these crabs, the meat we find in return is not astonishing. It would be more efficient to order a crab cake and indulge in that to save time and labor and become fuller more quickly as well. However, there is something profound about individually cracking and hand-picking the meat from the crab yourself. The act of doing so slows down time and grounds you in the present moment. I've spent many hours at these restaurants simply cracking and eating crabs while having valuable conversations. It is through these conversations where I feel like I am able to deeply connect with my family and appreciate being able to journey through life with them. These moments have always been the highlight of my summers and will continue to be. For no matter where I may travel I find that nothing compares to an East Coast summer vacation spent with the people I love, crab and Old Bay seasoning.

Catherine Chan is a freshman studying Molecular and Cellular Biology from Potomac, Md. She is a Social Media Manager for The News-Letter. Her column consists of reflections on various moments in her life, from the distant past to the current present, in pursuit of discovering the underlying impact they have on her life's story.

I learned about traditional herbal medicine during the last year of my enrollment in Chinese school. I remembered feeling that most subjects covered in class were historically distant, like memorizing Confucian proverbs that more often doubled as tongue twisters, or reciting ancient poems contained in their perfect, rectangular stanzas. But herbal medicine felt important to become attuned to, as I had already begun to see a strange resurgence of such methods in contemporary culture, where shifting away from traditional Western medicine and toward Eastern "healing practices" had become popular. There appeared to be an appeal to using simple tools, such as stones, teas or cupping treatments, to achieve healthier complexions and detoxify the body. More notably, these means were rendered an enigma to the masses, making Eastern medicine compelling, while discourse grew questioning its empirical validity.

In general terms, traditional medicine uses a holistic approach to treat ill individuals, prioritizing assessing the composition of one's energy and restoring its balance. To an extent, this kind of medical philosophy places the human body in a position of mystery. But unlike in Western medicine, where the treatment is a therapeutic approach targeted to relieve the burden of a defined symptom, Eastern medicine acknowledges the uncertainty of the body's condition as a truth. Holding this truth and probing for treatment are not mutually exclusive.

And although there are growing fields of respectable research setting out to pin down the exact biological mechanisms and chemical reactions that make traditional medicine effective toward combatting disease, I am more interested in a different kind of question: whether it is possible to amend the current attitudes and state of pharmaceutics.

I've found the most important tenet of herbal medicine is its reinforcement of the connection between humans and the earth. Human energies are divided into basic elements, like fire, metal and air. And although these determinations may seem archaic, they offer up a framework for understanding the body as embedded within the natural world, rather than isolated from it. There is merit in treatment that focuses on the longevity and sustainability of an individual's health and their health practices, especially as dominating viewpoints diminish Eastern medicine as largely pseudoscience.

I can pull forward my memory and experience of waiting, legs crossed firmly atop the colorful cotton floor mats, for my magical elixir each evening. Its contents were extraordinarily bitter, an amber cup that I could fill with my own tears if I raised a fuss, but I would gulp down the liquid determinately, reaching for the sugar crystals that would accumulate at the bottom.

Even amid that stinging taste, I remembered my lift of admiration reading the tale of one of the most renowned herbalists, Shennong, who was famously fabled to test the efficacy of herbs on himself, risking his own health to record information that would be later passed down in his The Divine Farmer's Materia Medica.

To me, herbal medicine was always about oral history, about knowledge of the terrain that gave rise to numerous crops that could be helpful to humans if they were collected carefully and considerately. These plants were not simply prescribed, but rather inherited. This relationship, I believe, is most sacred and special. I also think of how there had been a surge of "barefoot doctors" a few decades before my birth, and that these people were often individuals with little schooling who would administer basic health services to rural communities that lacked robust health care systems. From a health policy perspective, it was a hugely successful effort that used a ground-up approach to care.

Although I ultimately have no definitive answer to my original query, maybe it is worth it to implement a return of medicine that is born from communities themselves, tailored to their customs and invested in their well-being for the long, long term.

Crystal Wang is a sophomore from Baltimore, Md., studying Molecular and Cellular Biology and Writing Seminars. Her column pairs miscellaneous observations and ruminations on the past in hopes of capturing life occurring in the periphery.

My first-year RA: Sounds good! Also, you didn't need to tell me this.

"Sorry, we told everyone they needed to bring their own calculator. We don't have extras," the TA said to the guy sitting next to me. Luckily, I brought two. Proud of how prepared I was for my first college exam, I handed him my spare - then bombed the test.

I'd only been on campus a few weeks when a prospective student stopped me to ask how I was liking things. "Is there anything you'd change about the school?" they asked. "Ummmm," I stalled, "In the dorms, they give us toilet paper, but they don't give us trash bags. I wish they would so we didn't have to pay for them."

After a few months of working my first on-campus job, I emailed my boss to let her know I hadn't gotten paid yet. She told me all the checks had been mailed. That was when I realized the third key they gave us at move-in was for a mailbox.

"I may be late, but at least I'm going," I thought as I walked in 15 minutes late to my first-year Introductory Chemistry class. I marched to the front row, sat down, missed the chair, fell on the floor and died laughing as Professor Sunita paused her lecture to glare at me.

Calculus II, Midterm Exam 2 - Question 5: 1/10 pts. "Very very wrong approach called freshman's dream."

I was taking notes with one hand and checking emails with the other when I felt a tug on my phone. It was Professor Hendry. "You'll get this back at the end of class," He was mic'd. The lecture was being recorded. It was a 200-person class.

Enjoying my newfound college freedom, I ate an entire bag of Walmart-brand chocolate chips. I was sick for three days and missed an exam. My family calls it "the chocolate chip incident."

I moved into my apartment during my junior year with no plans to furnish it because I thought it would make move-out easier. After a week of sleeping on the floor, I realized hardwood is really hard and ordered a bed.

When I ordered the tool kit for my new bed frame, I accidentally sent it to the wrong address. I had to walk to some random guy's house and ask if he'd gotten my package. Thankfully, he had.

My friend Isabel came to visit me for the day. I got lost navigating us, so she didn't see anything beyond campus. Instead of going to Fells Point, we spent the night watching movies on the floor of my apartment (because I didn't have any furniture beyond a bed).

Later, my sister came to visit. She did the navigating, so we made it to Fells Point for lunch. We were walking around with our leftovers when a man on a bench looked at me and said, "Where's my food? Hahahaha… Imma eat you."

I was chatting with someone before class when my hard-of-hearing American Sign Language teacher walked in. He pointed at me, laughed and said, "I could hear your voice from down the hall."

I locked myself out of my apartment every year except senior year. I'm officially ready for the real world.

Tess Gallegos is a senior graduating with a degree in Neuroscience from Magnolia, Texas.

In chemical engineering, we are taught the technique of process optimization. Simply put, any process - like making the adhesive for the dinosaur sticker on my laptop - can be analyzed and broken down to the various inputs, outputs and parameters involved. These variables can then be systematically adjusted to find some combination that produces the best result. Given a set of parameters, you can always carefully tune the knobs you are given to find an optimum.

Perhaps I have always been too much of an engineer because even before college, I have always viewed life as a series of processes for optimization. For every scenario, I believed there was some combination of perfect conditions I could find that would propel me to the optimal outcome.

Yet too often, this mindset froze me in place. It left me waiting for the perfect time to start writing that book, the "right" time to ask that girl out to maximize her chances of saying yes. I was mesmerized by the elusive ideal scenario that seemed to dance just out of reach, tantalizingly attainable.

The truth is, I was completely overestimating my ability to shape outcomes.

I've been thinking a lot about author Oliver Burkeman's discussions of human "finitude" lately. Burkeman uses this term to remind readers that humans are finite - and extremely so. As he explains, there is astoundingly little we are logistically capable of accomplishing and experiencing within our very limited lifetimes. Moreover, we are so often shaped by our uncontrollable circumstances, cast off from birth into a raging river that pushes and pulls us along a path courtesy of where we happen to be dropped into it. This doesn't mean we are incapable of swimming, but simply that our agency is more limited than we realize amid the forces at play.

While the tunable knobs presented to me offered an appealing comfort through a sense of control, this false sense of agency is an illusion manifested by my anxiety, by a desperate desire for predictability and control. Like the unplugged controller an older brother hands you to make you feel like you are doing something, it is little more than a placebo. The harsh reality is that I am not in control - at least not completely.

A part of this compulsive optimization comes from hindsight of past scenarios that did not go my way. Just a few adjustments, I think, and I could've totally shifted the outcome. But viewed more frankly, this delusion of control is evident through this lens as well.

Would going to bed earlier have made my audition sound a little better? Maybe. Would a better hair day and a straighter tie on the day of my interview have gotten me that internship? Entirely possible. But more likely than not, while these would have done something to help, the magnitude of their effect is probably not significant. While they are easy fixes and simple scapegoats, they most likely were not the straw that broke the camel's back.

This may sound bleak, but on the contrary, I think it is freeing to realize how little I can actually control. It shows me that I need not obsess over ensuring all the details are perfect, or lose faith when a detail doesn't go my way. It means that that pimple isn't going to ruin the date. It means that, hard as I try, I'm not going to be able to perfectly curate my personality and my words to charm everyone into loving me. So why bother trying? I can simply be myself and what will happen will happen regardless.

And when you realize the scope of what you can't influence, it highlights the things you can, allowing you to devote more time to them, rather than fruitlessly fretting over factors you can't possibly impact.

The truth is, even in chemical engineering, process optimization is not as clean-cut as we like to characterize it. As my professors remind us constantly, even the best models and calculations are based on some assumptions and some idealized conditions. In practice, even engineers don't have as precise control over their processes as they would like to believe.

So while trying to explain this to my boss at my future engineering job instead of completing the process optimization like I was asked may get me fired, until then, it is a lovely mantra to remind myself to focus on the right details.

Jason Chang is a graduate student from Woodbury, Minn. studying Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. His column is a celebration of the quiet moments that linger amid the jumble of our busy lives: moments of stillness, reflection and a space to just exist.

Growing up, I knew that I loved music. This was not solely informed by piano lessons (never forced) or all the time I spent squeaking out "Canon in D" on my plywood violin. I had an affinity for the lyrical and melodic in life - and it was the first thing I looked for when I came onto campus.

Now that we're in Blue Jay Day season (welcome, Class of 2030!), I can't help but recall my own experiences coming into Hopkins. I remember hearing the Octopodes perform for the first time during my own Blue Jay Day. Then, my friends and I snuck into the Shriver Hall basement during orientation to see all of the pianos, as if they were a well-guarded secret. But the first time music really called my name on campus was through a cappella. The thrill of callback auditions and calls from groups at 10 p.m. on a Sunday night feel like a distant memory, but what sticks with me is this: knowing that being engaged in a cappella is one of the most transformative, loving experiences that someone could have on campus. And even for the musically disinclined, I promise you that every group at Hopkins is worth a listen.

My first experiences in a cappella was being given a family I never had before - introducing names, majors, voice parts and anything that would help us connect over countless hours of rehearsal. I cannot emphasize this enough: the amount of time and energy that every a cappella group dedicates to singing is ludicrous. 6-8 hours on a regular week, piecing together arrangements made by students, under the tutelage of a student music director whose sole purpose is to make the group shine. The Notes of Ranvier immediately became a home to me during my first semester. It was amazing how quickly we pieced together, how our group bonded and grew enthusiastically to create amazing music.

And it wasn't just our group. Every a cappella group has a certain "feel" to them. The all-male AllNighters bask their audience in electrifying energy, and the all-women Sirens are such an amazing sisterhood that I swear you can feel the strength of their bonds in their music. There are the many-time award-winning Octopodes, the cranberry-clad Vocal Chords and ethnic groups that bring music both new and old onto the stage. There are the Humming Jays, Music Dynasty, Ketsev, Kranti and the Melanotes engaging in their cultures. Adoremus combines worship and beautiful singing in one! Perhaps the Mental Notes' comedy could cheer you up after a hard day, or Take Two might help you rock the pain away. Each one of these groups brings such a vibrant color to the music scene at Hopkins. And even better - they all support each other in their love for music. There's the Inter-A Cappella Council that helps coordinate fun (singing-filled!) events, while individual groups will hold mixers or multi-group rehearsals for the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (or ICCA, the real version of the Pitch Perfect competition!). I was taken aback when I realized that some of the Sirens even traveled to Delaware to watch the Notes perform in ICCA Semi-Finals - how lucky I am to be with people who support and love music so much. It is through this exact sense of community, united by music alone, that makes the Hopkins a cappella scene so great. Each and every group sings their hearts out in places ranging from hospital waiting rooms to semesterly concerts. Is that not reason enough to listen?

So this is a love note to all of the singers on campus - all the arrangers, the choreographers, the treasurers and presidents who made all this singing possible. And I can only hope that the students will enjoy the show. So please support these a cappella groups! If you want a break from studying, show up to their concerts, for which each group has poured dozens of hours into their sets. If you're interested and haven't sung before, audition anyway! I didn't have any experience singing myself, and I consider myself transformed through the love and care in the Notes alone. I promise you that you will be better for it. We are here to grow, to sing and to perform - and I hope you enjoy the show.

Andrew Huynh is a freshman from Garden Grove, Calif. majoring in Neuroscience. His column, "Ad Astra," captures his reflections on modern life and Hopkins as he navigates his transition into adulthood.

This Easter, I went back to church. Sitting in a side pew with my roommate, bumping into unexpected friends in the basement and trading candlelight with smiling strangers had me thinking about faith.

I, perhaps misguidedly, viewed faith as a swerve away from reason for much of my Catholic upbringing. Rather than exploring an unknown, faith seemed like a call to accept not-knowing with open arms. As a child whose favorite word was "why," I wanted more. When "Why does the earth spin?" and "Why can't I run out in the rain?" were questions that deserved answers, it became infuriating to hit a standstill at the heaviest hitters: Why do we exist? What defines moral good? To relinquish this questioning on the basis that stopping was an act of dignity and belief seemed, to me, like giving up.

This time around, I found myself less skeptical. Listening to the priest's sermon, I didn't catch myself fighting the same mental tug-of-war, the same tailspin of endless "why"s. And this, I think, is linked directly to the fact that I've had more reason as of late to believe in what I don't know.

The weekend before the last day of class, I left town with one of my closest friends to run off to a literary ball in New York with the pipe dream of seeing one of my favorite writers in person. I'd unintentionally missed the senior send-off celebrations for several communities that I hold close to my heart, something I wouldn't have done had I known the way things were lining up. But, weeks out, seeing the opportunity to hear from a writer I so admired, someone I never thought I would possibly share space with, was something I knew I couldn't pass up.

Even a month out, I had an inkling this weekend would be important for other reasons, that there'd surely be a reason to stay in town, but after a week of tossing and turning, I decided that I couldn't miss it. I realized, too, that I believed enough in the communities I was leaving behind to trust that they'd still be around when I came back. That train from Baltimore to Brooklyn was my most recent leap of faith.

A couple weeks ago, my roommate asked that I help her with a pitch for her entrepreneurship course since I was a speaker coach at TEDx, which I found very silly. Still, I helped with what I could. The following day was terrible - one of those laughably bad coffee-on-your-favorite-jeans, elevator-closes-right-before-you-get-there, car-honks-at-you-jaywalking bad days. I came home, morale in the dumps, to my roommate saying her pitch went excellently, which made me so very happy. After another hilariously bad time, a great friend said they met another friend of mine and an acquaintance who both said kind things about me. What's more, this all happened in the middle of the woods. What odd timing. What odd luck.

When in doubt, I have historically been the impossible breed of human that assumes the worst. If I hear an ambiguous response, I assume I am despised. If I leave a task for the next day, I declare myself incapable of succeeding at anything. I am fraught at trusting in the good, which is why I've been compelling myself to view optimism as an act of faith.

If someone can be saying something nice about me as I stumble over a cobbled campus path, if my friend can succeed with something that I played even a tiny role in as I wait on an island in the middle of the street, eating my hair, underdressed on a frigid day, perhaps good can be a thing that happens outside our field of vision on even the worst days. Maybe good can be a little like heaven: believe strongly enough and you're halfway there.

With graduation upon me, my fear-mongering self has had more and more reason to take over, but rather than appeal to reason as I have in the past, I've taken to an argument of faith. Reasons for doubt may be abundant, but if I am certain in good, however blindly, however uncertainly, there is little else my fear can say. And I've been lucky enough to have abundant reason to believe. My time at Hopkins has been better - warmer, kinder, gentler - than I could have hoped because of this same unlikely good. If not the good of the world or life, then the good of people.

I've been privileged enough to move from an underclassman looking to her upperclassman mentors to filling their shoes. And I've realized it does little good to doubt in good. Any time I've caught myself feeling less certain, I've caught, too, the trickle effects of my own uncertainty into those I hold to the highest esteem. So, I've decided that there will be no more room for it. If it takes faith to believe in the good, then consider me, if a late convert, a willing believer.

In my freshman year, I named this column "White Noise" to symbolize the everyday blur that I found myself constantly parsing through for meaning, for something to hold onto. Now, rather than searching for something external from which I might derive meaning, I'm starting to find that it might be worthwhile to work in the reverse, too. To place an equal amount of energy in believing that there is meaning, even as I continue to search the world for signs of it. To have faith, belief in the unseen, in honor of the good that has come by me - and in the good still to come.

​​Kaitlin Tan is a senior from Manila, Philippines, majoring in Writing Seminars and Cognitive Science. She is the Voices Editor for The News-Letter. In her column, she tries to parse through the everyday static for something to hold onto.

This article is interactive. You will need a 6-sided die (or random.org/dice). Try to maximize your GPA, Health and Artistry. Your final score is Gx + Hy + Az, with coefficients x, y, z based on the character you chose at the beginning. Make choices wisely. The author recommends procuring a pencil and printed copy before trying this; try playing it with other players, too.

Note that while this is based on true events, actual experiences vary; for example, no dance majors were consulted while preparing this article.

8 a.m. Choose a character. All characters start with G = 4.0, H = 4.0, A = 4.0.

1. Player (1): Bachelor of Science in Computer Science/Bachelor of Music in Composition. You were a National Young Composers Challenge Finalist in high school. Now you are trying to finish your Computer Science degree with research in algorithmic music theory. You're co-founder of the largest student group at Peabody, a composer-performer collective. Coefficients: x = .7, y = .8, z = 1.5.
2. Player (2): Bachelor of Arts in Biophysics/Bachelor of Music in Oboe. You were valedictorian in high school and played on a state-championship-winning field hockey team. You are also a composer; now you go to lab at the Miller Research Building every day to maintain the health of your cells (ironically sacrificing your own), alongside your 88-credit Biophysics major. Coefficients: x = 2, y = .5, z = 1.
3. Player (3): Bachelor of Arts in Public Health/Bachelor of Music in Violin. You played on NPR in high school. You are far too involved, as President or Co-President of 3 or 4 clubs, including the Peabody General Assembly. You've done research in neuroscience and performing arts health and recently became an undergraduate researcher with the School of Public Health. Coefficients: x = .8, y = 1.7, z = .8.
4. Player (4): JHMI. You are a $1.6M electric vehicle. Coefficients: x = -2, y = 4, z = -2.

9 a.m. It's time to ride the JHMI! Roll a die. If ≥ 5, then you have caught the JHMI. Otherwise, subtract .2 from your health and repeat the process until you catch the JHMI. If you have rolled at least 4 failed rolls, you can choose to (a) keep trying the JHMI or (b) take the Purple/51/Silver instead for a flat .6 penalty, distributed as you choose across GPA, health and artistry. Call this procedure Ride the JHMI.

10 a.m. It's time for Theory 5 with Kip Wile. Don't be late! Subtract .3 from your GPA if you rolled the die more than once at 9 a.m. Otherwise, add .2 to your GPA. In class, you discuss Stravinsky's block designs in Petrushka and tonal ambiguity in Symphony of Psalms. After class, you have to catch the JHMI to head back to Homewood. Ride the JHMI. If you rolled two or fewer times, skip to 11 a.m. Otherwise, Eat Lunch at Peabody instead: add .3 to your health and subtract .2 from your GPA, then skip to 12 p.m.

11 a.m. You have caught the bus... wait. Buses? (The editors of The News-Letter have informed me that I cannot insert the image of two JHMIs side-by-side in this paragraph for formatting reasons. Alas. Imagine it instead. Better yet, imagine a whole lineup at the Med Campus -better board the one leaving now, not the one leaving in an hour!) Roll a die. If even, take the bus on the left. If odd, take the bus on the right.

• 11 a.m. (Left). On the bus, you receive a message from Gradescope. Luckily, your Data Structures Course Assistant graded your work correctly rather than labeling your answer wrong just because it happens to be technically more correct (the professor mentioned it in class) than the answer key. Not that that would happen at Hopkins! You breathe a sigh of relief knowing that you were actually wrong on the super simple question three about Maps. Add .2 to your GPA. Go to 12 p.m.
• 11 a.m. (Right). Just as you begin to relax, you realize that it is Friday, April 18, 2025. You look to your right as you pass 25th Street and notice the building formerly housing Yum's Asian Bistro. You decide to come back tomorrow and explore the area, which is almost certainly not foreshadowing. Anyway, you've foregone lunch today. Subtract .4 from your health. Go to 12 p.m.

12 p.m. Your best friends are performing at the Friday 12:30 recital. Do you (a) attend in person, (b) catch it on the livestream or (c) disappoint them for work again? Choose one.

• 12 p.m. (a). This is strictly not possible if you are at Homewood, but let's pretend it is - Ride the JHMI. (If you ate lunch at Peabody, no need.) Your friends do great! Add .3 to your health and add .3 to your artistry. Subtract .2 from your GPA. Since you are at Peabody, Ride the JHMI again to get to Homewood. Go to 1 p.m.
• 12 p.m. (b). Roll a die. If ≥ 4, then all goes smoothly; go to 12 p.m. (a). Otherwise, the Concert Office failed to activate the livestream again; go to 12 p.m. (c).
• 12 p.m. (c). You miss the recital again. Add .4 to your GPA and subtract .3 from your health. You have the sneaking suspicion that there is now a group chat without you and that even Player (4) was invited... If you are at Peabody, Ride the JHMI to get to Homewood. Go to 1 p.m.

1 p.m. It's your last 25-credit semester of the program, so you chose to take it easy with your Homewood course selections. What was your 1 p.m. again? Was it (a) Theory of Computation, (b) Biophysical Chemistry or (c) Genetics?

• 1 p.m. (a). You are Arthur. Merlin claims he is not colorblind, but you don't believe him. You bake a green pie and a red pie on your way to pick up a public coin from Chase Bank. Add .3 to your GPA and add .1 to your artistry. Subtract .2 from your health. Finally, Ride the JHMI and go to 2 p.m.
• 1 p.m. (b). You are Merlin. You studied really hard, and on Midterm II, you remembered the details of the Chaperone-Hydrophobic Collapse model for protein folding. You successfully complete the derivation for the slope of TΔS at the temperature Ts. Add .4 to your GPA and subtract .2 from your health. Finally, Ride the JHMI and go to 2 p.m.
• 1 p.m. (c). You are Arthur and Merlin. Your dominant alleles cover up your recessive alleles in the expressed phenotype on your way to jhu.instructure.com, remedying your genetic errors. Add .3 to your health. Finally, Ride the JHMI and go to 2 p.m.

2 p.m. You go to History of Music. Feeling emboldened, you raise your hand. Just as the professor calls on you, you realize you've forgotten which one you're taking. Is it (a) HOM1, (b) HOM2 or (c) HOM3? Roll a die. If even, go to 2 p.m. (c). If odd, go to 2 p.m. (b).

• 2 p.m. (a). Renaissance Paleography was last week; transcriptions are due. How did you do? Roll a die. If even, add 1.0 to your GPA. If odd, subtract .2 from your GPA and subtract 1.0 from your health. Go to 3 p.m.
• 2 p.m. (b). Choose to answer the following question right or wrong. If right, add .2 to your GPA, subtract .2 from your health, and go to 3 p.m. If wrong, subtract .3 from your GPA and go to 2 p.m. (a). Who composed Vivaldi's Four Seasons?
• 2 p.m. (c). As you finish speaking, you realize you've made a grave mistake. While you've sidestepped confusing John Adams, postminimalist, for John Adams, second POTUS, you've unwittingly confused John Adams, postminimalist, for John Luther Adams, postminimalist. Unfortunate. Subtract .4 from your GPA and add .3 to your artistry. Go to 3 p.m.

3 p.m. You need to go to Ensemble; missing the wrong rehearsal would be worse for your GPA than missing a homework assignment for your 1 p.m. Ride the JHMI. If you rolled more than once, subtract .2 from your GPA. Otherwise, add .5 to your artistry.

4 p.m. You're still in rehearsal. Roll a die. If even, add .6 distributed as you choose between health and artistry. If odd, subtract .6 distributed as you choose from your GPA and artistry.

5 p.m. You're still in rehearsal. Repeat the procedure from 4 p.m.

6 p.m. It's registration day! Peabody Double Degree students get priority registration, which allows time to sort out the inevitable lack of cross-campus communication. You're about to submit your SEAM case. Roll a die. If ≥ 2, you get Victoria Ritter and add .4 to your health. Otherwise, they've denied your request to enroll in Peabody courses because your primary registration is at Homewood. Subtract .3 from either your health or your GPA and repeat the process until you roll ≥ 2.

7 p.m. You're famished. More importantly, your health may be in shambles.

• If your health is ≤ 2.0, you are now sick. You may choose to Rest (you are out of the game, your current score becomes final) or Keep Working (at every roll of the die, if you rolled N, you're only counted as having rolled N-1; go to 8 p.m.).
• If your health is > 2.0, roll a die. If even, you Eat Dinner at the Peabody cafeteria, adding .3 to your health; go to 8 p.m. If odd, you Ride the JHMI and Eat Dinner at home, adding .5 to your health; go to 10 p.m.

8 p.m. You were working in the Arthur Friedheim Library when you overhear a friend, acquaintance or stranger disparaging the work that goes into the other degree or otherwise misunderstanding the subject and its practitioners. Do you (a) try to explain or (b) realize it is futile and continue to be misunderstood?

• 8 p.m. (a). Roll a die. If ≥ 5, they are receptive. Add .8 to your health. If ≤ 4, subtract .4 from your health and .3 from your artistry.
• 8 p.m. (b). Good. Add .3 to your health. Subtract .3 from your artistry.

Finally, Ride the JHMI back to Homewood.

9 p.m. Choose one of the following.

• Study. Roll a die. If you rolled a 1, do nothing. Otherwise, add .X to your GPA, where X is the die's result.
  • There are diminishing returns after 12 a.m. But if you're reading this, you've made it to graduation. So you already knew that.
• Visit Uni Mini for Snacks. Roll a die. If you rolled a 1, do nothing. Otherwise, add .X to your health, where X is the die's result.
  • You remember that at 3 a.m. on Tuesday, June 3, 2024, a van rammed through the doors of University Market in Charles Village. Three masked suspects went in to try to lift the ATM, failing miserably. After all this, the suspects left with nothing at all. You ponder the perfidy of desire and the resilience of commerce while enjoying your overpriced snack.
• Practice/Compose. Roll a die. If you rolled a 1, do nothing. Otherwise, add .X to your artistry, where X is the die's result.
  • You can't really practice after 10 p.m. unless you're at Peabody due to quiet hours. Even then, you'll get kicked out around 2 a.m. But for the purposes of this article, suppose you have all the time in the world to practice.
• Sleep. Roll a die. Sleep for the next X hours, where X is the die's result or the number of hours remaining, whichever is smaller. You cannot do anything else for the next X hours. Subtract .35X from your GPA. Add .35X to your health and add .35X to your artistry.

10 p.m. Choose another choice from 9 p.m., unless you are sleeping right now.

11 p.m. Repeat the procedure from 10 p.m.

12 a.m. Repeat the procedure from 10 p.m.

1 a.m. Repeat the procedure from 10 p.m. If you are not sleeping and did not choose to sleep, subtract .35X from your health, where X is the current hour.

2 a.m. Repeat the procedure from 1 a.m.

3 a.m. Repeat the procedure from 1 a.m.

4 a.m. Repeat the procedure from 1 a.m.

5 a.m. Repeat the procedure from 1 a.m.

THE END. Tally up your scores and compare. Recall that your score is Gx + Hy + Az, with coefficients x, y, z given by your choice of character.

Score sheet is linked here.

Alex Ma is graduating with degrees in Composition and Computer Science from Cincinnati, Ohio. You can reach him atalexmacomposer.comor linkedin.com/in/alexlejunma/.

Winning the East Coast Collegiate Volleyball Association Championships for the first time in the history of the JHU Men's Club Volleyball program was incredible. I can never forget the massive upset and the crowd lining the court, cheering as our team beat some of the best teams in the country to win it all.

But you know what might be better? The Raising Cane's after. We didn't even wait to shower. We drove straight there in full uniform, smelling like a musty, old volleyball gym, ordering enough chicken tenders to feed a whole army. This was not just a celebration, but a tradition. We did it after every tournament, win or lose. It was a break from thinking about lineups and staying in the tournament: just eating greasy (but tasty) chicken fingers and fries and making jokes.

My best friends came from this team. Three practices a week, tournaments almost every weekend. A lot of them were out of state, which meant road trips, plane rides and a lot of time spent together.

Even when my identical twin brother Justin and I turned down D1 offers, there are no regrets. Club volleyball at Hopkins was serious, giving me the opportunity to compete against the best teams in the country at the highest level while still having the flexibility to pursue the academic, research and clinical opportunities that brought me to Hopkins in the first place.

II. Teaching in PILOT

When I first joined PILOT as a student, I expected it to feel like a lot of other academic, tutor-like settings: quiet, a little tense and mostly focused on getting answers right.

It wasn't.

I still remember being pulled into a name game at the start of a session - everyone scribbling their name on a piece of paper, tossing it into a Giant plastic bag for picking and then suddenly being responsible for remembering someone else's new identity. It was chaotic and completely unrelated to calculus. But it worked. Within minutes, people who hadn't said a word were laughing, calling things out and actually paying attention to each other. It made the rest of the session feel different, less like a place where you had to prove you understood everything and more like a space where everyone was learning and figuring things out as they went.

When I became a PILOT leader, I found myself coming back to that similar idea. I still start sessions with the name game, and it plays out almost the same every time: hesitation at first, then noise, then energy. And once that barrier is gone, everything else feels more approachable.

That's what I've come to enjoy most about teaching. It's not just explaining content but rather shaping the environment people learn in. When a session feels more open, people are so much more willing to try, to ask questions and to stay engaged even when things are confusing and difficult.

That interest carried into my role as a Teaching Assistant for Organic Chemistry I & II. In a different setting, with arguably higher stakes, the goal is still the same: help students understand material that can feel overwhelming and give them the space to work through it without shutting them down, often with some jokes and fun involved. Whether it's answering questions outside of class or guiding problem-solving in discussion sections, I have found that the most effective moments are usually when a student is thinking out loud, unsure and willing to keep going anyway.

I am grateful for PILOT because it didn't just help me understand calculus or organic chemistry - it showed me how much of a significant difference the right environment can make. Cultivating a fun, energetic and informative environment is something I have learned to bring into every teaching opportunity.

III. Leading with Blue Key

Blue Key Society is the Hopkins student admissions organization, where I became a tour guide for prospective and admitted students. No two tours are the same. If you're anything like me, at some point you might have a guest suffer a medical emergency mid-tour, a parent interrogating you deeply about your Friday night plans or a fifth-grade elementary student asking what he should do now to get admitted into Hopkins in the future.

Beyond the chaos, it's one of the most rewarding opportunities I've had at Hopkins. There's a real enjoyment in talking to prospective students, answering their questions and giving them a genuine sense of what life here actually looks like. I love Hopkins, and being able to share my experiences - the academics, the incredible research, the clinical opportunities, the tight-knit community, including with the professors - (and hopefully help someone make one of the biggest decisions of their life) makes every tour worth it. And without even realizing it, you get really comfortable talking to people, handling curveball questions and scenarios, and thinking on your feet.

Brandon LeBlanc is a senior graduating with a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Public Health Studies from San Diego, Calif.

Welcome to Hopkins! I remember how excited you were to get here and how many big dreams you have. You wrote me a letter during orientation week - sad to report that I never received it (aka you forgot to give it to your First Year Mentor). But that's okay! I remember a lot of the things you asked.

Before I get into that, I want to thank you. You did so much work for me to be where I am now. Not just academic work, but personal work. You struggled so much with friends, and, instead of giving up, you learned to communicate and love people regardless of how things end. You gave a thousand chances, you got hurt a lot, but I wouldn't be who I am if you hadn't. You were lost as a first-generation student. But you asked questions and you met upperclassmen whom you asked for help. You chose to do the things you loved and never prioritized your resume over the things you wanted to do. You made me the academic, researcher and student that I am.

And! You joined A Place to Talk (APTT). I do wish you had joined a semester earlier, but I can't possibly thank you enough for applying. That club changes your life. It makes you a better person overall. You meet all your closest friends through APTT, and I know that they're going to stick around far longer than college, but maybe another future version of us can update us on that. Oh! You do end up becoming co-director and Daivik will be your number one fan when it happens. You will keep up with all the friends who graduate before you, but you will still cry when they leave.

Now, to answer all the questions I know you were bursting with when you got here. You do everything you wanted to. I'm graduating in a few short weeks, and I will have done an entire thesis focused on Pakistan, mental health and medicine. I will be going to medical school, and I love the school I chose (by the way, you're moving to Philly! You'll finally get to wear your Eagles jersey in a sea of green). You are closer to the woman you want to be, though I definitely still have a lot to work on. I've gone to conferences, performed spoken word poems in front of crowds, gone to Umrah, finished my book, trained so many APTTers, helped underclassmen with what I wished I had help with and so much more.

You deserve to be here. You will always deserve to be here. And you will make yourself a seat at the table because that's just who you are. I would give you advice, but you don't need it. Although we could have done things differently, I don't think we needed to. Things are great as they are - even if they don't always feel like it.

I'm so proud of you, little me. You're gonna make all your dreams come true. And I hope I will too!

Love,

Dua from the future.

Dua Hussain is a senior graduating with a degree in Anthropology and Medicine, Science and the Humanities from New Castle, Del.

"Settled in? Welp, see ya in October!" was what I thought my dad said, walking off to the car. The next second, I was standing alone on a humid, cool summer's night in front of AMR I. Alone.

Based on the days I've sobbed at week-long summer camp, I expected the transition would be harsh for a homebound boy like me. Heck, not even half of what I had to take on had really crashed down on me. Careers. Projects. Laundry. Research. Keeping a clean room and studying and finding new friends and studying and possibly your first date. All crammed into four years.

From the stories, I assumed that to thrive in college, you had to be a non-stop happy machine. You needed to be at the big games. You had to attend the formals. You had to head out to bars, win every scholarship, keep up a 4.0 and become the single most connected person on campus. You had to live and not just exist, which is easier said than done.

But to quote one Veronica Sawyer, "If you were happy all the time, you'd be a game show host," and we all know primetime is out of style.

The weird thing is, I didn't crumble or fret at the fact that my protectors for 18 years suddenly jumped ship: I felt... calm. I looked up at the crimson-red sky as the horizon expanded. The air got cooler, my breathing slowed and the clench in my stomach suddenly ceased. The world got a bit wider, but I didn't quite see the big picture that day.

Flash forward. Dec. 21, 2025. 10 p.m.

I returned home from a four-hour drive from Binghamton. We hoped to see stars upstate, but the clouds covered most of the show. That's when my eyes looked up above my suburbia, where we (ironically) saw a partial view of the twinkling lights we sought over the weekend. It had been a while since I saw the sky, but the gaping abyss looked as expansive as ever, even larger.

I continued to stare into the endless sea of stars, a sea of dust, peppered on a dark mast. You expect each day of college to be a supernova, a barreling rocket of explosive change that burns bright for a millennium. In reality, each day was more like a speck of dust.

The speck of hot pot with your roommate after a long day of work.

The speck of helping a friend master organic pathways and mechanisms.

The speck of long, dreary nights in the (former) Milton S. Eisenhower Library and the victory lap of walking out of your last final.

The speck of nabbing your first perch at the lukewarm shores of Loch Raven.

The speck of weighing your animals and watching them remain healthy across the week.

The speck of a last-minute Christmas Village adventure, warm wine streaming down your throat.

The specks of attending a live performance, walking down the National Mall, watching Marty Supreme at midnight, catching an orange furry friend strolling down the street, wandering the Rotunda while the shuttle arrives, seeing the trees bloom in springtime... even if those specks aren't whisked by the algorithm or broadcast around the world.

That speck snowballs into the other 1,456, which implodes across a canvas. It's dusty, cloudy and no jigsaw piece, but it settled there anyway. And now, you work with what you have, stitching together the story you never thought you held in your hands.

As the sky widened that night, I finally saw the painting that I had managed to muster. One of mundane mornings, seasonal slumps, quiet acquaintances and small moments of triumph. Of academic achievement and growth by your own terms. Of the four years that rushed by so fast, you hope to hold onto them for the next four.

I looked at a masterpiece of my own making, not the perfect pictures of the past. I expected the sun would set too fast, to leave me without a glimmer of what I was meant to become.

But here I was with my self-portrait: a little speck of dust floating in the forever unknown.

Maxwell Rho is a senior graduating with a degree in Behavioral Biology and a minor in Writing Seminars from Manhasset, N.Y.

Freshman year, I was housed with the perfect roommate. Isabel and I were both five-foot-something in a closet-sized AMR I dorm, which was, though in no world ideal, a logistical windfall. But more importantly, we bewildered each other throughout the year with how similar we were. We were from opposite sides of the world, her desert to my ocean, but we'd never before met anyone we shared more in common with, in temperament, friendship and family. Though also fundamentally opposite in our studies, her Computer Science to my Writing Seminars, we'd both dedicated ourselves to the stubborn joy of puzzling out difficult questions in the hopes of finding in our own language a solution. She epitomized what I have come to admire in so many here: a restless curiosity to figure the world out, an absence of ego, an earnestness to ask any question and the serious grit to hunker down and get work done. But perhaps what I admire most about Isabel is her dignity and honesty, how she holds herself in every conversation and commitment, in every room in such a way that makes it immediately known that she is worth the world, which she is.

I told Lilah, my next Computer Science friend, that she reminded me of sunshine, and she laughed in my face. But Lilah is the only person I know who would land in any weird situation, however terrible, and wonder aloud if a stranger was just having an off-day. We acquire phrases and words from the people we spend time with and something so canonically Lilah is "[Blank] would do that." We were talking about this one day when we realized I'd adopted this in the opposite direction, drenching it in sarcasm where Lilah had meant it genuinely. Her version was one of joy at the wonderfully strange creatures we are, an excitement at having someone's actions line up so perfectly with what you'd predict based on their character. She's the only one who would go out of her way to try a nasty-sounding flavor like chicken-kimchi-cabbage milkshakes just because she can't imagine it and wants to figure out if she likes it. Few people find such delight in empathy toward people and things alike. So, sorry to say it again, and in writing, but Lilah, despite your excellent taste for grungy raw unproduced indie music, you are still full of sunshine.

Gabby, my Computer Engineering and not Computer Science friend (this, I'm told, is an important distinction), is the first person I text when I want to grab coffee or food. We've had more than our bargained share of morning Kitsch runs, afternoons spent languidly not studying at Good Neighbor and impromptu Tamber's dinners. My time with her is always the highlight of my day. There is something so grounding and safe about being around someone who you can trust to be honest and accepting no matter what. She's the first person I run off to a movie with after any inkling of a bad day. I scared her in the kitchen in the early morning a couple weeks ago, stumbling in for a water with an antihistamine in my mouth and garbling something incongruent, trying not to startle her and startling her all the more - and as I went back to bed, I could not stop laughing. With her, the world feels awfully simple; it's one where we deserve fun and patience and a listening ear, where there are such things as the kindness of people and hard work paying off, and after spending any amount of time with Gabby, I find myself leaving with much more faith that there is good in the world.

And now Kate, who is sleeping across the aisle from me as we drive beneath cloudy Delaware skies. I didn't have a single writing friend before studying abroad in Rome, and I came back with a Writing Seminars family. There is no one whose life has mirrored my own quite as much as hers, from family structures to books to riding the hyphen of science and humanities. To share time with anyone at all is a gift. But to be present with someone, to be able to bring your whole self and know there will always be space and grace for you, is the wildest stroke of luck.

We just came through another long tunnel. Silvery, overcast daylight fills the bus once more. We're almost back to Baltimore now, and how lucky am I to say, at least once more, that I'm almost back home.

Kaitlin Tan is a senior from Manila, Philippines, graduating with a degree in Writing Seminars and Cognitive Science. She is a former Magazine and Voices Editor for The News-Letter.

I preface this essay by saying that there isn't such a thing as a bad movie. A movie could have lackluster cinematography, poor characterization, ill-fitting music, an incoherent plot or the most desaturated color palette and still not be a bad movie. It only becomes a bad one when the denouement of the movie does not offset sacrificing three hours of time that could be spent working, which is such a Hopkins way to characterize a movie. These bad movies have become the hallmark of my time at Hopkins, and in a strange way, the workload at Hopkins and the resources that it provides have facilitated my perusal of these movies.

If I want to see a movie, the first thing I do is look up the Letterboxd ratings. I laugh at the quippy one-liners, skim the wannabe film critic commentary and note the general sentiment of the reviews. Average rating 3.5? Nope, I might actually like the movie. Average rating 2.7, and if I squint, I can see its terrible potential? Fitting for a night of procrastinating on the eight-page paper due in two days. The more pressing and important the deadline, the higher the potential for the movie to disappoint me. Always ready to join me on my bad movie watching is my friend Kayla, who watches movies on a more regular basis than I do.

The Collegetown Shuttle is the holy grail for bad movie watching - it connects Hopkins to the Towson Town Center, whose food court is perfect for snagging a Chick-Fil-A sandwich to smuggle into the movie theater. On the way to the cinema, Kayla and I talk about our expectations for the movie. We're usually hoping for an empty theater so that we can verbalize our ongoing disbelief and get some cheap laughs in the process. The thirty minutes of trailers help in setting the mood for our procrastination to begin as we look out for even worse movies to watch (we're looking at you, The Sheep Detectives).

Then, it's time for the movie. For the most part, it is what we expect. Sometimes it is a romp and a half (like when we saw Him and wondered why anyone would ever hate on such a campy film) or a middling, uneventful movie (Reminders of Him and that awful synth cover of Yellow comes to mind). It could be the best movie ever made (Jennifer Lopez was a star in Kiss of the Spider Woman, and there is a reason why it is in my Letterboxd Top 4) or, in the words of my friend Kayla, "literal shit from a butt" (Emerald Fennel deserves to pay for the unforgivable sin of turning Wuthering Heights into a salaciously bland romance between Cathy and Heathcliff).

My favorite part of bad movie watching is the trip back home. We have been enlightened, and as bad movie connoisseurs, we have to give our opinions on a movie that we had no directorial input over. On that bus ride home, we are cinematographers, producers, screenwriters and movie buffs. We are eagerly updating our Letterboxd profiles with one-liner reviews of the movie ("You're laughing. Two dumb bitches are telling each other exactly and you're laughing") and ripping these movies to shreds by wondering why they would make this.

But deep down, we love the thrill of seeing a bad movie. At Hopkins, we are primed to seek out greatness in everything, which is not wrong, but it leaves no room for imperfections or failure. These bad movies remind us that there are people out there who are still pursuing their passions and creating art in a world that is imperfect and difficult to navigate. And it affords us great comfort when Kayla and I walk back home and open up our computers, ready to start the work we so easily put behind us to watch Emerald Fennell dress up Jacob Elordi in a costume to give him a more-than-uncanny resemblance to Jesus.

It's been an amazing two years here at Hopkins, and it's sad to be graduating when I just got here, but I'm glad to have been able to see some duds because of my time here.

Lesley Kwarteng is a senior graduating with a degree in Chemistry from Elgin, Ill. When he isn't watching bad movies, he plays Quiz Bowl and is involved in musical theater.

Familiarity with a city certainly isn't just knowing the weather. By now, I am well-versed in the landscape of Baltimore. If travelers asked me for the must-visit restaurants or neighborhoods, I could give them a 10/10 pitch. But that wasn't the case two years ago: I used to take a Lyft to get to my friend's apartment at Hopkins House, and I didn't know how to walk to the nearest Giant until my third year, after I broke free from the shackles of meal plans. I don't remember when the feeling of distance changed. Now I feel pretty comfortable walking a mile and a half to Hampden and sneaking a chance to pet the dogs I meet along the way - one gift I am proud to have is that dogs always seem to welcome me.

During my first two years, I could not stop complaining about how dull life in Baltimore was. Later I realized that I was the one making it that way. I needed to commit myself to some exploration. Initially, I always felt the urge to get something done. So whenever I went out with my friends or on dates, I'd Google to make sure the restaurants we dined at had a high four-out-of-five rating. I would do my make-up and dress in a photo-worthy way, just so I'd have something to post on Instagram. Obviously I am a foodie, so if you, my readers, want my true recommendations, my current favorites are Clavel and Tagliata with La Barrita and Ethel's Creole Kitchen as honorable mentions. I am open to discussion and am always looking for new adventures.

Now, when I look back at myself at the time, I feel embarrassed about how vain I was, but I am glad that those outings became the material for my pieces during my time as the Leisure Editor for The News-Letter and the motivation to set up the column "Made in Baltimore." The project gave me the chance to interview local business owners and to see how much care and passion they put into their establishments and how their undertakings constitute the diverse community surrounding us today.

During the remaining time of my senior year, senioritis has slowly grown on me. I've started to take a more laid-back, low-key approach to the city. I've made peace with the weeks I used to define as boring. I go to those absurdly abstract math classes, feel humbled by my genius classmates and then come back to get my grocery runs done. If I have extra time, especially after finishing midterms or projects, I might go to the plaza at the Rotunda with my friends to catch a movie at Warehouse Cinemas during late nights (usually after 7 p.m or 9 p.m.). Send Help, Hoppers, Project Hail Mary, The Drama… the list keeps growing. I've truly become comfortable with nights in Baltimore, where I used to feel a little insecure about staying outside after dark, but now it's associated with a quiet warmth, as they were spent with friends I made here.

It is strange that people usually feel nostalgia only after they have already left a place and when they reminisce about the time they spent there. It's true for me as well. There hasn't been a palpable urge to cry because my time here is running low or a gripping intention to scroll through thousands of photos of Baltimore stored in my iCloud. I have been telling everyone that I am so excited to be graduating from Hopkins and saying goodbye to this city. But maybe one day I will start missing my time here. The people here. The collegehood and adulthood that all happened here. I do not know how long it will take, but I am waiting for that nostalgia to catch up with me.​​​​​​​

Yuyu Huang is a senior graduating with a degree in Mathematics and Economics from Fuzhou, China. She is a former Leisure and Magazine Editor for The News-Letter.

By the time my first conference arrived over Halloweekend, I still had no idea what I was getting into, but I was enthusiastic to figure it out. I was lucky enough to be in a committee paired with another first-year HopMUN member, Arusa, who would soon become one of the defining people of my college experience at Hopkins. The conference was a blast. From then on, I grew closer to the team's upperclassmen, bonded with my fellow first-year "NIC" class and traveled to so many places I'd never expected: D.C., Montreal, Chicago, Boston, Williamsburg and Philadelphia throughout my four years. I simultaneously developed skills with each training and conference that helped me grow in other areas of my life, including public speaking, presenting, improvisation and networking. As a sophomore, I became a Training Director for the team, where I got to connect with our club members on a closer level and eventually joined Arusa as an Exec member our junior year!

Through the years, I've been so lucky to meet and welcome so many special people to HopMUN who have made our team feel like a home. Each conference leaves me with countless fond memories and funny stories that remind me how much I love our community and the support we have for one another. Whether I'm newly connecting with a member on the team I haven't had the chance to talk with before or going on my fourth conference trip with a fellow HopMUN veteran, I'm always learning new things about everyone. Spending four days traveling and bunking together at a conference hotel is undeniably a bonding experience!

One of my favorite memories was attending Boston University's Boston Area Model United Nations Conference in the fall of my sophomore year, where our delegation was just a small group of four. We spent the weekend both working hard on the committee and going on side quests to explore the cafes, markets and Boston's food culture. When any worries came up, we called our team's President and Treasurer for advice, staying on the phone together to chat about how the conference was going. Being in Model UN for four years has felt like an accumulation of all these small yet significant, wholesome moments that fill my life with novelty, adventure and chosen family.

Model UN became so much more to me than learning how to delegate and write resolutions at a conference. It became a family I looked forward to seeing and training with every week. It became a group of people with so many different backgrounds, stories and futures who I loved traveling with. It became the first community I tell people about when describing my Hopkins experience. And for all the people on our HopMUN team who gave me such a loving community at this university, I'd like to make a motion of thanks. You made Hopkins a home for me.

Kayla Rabey is a senior graduating with a degree in English and Environmental Science from Sacramento, Calif.

Organic Chemistry I, taught by Professor Christopher Falzone, and Organic Chemistry II, taught by Professor Olivier Nsengiyumva, stand out as two of the most impactful courses I have taken. Like many students, I went into these classes expecting them to be challenging and, at times, overwhelming. Instead, I found myself genuinely enjoying the content. Both professors have a way of presenting complex mechanisms in a visual and intuitive manner that makes the material click. Rather than memorizing reactions, I felt like I was truly understanding how and why they worked. What made these experiences even more meaningful was the ability to connect with both professors outside of class. Beyond the classroom, I have had the chance to connect with them around campus, and I even play pickleball with Professor Nsengiyumva, which is something I will truly miss.

Another professor who has had a major impact on my time at Hopkins is Professor Peter Beilenson. I first took his course in Policy, Politics and Public Health and later had the privilege of working with him as a teaching assistant (TA). His classes are incredibly engaging and discussion-driven, and he has a unique ability to connect course concepts to real-world issues in a way that feels both relevant and thought-provoking. He brings an incredible depth of knowledge about both politics and public health, but what stands out most is how approachable and supportive he is. Being able to work alongside him as a TA gave me a new perspective on teaching and mentorship, and it is an experience I will carry with me moving forward.

One of the most surprising highlights of my coursework was Introduction to Fiction and Poetry I with Professor Jane Lewty. As someone who has primarily focused on STEM, I was unsure what to expect going into the class. However, it quickly became one of my favorites, and I credit that largely to Professor Lewty. She created an environment where everyone felt comfortable sharing ideas, and class discussions were consistently engaging and thoughtful. I found myself looking forward to reading and writing each week, which was not something I anticipated at the start. The class pushed me to think in new ways and appreciate perspectives that I had not previously considered, and it became a refreshing contrast to my more technical coursework.

I also want to recognize Professor Reid Mumford for his role in Physics Lab I and II. Lab courses can sometimes feel disjointed, but his were incredibly well organized and purposeful. Each experiment felt intentional, and there was a clear emphasis on understanding the underlying concepts rather than simply completing procedures. I have also really enjoyed the longer conversations we have had in his office, around campus or whenever he would stop by the lab room, which made the experience feel even more personal and engaging.

Outside of the classroom, my experience at Hopkins has been shaped just as much by the communities and traditions that bring students together. Being a member of the club volleyball team has been one of the most defining parts of my college experience. Over the past four years, I have had the opportunity to serve in various leadership positions, including president, vice president and captain, and each role has allowed me to grow as both a leader and a teammate. Some of my favorite memories come from traveling across the country to compete at Nationals and winning the East Coast Championship my sophomore year. At the same time, it is often the smaller moments that stand out the most, like practices, team mixers and simply spending time together.

Beyond organized activities, some of my favorite experiences have come from everyday moments on campus. Playing spikeball or grass volleyball with friends on sunny afternoons, taking a break from studying to spend time outside and enjoying the energy of campus life have all been important parts of maintaining balance. With the demands of academics and research, those moments of connection and relaxation have been incredibly meaningful. I have also really enjoyed simple traditions with friends, like getting together and going to Ekiben each Halloween, which became something we looked forward to every year.

There are also a few campus traditions that I have especially enjoyed each year. The Lighting of the Quads during the winter holiday season is one of my favorites. It is a great way to celebrate the end of the fall semester, with music, activities and a sense of excitement across campus. Similarly, Spring Fair is always something I look forward to. It brings everyone together through food, games and events, and it is a perfect opportunity to spend time with friends and take a break before the end of the academic year.

Overall, my time at Hopkins has been defined by a combination of challenging academics, supportive mentors and meaningful experiences outside the classroom. The professors I have learned from and the communities I have been a part of have shaped not only my education, but also the way I approach learning, leadership and connection. These are the experiences I will carry with me long after I leave campus.

Justin LeBlanc is a senior graduating with a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Public Health Studies from Carlsbad, Calif.

I still remember my first introduction to the Hopkins community. Scrolling through the Hopkins Groups catalog during orientation week, an invitation to watch a horror movie caught my eye. I soon learned that my friends from pre-orientation, also big horror fans, had already signed up. We planned to meet up and go together.

The movie was scheduled to start at midnight.

"Is this your first time at The Rocky Horror Picture Show?" they asked at the ticket booth.

"Yes," I said.

"Perfect, it's free your first time." She uncapped a cherry red lipstick and drew a large "V" on my forearm.

Strange, I thought. Why did she write on my arm? And why is this a stage, not a movie theater?

Before I could answer my own questions, a Spotify playlist titled "F**k the Virgins" started blaring through the loudspeakers. The lights brightened and someone walked onto the stage.

"Are there any virgins - I mean, first-timers - in the audience? If so, please come up to the stage."

My friends and I looked down at the "V" on our arms. Oh no. As we stepped forward, three letters floated through my mind: W. T. F.

The cast strapped a woman's bra onto each of us.

"Now, raise your dominant hand. Good. Now put it behind your back. You will use your non-dominant hand to remove the bra." I stood there, dumbfounded. Slowly, I reached behind my back with my left hand and felt around for the clasp, fiddling stubbornly with the straps. A loud cheer erupted from the audience as the student to my right triumphantly held his in the air, like he had just won a national championship.

After the "team bonding activity," the main show began. The film rolled and the shadow cast took its place on stage. My only remaining fear: that the next surprise would be a 1980s porno projected onto the screen. I had already mentally drafted my gravestone - "Here lies Edmund, scarred for life after mistaking Rocky Horror Picture Show for a screening of Scream 5" - when the film finally started. What followed was approximately two hours of the most gloriously unhinged cinema I have ever witnessed, punctuated by commentary from the shadow cast that I cannot fully reproduce here for reasons of both memory and decency. The film was strange. The commentary was stranger. I remember laughing until my face hurt and understanding almost nothing. The only thing funnier was imagining my parents' reactions if they had been sitting next to me.

"What happens in Rocky Horror stays in Rocky Horror," I said to my friends as we filed out.

I meant it as a joke. But that night became one of those stories we kept coming back to, retelling it every time we ran into each other, laughing harder each time. In the chaos of freshman year, it became an anchor. A shared experience so bizarre it could only belong to us. I've lost touch with many of them since, as we each found our own corners of Hopkins over the years. But four years ago, that stage was a gathering of strangers who knew nothing of who they would become or where they would land. We have found our people, our rhythms, our places. Nobody knew each other. Nobody knew what was happening. Nobody knew what would happen next. And yet, for one gloriously unhinged midnight in Baltimore, none of that mattered. We were all equally lost, equally bewildered, yet somehow completely at home.

Edmund Sumpena is a senior graduating with a degree in Computer Science and Neuroscience from San Diego, Calif.

Love is impatient. Love is double texts, phone calls answered mid-nap or Brody Reading Room cram sessions. Love is knocking at Claire's door to make sure she's awake for our café run. Love is "I can't wait to see you" exchanged between me and my beloved suffering readers, our quartet of high school friends-turned-sisters. It is "come over as soon as you can, I have a drink I really want you to try," and "let's get there early; I want to leave as soon as possible, so hurry up!" It is the desire to be surrounded by people who make hours spent together pass by in a blur; it is counting down the seconds until you get to see them again.

Love is inconvenient. It's midnight trips to the Medstar emergency room, taking selfies with Claire while she's getting an IV drip and mass-ordering electrolyte powder on Instacart for her to use the next day. It's Claire making me hot tea with honey when I'm sick and asking if it's sweet enough. It's picking up an extra meal from Levering during sophomore year because my old suitemate hadn't eaten anything that day. It is staying in Clark Hall until 3 a.m., running tests on incredibly stinky goat liver with my old design team; it's taking breaks in between testing rounds to GrubHub momos from Harbor Tandoor or paneer pizza from Kohinoor. It's staying back at print night until Buse and Lana finish reading the very last news piece and checking layouts on broken-down iMacs until my vision blurs.

Love is an imposition. It is always showing up with a snack, whether it's brownies at Derek's pop-up café or an extra serving of a snack my friends love to power through Computational Cardiology study sessions. It's Prisha and I baking a cardamom olive oil cake with candied oranges to celebrate Alp finishing his MCAT. It's Hassan and I synchronizing our schedules to plan an Olive Garden catering party; it's eating mediocre pasta with buttery breadsticks because we all want to capture some of the nostalgia of the first memories we had with it. It's Neha taking two hours' worth of trains up to Baltimore just to celebrate my birthday with me.

With all these characteristics, I arrive at my final definition for love. It's like weeds: once its roots have been planted, it will never leave you. My closest friends now are the ones I met in my first months here; they entangled their roots with my own from our very first weeks together. They have buried themselves into every facet of my life, from trauma bonds formed in sophomore year classes to late-night conversations on beanbag chairs, hugging our stuffed animals to our chests. They have infected me with their passion for food, for coffee, for art, for experiencing everything possible in our limited time together.

This infestation is evident in everything I own: every gift, every birthday card, even half of the seasonings in my kitchen cabinet, comes from my friends. My most defining personality traits have flourished because of them - they are the co-conspirators on my 10-week Beli streak and the enablers of my debilitating addiction to eclectic caffeinated beverages. They are the recipients of every new recipe because, apparently, my love language is overfeeding the people I care most about. They have followed me from 19 to 20 to 21 and have left no doubt in my mind that they will be by my side as I walk across the graduation stage and in the walls of my new apartment when I start my first "big-girl" job in June. I carry them with me wherever I go.

So to my friends who became family - thank you for making my life so beautifully inconvenient. I am undeniably happy to be stuck with you, forever. You're not rid of me yet.

Shreya Tiwari is graduating with a degree in Biomedical Engineering and is from Austin, Texas. She is a former Managing Editor for The News-Letter.