When the summer heat has subsided, and the sun casts a liquid saffron in the rippling bank waters of the Loch Raven Reservoir, my father and I gather up hooks, lure and rods to set out fishing. After the back trunk of the car pops open with a metallic creak, we load up the equipment and begin a leisurely 9-minute drive from our house. My father is steering our beige 2008 Toyota Camry, proudly bearing a sunburnt bumper sticker of the Beijing Olympics, where our seatbelt buckles still radiate the heat of noon, and the entire interior smells of melting velour. He cranks on the radio to WEAA 89.9, my least favorite station, due to being young and not understanding the "allure of jazz," but my father insists it reminds him of the gate lounges of the Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans, waiting for flights home. We mainly drive along one monotonous, lazily winding road that escapes to the outskirts of Timonium, brushing past the whipping scenery of foliage in the reflection of the approaching basin.

Although I was the usual backseat passenger of my father's frequent journeys to the reservoir, I always made alternative preparations for spending my time. Sometimes I would choose my favorite stories from the Rainbow Magic Weather Fairies series to reread, undoing their worn, dog-eared pages. I also liked bringing a tight wad of multiple pieces of printer paper folded together with two Crayola coloring pencils - in case I was struck with the desire to trace over the book covers and reimagine their characters.

After parking the car on a flat gravel lot a little upfield of the fishing grounds, my father would swiftly change into his fishing garb, draping a faded blue and gray windbreaker over his polo shirt and spraying OFF! insect repellent in every direction, which invariably prickled the inside of my nostrils. "That's enough!" Rubbing out the oily droplets that would roll down my calves, I then helped him carry his red cooler. It functioned as both a storage container and a step he could use to heave his body up and lean his face far over the chainlink railing of the bridge, positioning him on the same altitude as the other more seasoned and more "American" fishers.

When my father fishes, you'd think he were some kind of monk. I sit a few paces away from him, watching his back poised and ready like the Roman statues I've seen in geography textbooks, and begin to read. Reading happens to sucks the time right out of a day, I've noticed, and I ensure each fishing trip that I have enough material to pass the time. Flipping to my lightly dog-eared page, I exit the realm of the reservoir, with its zipping dragonflies and itchy fountain grass, the landscape exhaling into silence as my mind enters the book in hand. I am still aware, of course, of my father's blurry figure recasting his line, the sound of the reel recoiling that gossamer thread and producing a high-pitched whir before the brass sinker breaks the surface of water with a plop.

It doesn't take me too many books before the sky breaks into a crabapple fuchsia, indicating the brink of night. A gaggle of geese makes their way across the inky water, their strokes leaving behind fine, dragging lines across the surface of the reservoir. When I squint again at my father, I realize he, too, has finished with the day, and his catch lay in an orderly row beneath his feet and spare rods. They ranged from small to large, a few Sunfish, six Crappies in ascending body length, and one glimmering Yellow Perchback at the top of this rank. I grin, putting down my books, and jump up to hug him fiercely.

"You did it! You did it again!"

As he smiles and squeezes my back with a gloved hand, I can smell the work of fishing on him, all the reel grease and saltiness from artificial lures and slimy tackle boxes.

In retrospect, I think he thought I must have really liked fish, or that I really liked going to the reservoir after school. Why else would I always volunteer to come with him, then, on these lengthy expeditions? The truth is, I actually liked the coming home part, him letting me sit in the passenger seat with the day's catch splashing around in the cooler on my lap, listening to the fuzzy radio together until I am lulled asleep by the familiar rhythm of the car tires running over the same speed bumps. The returning home tired, smelling like the rich earth and speckled with its dirt, opening the cooler and counting to ensure nothing had slipped away.

And then, waiting for the next sun to do it again.

Crystal Wang is a sophomore from Baltimore, Md., studying Molecular and Cellular Biology.

Founded in 2009 by Brandon Doman, The Strangers Project began as a simple yet powerful idea: to collect anonymous, handwritten stories from people around the world and share them in a space where anyone could read them. What started as a small project has grown into a global collection of human experiences stories filled with honesty, vulnerability and emotion. It creates a space where people can express themselves freely, without judgment, and where others are invited to simply listen.

When I visited the exhibit at the World Trade Center Oculus during spring break with the First Generation Low Income Networking program, I didn't expect it to affect me the way it did.

As soon as I walked in, I was surrounded by stories. Pages hung from the ceiling, clipped onto strings of light and covered the walls from corner to corner. The room felt quiet, but not empty; it felt alive, like every piece of paper held a voice waiting to be heard. I remember standing still for a moment, taking everything in, unsure of where to begin.

But once I started reading, I couldn't stop.

Reading those stories allowed me to feel people's raw emotions in a way I had never experienced before. The level of detail, the honesty and the vulnerability in their words made it impossible to stay detached. It didn't feel like I was just reading; it felt like I was being trusted with something deeply personal.

If I'm being honest, I cried.

Some stories carried joy. I remember reading one from someone excited about getting married, writing about love and the life they were about to begin. There was hope in their words, something light and beautiful that made me smile. Another story was written as a letter to a future self filled with uncertainty, but also determination, as if they were trying to remind themselves to keep going no matter what.

But not all of the stories were light.

Some were heavy in a way that stayed with me long after I walked away. I remember reading about someone being diagnosed with a terminal illness, writing about fear, acceptance and the reality of time slipping away. That story, and others like it, made everything feel more real, more immediate. These weren't just words, they were moments of people's lives, captured in a way that felt raw and unfiltered.

In that room, joy and pain existed side by side. Love, grief, hope and uncertainty were all hanging together, with each story just as important as the next.

What struck me the most was how connected I felt to complete strangers. These were people I would never meet, yet their emotions felt familiar. It made me realize how much we all carry, how many experiences go unseen and how often we move through life without truly understanding one another.

That space made me feel human, in the most honest and raw way possible.

One question written on the wall stood out to me: "What's your story?" It made me pause. In a room filled with vulnerability, I began to reflect on my own experiences and what I would share if I had the courage to leave a piece of myself behind.

Walking away, I realized how rare it is to truly listen to others, especially strangers. We live in a world where we are constantly moving, constantly distracted, often too focused on ourselves to notice the lives unfolding around us. But in that space, I was reminded that every person has a story worth hearing.

The Strangers Project is more than an art exhibit. It is a reminder that behind every face is a story, and behind every story is a human being navigating their own journey. And sometimes, all it takes is slowing down and listening to a stranger to remind you that you are not alone.

Alexandra Garcia Herrera is a freshman from Laurel, Md. majoring in Chemistry. Her column, "Letter from a Freshman," explores her reflections on what happens outside the syllabus: friendships, identity, grief and growth.

Two weeks ago, I had an incredible stroke of bad luck. Nothing was ever that serious, but minor inconveniences and unfortunate happenings followed me around like a fever I couldn't shake. The list of these inconveniences goes as follows:

I miss an email from my TA informing me that my 9 AM discussion section is online for the week, so I enter our empty classroom in confusion and have to join the Zoom call in said classroom and awkwardly apologize for being late;

I get a bad headache and take a nap to alleviate it, but it doesn't work and results in me being late to dance practice;

I'm in a rush to get home when it suddenly starts thundering and pouring rain-my friend offers to drive me home, but running to her car gets us both drenched;

I rush home to do a friend's vacation nails, but they end up being an hour late, so there was no reason to rush and get drenched;

My very irregular menstrual cycle decides to start two days before my very tropical, very beachy, very water-involved vacation to Cancun, even though I had just had my period 10 days ago;

At my internship, someone accuses me of lying about sending out the emails I was tasked with because they did not receive them, even though I most definitely did send those emails correctly;

My power goes out the same moment I'm supposed to have a meeting with with the same aforementioned TA, so I join her Zoom meeting late once again;

After joining this Zoom meeting, I quickly realize we were supposed to meet in person, not online, so I actually miss the meeting entirely;

I head to my next class shamefully, trudging through the heavy snowfall only to find out the professor decided to not come to class because of the snow, but neglected to tell us. She then gives us an assignment to make up for not having class, but makes it due 30 minutes after announcing it-with my bad luck regarding emails specifically, I don't see this until the deadline already passed;

I forget that I was supposed to have this article finished a week ago (sorry Kaitlin);

And finally, the night before my early morning flight, I get home at 11 p.m. and realize I lost my keys. My friend who lives 20 minutes away finds them on her floor, so I wait 30 minutes for a shuttle to retrieve them. On the shuttle back, it's past midnight and I'm the only passenger when my driver scares my soul right out of my body by muttering under his breath, "Why'd you get murdered?"

By this point, I am sick and tired of the games the universe has decided to play on me. But even more than that, I'm dreading that this bad luck is going to follow me onto my flight and stick with me through my vacation. Something almost always goes wrong for me when traveling is involved-either I forget something, or I lose something, or something is cancelled, or a horrible natural disaster overtakes my destination days before I go (last year, Palisades fire; I wish I were joking). My worries were only worsened when the BWI Airport completely shut down (the day before I lost my keys!) due to a chemical smell. But I tried to minimize any potential bad luck as much as I could - I religiously checked my bags to make sure I didn't forget anything, checked to make sure BWI was running again and that my flight wasn't cancelled, knocked on every piece of wood I came across and tried to manifest better luck by thinking of my unlucky streak as a way to get the bad vibes out of my system before I left.

In the end, whether it be the wood-knocking or the mindset change, something worked. The trip went entirely smoothly for me - nothing lost, nothing cancelled, nothing bad. It was nothing but a fun time filled with laughter, good food and beautiful scenery. Unfortunately for my friends, they encountered some back luck in the form of $60 water shoes, $70 swim trunks and some ill-timed lactose intolerance symptoms; I suppose they weren't able to get the bad luck out of the way in time.

From now on, I'm going to stick with the concept that luck is like a video game health bar, and to replenish it I have to endure a bit of misfortune. It makes it easier to bear, knowing that luckier times will come soon.

Harmony Liu is a junior from Queens, N.Y. studying English. Her column shares moments in her life that feel significant and profound enough to be written out and cast to sea for any to find.

The Tuesday before the Neuroscience: Cellular and Systems I (Cells) exam, war officially begins. My body is constantly in fight or flight mode, running on too much caffeine. In every interaction with my friends, I love to complain about how cooked I am. My whiteboard is filled with scribbles of every molecular and signaling pathway and half-erased reminders that somehow make perfect sense only to me. My days blur into a loop of studying, contemplating my overall intelligence to be a neuroscience major. It might seem dramatic and a little exhausting, but by this point, I'm completely on autopilot. My phone is on grayscale. I'm hopping from the Annex to Gilman on my study crawls, barely noticing the world around me, consumed entirely by memorizing every single detail I've been taught. The days feel faster, the stakes feel much higher and every second is dedicated to active recall.

Every day, I dedicate all of my brain cells (no pun intended) to memorizing every single concept from the lecture slides. I read the lecture notes, eyebrows furrowing to memorize every single word at least twice to make sure I am not missing anything. I double check my Anki cards to make sure that every single piece of information mentioned in the course content is included. Every move I make is with a single-minded purpose, testing myself relentlessly and pushing every concept into memory until it basically becomes tattooed into my brain.

For all of freshman year, I've always had the intention of becoming a neuroscience major. However, after enduring Foundations of Brain, Behavior, and Cognition (FBBC), I had to face a significant learning curve. Despite being allowed a cheat sheet, I had to think of an entire way to think and adapt to fast-paced material. After struggling, adapting and pushing through the frustration that I wasn't scoring as exceedingly high as my peers, I found myself questioning if I was even smart enough for the major. I would hear countless accounts on Cells on how it was basically FBBC on steroids and without a cheat sheet. There was a period that lasted a few months during freshman year where I was switching between multiple major combinations as I was sure that I wasn't going to be a neuroscience major and that it was best to switch to an easier major for the premed route.

As it was time to officially declare a major, I ultimately decided to commit to what I originally came in as. Part of it was stubbornness, but most of it was something deeper. Even after the frustration, the late nights and the constant feeling that everyone around me understood the material faster than I did, I still couldn't imagine studying anything else. The questions that originally drew me to neuroscience (e.g. how something as intangible as emotion can arise from electrical signals, how memory works, the beauty of neuroplasticity on how that changes us as a person) never really left my mind. Even when the coursework felt overwhelming, I truly did not believe I belonged in any other subject.

The night before a Cells exam never fails to remind me of how little I feel like I know. No matter how many hours I have spent reviewing, tracing pathways, being able to recall the text on the slides by just looking at the title, the moment I start working through the backtests and study questions, everything seems to fall apart. Questions that should feel straightforward suddenly look unfamiliar, and the answers end up being completely different from what I was thinking. Each mistake sends me back to the lecture slides' speaker notes, highlighting a small detail I have missed.

By the time midnight passes, the realization that the exam is only hours away makes the panic set in a little more. I keep telling myself that I've spent days studying this material, but at that moment it's hard not to focus on the many things I'm still getting wrong. The uncertainty feels heavier because I already know what it feels like to walk out of a Cells exam disappointed. Having scored lower than I hoped on the last one, this exam starts to feel like it carries more weight than it probably should.

Every mistake on a practice question suddenly feels like evidence that I haven't done enough, that maybe I still don't understand the material the way I'm supposed to. It becomes this familiar cycle: studying intensely for days, convincing myself that I finally understand the material, and then reaching the night before the exam and feeling like none of it has stuck. I'm sorry neuro gods! I promise I'll lock in! I can totally get a perfect score if I study! If I just remember what this one slide said, I can gain back a good amount of points. Cells is just a grind after all.

By that point in the night when I hear birds starting to chirp, there's not much left to do except trust the process that got me there. The whiteboard is full, my brain is overloaded with so much information and the exam is only a few hours away. I could cope by telling myself that I am worth so much more than a test score. I could come up with a hundred different explanations for why I still don't feel one-hundred percent ready. All that's left is to try to get a few hours of sleep for my memories to reconsolidate, and hope that when I sit in the exam room later that morning, my brain remembers more than it feels like right now and my abilities reflect so much more than my confidence.

Grace Wang is a sophomore from Tuscaloosa, Ala. majoring in Neuroscience. Her column chronicles life's unpredictable, beautiful mess - never neat, always honest and willing to show the chaos, contradictions and awkward truths we usually try to hide.

Sergio Giavanni Kitchens, going by the stage name "Gunna," is an Atlanta-based American rapper who has millions of streams on platforms like SoundCloud, YouTube and Spotify. Gunna signed to the Young Stoner Life Records in 2017; since then, he has collaborated with stars like Lil Baby, Don Toliver and Travis Scott in numerous mixtapes and albums. His most recent album, the Last Wun, peaked at number three on the Billboard 200.

In an interview with The News-Letter, freshman Adria Terpis, studying Applied Mathematics and Statistics, was inspired by other universities across the country when she offered her first choice for the artist before the announcement.

"Honestly, I really [want] Zara Larsson, because a lot of schools have her right now, and I got really excited."

Additionally, in expressing her hopes for the concert, Terpis was optimistic that the University would be able put on a good show and said that she would attend the event no matter who was revealed.

"The fall concert [featuring Khalid] was pretty good. I don't think Hopkins is not able to attain good artists," Terpis said. "No matter what, it's a free concert. I'm gonna go."

Sophomore Dawson Fontenot, studying Public Health, was somewhat more hesitant about attending the event before the reveal when asked if he would go to the then-unrevealed artist's concert in an interview with The News-Letter.

"It depends," said Fontenot, "If it's someone good, I'll pull up."

At 8:30 p.m. the artist was announced when a video made by HOP played at the event. After a ten-second countdown, Gunna was revealed to be this year's Spring Fair artist. Upon Gunna's announcement, the event's crowd erupted into cheers.

After the artist was made public, students responded positively. Freshman Emir Bombaci was pleasantly surprised, saying that he didn't think he would be familiar with the artist who was announced in an interview with The News-Letter.

"I was not expecting someone that I even recognized that much. Gunna is definitely a name that I know, a pretty big name, so I'm very happy that they managed to get an artist like Gunna," Bombaci stated. "In recent years, Gunna is definitely the biggest name that they've had… They had Kehlani, who was the biggest name I could think of, but way back they had Eminem or The Chainsmokers -it's closer to that level of grandeur," Bombaci said.

In an interview with The News-Letter, Junior Roseanne Duenas, studying Public Health, is a member of HOP and admits that, while she hasn't listened to that much of his music in the past, she was happy about the announcement.

"I don't really listen to his music, but I'm happy we got someone, so [I] can't be ungrateful there. I'm not really a rap person. I know some of his songs, but they're mostly features, so hopefully we'll see that at the concert," Duenas said.

Duenas was still hopeful about the event and confirmed that she would be in attendance. As a member of HOP, she is also proud of the work the organization has put into securing such a popular artist. Duenas commented that the concert tends to be a fun event, regardless of being a fan of the artist or not.

"I feel like, this year [because I'm part of the HOP], we actually got into planning… and we have a lot of good stuff coming up, so [it's been] better than other years." Duenas continued, "[HOP] always gets a good DJ. So I feel like, even if you don't know the artist, the DJ before the show is always so good."

This excitement marks a shift from last year's Spring Fair Concert, where Leadership, Engagement and Experiential Development Office's selection of The Beaches and Toosii was met with criticism.

Gunna will perform at the annual Spring Fair Concert on Saturday, April 25, at 8 PM in the Recreation Center.

Students who need to request accommodations for their disabilities work with the Student Disability Services (SDS) office. The process entails completing an online application, submitting appropriate medical documentation and scheduling a meeting with a staff member.

In an interview with The News-Letter, sophomore Kathryn Prather, majoring in Materials Science & Engineering and Economics, shared her experiences navigating accessibility resources. Prather has Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), which causes varied symptoms, such as dizziness, fatigue and rapid heart rate, upon standing up from lying down. As such, this year, Prather has relied more on wheelchairs and avoids staircases when possible. Prather first mentioned her experience with SDS and her impressions of their role as tailored to preventing lawsuits.

"[SDS's] main job is to get the University to not get sued over accessibility. That is why it exists. So the way they approach student accessibility and their individual problems is interpreted through that lens," Prather explained. "A lot of individual advisors in the office really do want to help you. It's just that their legal framework is 'what will I do to not get the University sued?'"

As a freshman, Prather shared that the documentation she provided to SDS for accessibility services was in a different format than what was accepted. Only upon contacting a Hopkins doctor specializing in POTS was Prather able to get SDS resources.

"I come from a more rural area, and so there aren't that many primary care doctors, and they're very overworked. [SDS] wanted a really long questionnaire from my doctor about all my needs... which is great if you have a doctor that has the time or resources," Prather said. "[After] I got into the [Hopkins POTS] clinic... [SDS] were really willing to work with me and give me my accommodations. [But] it took having a doctor that knew the correct language and had the resources, and it took me having the resources to get that doctor in order for my accommodations to be approved."

SDS's guidelines for physical disability forms fall under "all disabilities," where paperwork is expected to encompass the history of the disability, functional limitations, expected progression and potential accommodations. The exact documentation form provided by SDS entails seven short response questions regarding these details.

Prather also explained that a lot of the burden falls on the student and professors with accommodation execution.

"I have some extended time on assignments if I have a flare... [SDS] wanted me to go through [with] all my professors this long document agreement thing, which just puts a ton of burden on me and my professors," Prather stated. "[For exams,] you basically have to email all your professors, be like, 'Hey, can you set up my exam to take it at SDS?' And then most of your professors will be fine... [For] some professors who are on the older side, perhaps or not used to the systemm I've had to go back and forth [them], and if professors aren't responsive over email, that's a big problem."

In terms of accessible resources, some students have noted how SDS' website page of accommodations tends to focus more on intellectual disabilities than physical ones. Specifically, some students have pointed out that while non-stair routes exist, they are highly impractical for regular use. For example, a seemingly straightforward route between Remsen and Gilman Hall can take up to 10 minutes when taking the accessible route, including using the Remsen Hall elevator to get to the basement, going around Decker gardens through the tunnel between Gilman Hall, and entering to use the Gilman elevator.

"If it's possible to avoid stairs, it literally just takes me so much longer to get to my classes, sometimes, because I have to go all the way around," Prather added. "They do have a shuttle service, like there's an on-demand ride thing you can get as an accommodation, which is helpful, but it takes forever. You can eventually find ways around campus, but it just is so time-intensive."

In an email to The News-Letter, one campus tour guide, choosing to comment under the pseudonym "Pat," shared how their accessible, non-stair route can take far longer than the typical route.

"It's not harder to give the tour [with accessible accommodations]; it is a different route, though. And it definitely takes longer to get around campus. Of course, you can get anywhere stairless, but you just have to take longer detours." Pat added, "There are some buildings where I still don't know where the stairless route would be without having a super long detour."

Specifically, Pat shared how some University ramps are unnecessarily long and difficult to locate, such as the Breezeway to Wyman Quad (which does not accessibly connect to Keyser Quad), Gilman Hall to Keyser Quad and Brody Learning Commons to Maryland Hall.

"I feel like most ramps are covered (like Shriver or Gilman) with bushes so it's hard to find," Pat noted.

Pat also noted the effects of the long routes on prospective students requiring physical accommodations, including frustration.

"Just seeing routes with stairs that are inaccessible but clearly faster and easier would diminish morale," Pat wrote.

Prather, in particular, noted issues with the lack of signage and maintenance updates with elevators, such as the one in Krieger Hall. Prather also expressed that many elevators are old, which scares her from using them frequently.

"The Krieger elevator went down earlier this semester... A lot of elevators seem to go out of order randomly on campus, or they even get tested without notice... [The University] will have elevators just be down without really telling you why. I actually missed class once, because it was on the third floor of Krieger, and I came into the basement entrance, which has no stairs, because I was using my wheelchair that day, and the elevator wasn't working," Prather shared.

Pat corroborated Prather's claim, mentioning how the stairless campus tour route sometimes relies on dysfunctional elevators. The Shaffer Hall elevator, for example, was also out of order for some time this semester.

"The stairless route is very reliant on the 2-3 elevators per building, some of which don't work occasionally," Pat wrote.

SDS currently does not publicize its elevator outages; instead, students can request maintenance through a provided form and number. SDS promotes a map with all accessible routes on their website; however, this map requires individuals to chart their own route and interpret the legend. On their website, the University outlines future plans for greater interaction.

"The university is researching mobile app capabilities that would provide an accessible experience for blind or nonvisual users, offer a more interactive experience, and be easier to update with changes," the University writes on the SDS website.

The University has highlighted the Bloomberg Student Center (BSC) as a building with an elevator and physical accessibility resources. However, Prather shared that some features are more varied in efficiency; for example, in Prather's experience, the automatic doors haven't worked consistently, and many locations are only accessible through stairs.

"The whole [BSC] is a giant staircase of a design," she said. "There are tons of spaces that are just inaccessible, and that's fine if you want that kind of architecture, but it's very insulting when, also on the wall, you're talking about accessibility."

With the BSC's development, Prather shared how the garden area in front of the courtyard was now blocked off with shrubs; prior to the BSC's construction, that was one of the only accessible routes to get on campus from North Charles Street. Other paths, including through the Baltimore Museum of Art sculpture gardens and the Beach, are not ADA-compliant due to their steep gradient. The Alumni Memorial Residence (AMR) II parking lot provided a path, but it has mostly been under construction this semester until two weeks ago.

As such, students requiring accessible routes to campus have mostly relied on the BSC with its ramp and elevators. If the BSC is closed, students who cannot use stairs would have no reliable access. Prather expressed that the University should make an accessible route on campus without relying on entering a building.

Throughout the construction projects on campus, Prather has shared that many paths have been blocked off without prior notice and some construction vehicles have parked in disabled spots.

"Behind Hodson, there's a bunch of disabled spots. It's sort of a comical number of disabled spots in a row, but I do park there, and they just had construction vehicles there -construction equipment taking up all six spots," Prather said. "[And] it's such a burden [to complain about this], I'm literally a disabled student trying to keep up with my coursework, like I don't have time to run around campus yelling at people."

Notably, Prather's physical accessibility needs vary from day to day. Prather criticized the system for lacking clarity towards uncommon and varied disabilities and medical issues.

"And so with such a wide range of disabilities, and [with] a more nebulous disability, then it's just so hard to define, and there aren't really systems in place to help you define it either. You really do just have to find it yourself and advocate for yourself," Prather noted.

Prather expressed that the University should be more proactive in finding issues with physical accessibility. Prather recommended the Disabled Student Community Outreach (DiSCO) for students seeking guidance on navigating physical disabilities on campus.

"I think [the University should] invest more into actually finding the problems. Be more proactive as a university, versus waiting for students to have problems or for faculty to have problems [...]," Prather said. "[DiSCO is] a really good starting place for any disabled student who doesn't know what they're doing or if they're not even sure if they're disabled."

I despise small talk. And it's all over social media, too. When did it become necessary for "friends" I haven't spoken to in years to flood my comments section with "gorgggg," or "you're so adorable" or "marry me pls." I don't really want to marry you, random stranger whose Instagram handle I barely recognize.

Was small talk really always so blasé? I sound cynical, but it's not the length of these conversations that bothers me. It's the lack of personalization. There's something sickly about the sweetness of artificial platitudes, of the awkward smile and wave when you run into someone in the halls or on campus. Who decided that "Hi" and "How are you" must be responded to with "Fine"?

I am deeply introverted and I struggle with talking to new people. But most of my fear originates from my anxiety about the dreaded small talk. Even some of my closest friends default to humor as a shield during small talk because talking about how they're really doing is too difficult.

But what if it wasn't small talk, anymore? What if we spoke with our hearts open and earnestness to learn about each other? What if we avoided the desire to hide behind a silly little coping mechanism?

What if I were to respond to "How are you"s with "Having the worst day of my life, actually," instead?

The most memorable encounters I've had aren't resume swaps or bland commentary on the weather; they're short and sweet but filled with meaning. It's the girl I talked to during Orientation Week and bonded with about our brown parents and fears about college. It's the person who texted me about how much they loved Gracie Abram's newest album and how much it connected with them. It's the very first set of DMs with the girl who became my roommate and best friend, where we talked about NIKI; it was the other incoming students who reached out to me three years ago and confessed their fears about graduating and their excitement for this new chapter. There was no "slay, queen!!!" in those moments, only raw, unpolished truths. It was just humans, coexisting with each other, short conversations dripping with vulnerability.

These interactions are what give me faith in our capacity to move away from predetermined conversations, from rehearsed dialogue. Small talk is a dead end - both me and you, reader, will be left standing there, waiting for our little back-and-forth to reach its intended end. But if you told me you were having the worst day of your life or told me about that terrible test you had, the end of the road disappears. There's infinite conversation to be had, there's relatability and empathy to share.

Of course, there's probably some safety in the shallow end and there's risk involved in being so open. I'm guilty of it, just as much as anyone else. Telling someone you're not doing well is terrifying; letting someone into your own complicated life is almost like throwing a fishing line into piranha-infested waters. It's crossed my mind that my introversion is a defense mechanism, a way to keep people at arm's length so I can curate the parts of my personality that they actually see.

I want to end with a guide to what "big talk" looks like, for people who find themselves lost navigating past surface-level conversations.

1. Don't ask me a question I can answer in just one word. Not "How are you?" or "How was your weekend?" Ask me, "What was the best part of your week?" instead.
2. Ask "why." Why did your weekend suck? Why do you feel like your test didn't go well? Why do you like boba so much?
3. The most important rule: know when to shut up. Above all, sometimes the best small talk is no talk at all. Just sit with me in silence. We don't need to talk all the time. Sometimes it's enough to just sit together and be in the same room, doing your own thing.

The next time we run into each other, don't just compliment me and ask "how it's going." Tell me more about your weekend than whether it was good or bad. Rewrite our small talk script. And who knows? We might end up learning something about one another that brings us closer together.

Shreya Tiwari is a junior from Austin, Texas, studying Biomedical Engineering. She is a Managing Editor for The News-Letter. Her column, "Invisible Strings," shares stories about all the people, places, and feelings to which she has "invisible strings," intimate hidden connections that she hopes to reveal to readers with each piece.

What is Dayli? How can it be used?

From a purely functional standpoint, Dayli users are notified by the app at a random time each day, similar to the social media platform BeReal. However, instead of taking a photo, Dayli users start a one-minute phone call with one of their friends on the app. In signing up, users are prompted to share their contact list with Dayli and connect with friends by suggesting contacts that are already users on the app. Additionally, both parties to the call have a one-time option to add another minute to the call, resulting in a total possible length of three minutes. Users are also not locked into a 60-second call and can hang up at any time.

Park says that Dayli, at its core, is an easier way to help its users maintain friendships, especially with people users may not be able to see very often.

"We see Dayli as being the easiest way for you to keep in contact with people who you might not be able to see every single day. It mainly came from us being international students." said Park. "Sometimes you just forget to keep in touch with the people who matter, and we wanted to build a solution to that exact problem."

How does Dayli help facilitate social connection for its users?

Park highlighted an epidemic of loneliness, at least among Generations Z and Alpha, and offered social media as a potential cause.

"A large part of this is because you see modern day social media, Goliaths, like Instagram Tiktok. They're all like, really moving towards short form entertainment, and their main goal is to keep you stuck on the screen and for as long as possible," offered Park.

He framed Dayli as a solution to this growing problem. By encouraging its users to connect with a friend for at least one minute a day, Park thinks Dayli offers an alternative to social media and all of its strings attached.

"'We kind of wanted to be the antithesis to that exact issue, because all of that time that you're spending scrolling on [Instagram] Reels, it's time that you could have been spending with a real friend, with an actual person that you care about, with a family member. So the solution that we provide is very, very simple. You can't really scroll on our application. It's one call a day, and it's just for 60 seconds. It's really that simple," said Park.

In terms of analytics, Park said that Dayli has grown to 500 users since the launch of its platform this semester and experienced a weekly growth rate of over 100% in addition to a user retention rate around 45%.

How have your social media campaigns helped in gaining new users for the app?

Dayli has been maintaining an active presence on social media and according to Park, the team behind Dayli believes that this is an important tool to spread awareness about the platform.

"Obviously we're meeting people where they're already at. They're on social media. They want to scroll into things. They want to see what's happening on campus and whatnot," said Park.

Park thinks that this is just one step in the process of developing a user base. Many of their videos do not necessarily aim to convince watchers to download their app but simply try to establish a presence on social media.

"Y​​ou need to have that first layer of awareness before you're really able to hit them with the reason why they should be using this application. Nobody likes to be sold things on the very first try. They want to first understand the emotion that you're trying to provide, the mission that you have. The fact that everyone knows about you makes that conversion process later down the line a lot easier," said Park.

How has Dayli expanded into the event-planning space?

Dayli branched out into the event-planning space with an event co-hosted by the Beta fraternity on Saturday, April 11.

According to Marczali, Dayli's events work similar to their social media presence, in that they aim to build up an on-campus presence.

"I think some of the things we've known in the past were smaller things, like hosting small challenges for short videos where people could call their friends up and play a little game to win a prize, or handing out free pizza during midterms to help out students and making it a little like fun thing for everyone," said Marczali.

Marczali mentioned that Dayli's biggest event so far would be the party with Beta (the interview was conducted before the event took place), but the team also has plans to expand and host more events, both larger and on the smaller side.

"We're planning a lot of year-end get-togethers that we're sponsoring in smaller or bigger student clubs and organizations, as well as maybe a couple other parties," said Marczali. "Another thing we're thinking we have planned is a partnership with one of the one of the restaurants and boba shops on St Paul. So that's another thing that we're very excited about."

How has Dayli changed over the course of its founding?

Early snapshots of Dayli's website call the platform an "AI-powered scheduling assistant," but the function of the app has changed drastically.

According to Marczali, the original idea behind Dayli was to create an AI tool that makes scheduling time with your friends easier.

Marczali said "The initial thought was 'Hey, let's build something around planning or scheduling, because that seems to be something people struggle with.'"

However, Dayli has since evolved, most notably in its shift away from artificial intelligence.

"We actually are trying to go against the whole AI trend, because it just seems like completely unnecessary hype," said Marczali. "We don't have any AI built into the app."

Additionally Marczali remarked that during the launch of the app's first concept, people were not as receptive to the planning features as the team thought they would be. Instead of using the existing scheduling features, many users would instead solely use the app to try to initiate new plans.

"While building the initial version of what Dayli was, we realized that the users didn't use it for what we thought they would use it for. They had the whole planning functionality and a lot of cool features that made planning very easy and very fast between friends or even friend groups. But what we saw is, instead of using it regularly for planning, people would just go on daily to try and initiate," said Marczali.

Do you have any comments about the wider startup culture at Hopkins?

In light of a piece published by The News-Letter about What2Do, another Hopkins startup, Marczali made some brief comments hopeful about the future of the two platforms.

"Some of those people [at What2Do] are not only my friends, but also my fraternity brothers. So there really is nothing in between us, and hopefully we can even do some collaborations in the future."

For the team, the moment they qualified did not feel entirely real at first. In an email to The News-Letter, sophomore neuroscience major Arjit Singh, a captain of the team, described his initial reaction to qualifying for the tournament.

"My immediate reaction was honestly just shock. It was a moment where I just thought of all the hard work, time, and effort that we were putting into the team to succeed, and it all just felt like it was coming to fruition at that moment," he wrote.

Another dancer, junior Neuroscience major Anshu Sharda, described the experience of celebrating after the competition.

"Everyone was hugging each other, laughing, crying - there were so many tears and smiles; it was such a bittersweet moment, and I was overwhelmed with emotion," Sharda wrote of their Blowout performance. "We danced for each other, for our family we've built."

This year marks the first time in 26 years that the team has qualified for nationals, making their performance not only a personal milestone, but a historical moment for the team and the University.

Bhangra is a traditional folk dance that originated in Punjab, historically performed in celebration of the harvest festival Vaisakhi. Known for its high energy and expressive movements, bhangra is performed to the beat of the dhol, a double-sided drum, often accompanied by lyrics that tell stories of love, strength and celebration.

Dancers wear clothing rooted in Punjabi culture with men performing in a kurta (long shirt), pagh (turban) and chaddar (loose pants), while the women wear a salwar kameez and dupatta. These outfits are often adorned with intricate embroidery, jewelry and glitter, designed to enhance the energy and visual impact of performance. Accessories extend beyond clothing, including the Rumaalan, a handkerchief tied around a dancer's wrist to accentuate fast, expressive hand movements.

Props also play a central role in performance, most notably sapp and khunde, which dancers manipulate to add rhythm, texture and visual intensity to the set.

Today, bhangra has evolved into a global performance event, particularly within collegiate circuits, where teams blend traditional elements with modern choreography.

Sami Muhammad, a senior physics major and dancer on the team, talked about the range of bhangra dance styles in an email to The News-Letter.

"Bhangra is incredibly rich both in the depth of its form and also the breadth of styles," he wrote. "When we perform a set on campus, it's not just one bhangra performance. It's really an amalgamation of different sub-genres like jhummar or dhamaal, each of which have unique histories in Punjab region."

For members of Blue Jay Bhangra, this balance between tradition and individuality is part of what defines the team's identity. In an interview with The News-Letter, neuroscience sophomore Agalya Ramkumar explained the importance of expression among the members.

"What makes BJB truly unique is the concept of nakhra: the individual flair and confidence each dancer brings to the stage," she wrote. "Rather than being completely uniform, our team is a blend of distinct personalities and styles, and I think that's what makes watching us so exciting."

Behind the energy of competition lies months of preparation, and behind every performance is a level of planning and precision that often goes unseen. For Blue Jay Bhangra, much of that responsibility falls on captains Samhith Bhrugubanda, Milun Jain, Avani Daga and Arjit Singh.

In the weeks leading up to major competitions like Blowout, practices can stretch to three to four hours a day, on top of regular weekly rehearsals. Dancers spend this time refining synchronization, adjusting choreography and building stamina.

Forming a top 10 bhangra team is no easy feat. While designing the set and refining moves, the captains are involved in nearly every aspect of the team's performance. They lead practices, teach choreography and ensure that each dancer is aligned, not just in steps but also in timing, energy and expression.

In an interview with The News-Letter, senior biomedical engineering major and a captain on the team, Samhith Bhrugubanda explained the responsibilities that come with leading the team.

"The biggest challenge about being a captain is balance," he wrote. "Duties involve making choreography, creating formations, building a mix, leading practice... organizing schedules, handling logistics, and so much more."

For dancers like Tanvi Ranade, a senior majoring in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science, that effort is visible in the final performance, as she described in an email to The News-Letter.

"After all the grit and dedication every single team member poured into the season, performing on that stage felt like the final piece clicking into place," she wrote.

This year's success did not come from a single performance or a single person, but from steady growth throughout the season from the whole team.

"I'd give a lot of credit to our four amazing captains for designing such a strong set and really believing in the dancers on this team," Ranade wrote. "At the same time, it was the collective commitment from everyone on the team... [that] made this season so successful."

For many members, the most meaningful experiences happened offstage. In response to a question about his favorite memory on the team, Muhammad recalled a moment of team bonding after a competition in Miami.

"We all spontaneously went to the beach right before our 6 a.m. flight. Between the immediate feeling after placing at the competition, and also the immense closeness we all felt over that weekend, it was a surreal moment at a pretty crazy time in the night that felt very special," he wrote.

Singh also described how those interested in joining the team can get involved by following BJB on social media (@bluejaybhangra) for information about tryouts.

"We're looking for things like energy, willingness to learn and understanding of the fundamentals. There is NO prior experience necessary, so anyone and everyone interested should definitely try out," he wrote.

The APL receives around 67% of its federal funding from the Department of Defense (DOD). Some of the APL's projects are released, but the vast majority of information about the APL's work is classified due to its mission.

Due to its involvement in US military conflicts, the APL has generated controversy among some students and faculty in light of modern military conflicts, especially due to the APL's affiliation with a University centered on health research. For example, in 1987, Lucille Ann Mostello, a School of Medicine alumna, wrote a letter to the former president of Hopkins, Steven Muller. Mostello claimed that the APL blemished Muller's claim that Hopkins was "a major world university" and "not exclusively as a major American university." Mostello described an alleged contradiction in Hopkins' reputation as a leading health research institution and contributor to the creation of nuclear weapons through the APL.

Even today, the language of "nation" in the APL's mission contrasts the University's mention of "world" in their general mission. Hopkins' broader mission statement outlines the goals of educating students, encouraging research and bringing "the benefits of discovery to the world."

A History of Protests

The APL has long been a student-criticized institution at Hopkins. In the 1970s, at the peak of the anti-war movement due to U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Hopkins students demanded the University to end its contribution to the U.S.'s "military industrial complex." These demands included the dissolution of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, responsible for training college students for a military career, and banning military recruiters from campus.

Students also advocated banning classified research and converting the APL into an institution invested in civilian research. Specifically, students called for diverting APL's funding to "socially benevolent research" in public health. The University banned military recruitment following protests outside Levering Hall, but the demands for changes to the APL were not met.

Similar movements occurred across college campuses. In 1973, the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory divested from MIT after students demanded non-involvement. At Stanford University, the Stanford Research Institute shifted from military research to civil-oriented projects following student protests.

There were several protests against the APL from September 1986 to early 1987. An APL demonstration summary describes protests from November of 1986 to January 1987. Demonstrations occurred on November 11, November 26, December 22, January 6 and January 14. The November 11 and January 14 protests resulted in arrests for trespassing.

In February of 1988, another letter describes a 40-person protest where "APL personnel applied limited physical restraints" to demonstrators to prevent them from locking a gate. Sixteen protestors were arrested, several of whom chose to "go limp" and were carried into police cars.

Recent Controversies

On February 28, a U.S. military Tomahawk missile hit a school in Iran, with US officials stating their intention to hit a nearby naval base. The attack resulted in the deaths of 175 people, most of whom were children. Since then, it is estimated that the US has used over 850 of these missiles throughout the conflict. This has raised concerns about the possible depletion of the U.S.'s remaining weapon supplies. Other outcries point to the effects of the quantity of strikes as an indicator of humanitarian crises in attacked nations.

The development of the Tomahawk missile began at the APL in the 1970s. The missile was tested from 1976 to 1978, during the peak of the Cold War. The U.S. developed the missile, intending to counter rising Soviet military power. The weapon was designed to make precise and flexible strikes and was part of the U.S.'s larger movement to lower the risk of long-range missiles by eliminating the need for pilots. The Tomahawk was developed with terrain-following radar, GPS guidance and targeting updates.

In 2002, the APL announced that they "played a key role" in developing a new generation of Tomahawk missiles: the Navy's Tactical Tomahawk. The APL reiterated that they "played a major role" in developing software that characterized the missile's guidance, navigation, aerodynamics and communications systems. News of Tomahawk is not featured on the impact page of the APL's website.

Due to the APL's contribution in the Tomahawk missile development, a group of University community members (faculty, staff and students) has formally called on the University to start an investigation, with experts in international humanitarian law, into APL's role in the February 28 attack. These individuals seek to understand if the APL's research and technical support violates the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution under humanitarian law conventions. The findings of this investigation are requested to be made public.

RTX Corporation, formerly known as Raytheon, is the current manufacturer of Tomahawk missiles. As one of the five biggest defense contractors in the US, RTX Corporation supports 90% of DOD and commercial space launches. In October of 2024, when the company faced charges for fraud and bribery, for inflating prices of weapons for sale to the U.S. and bribing sales in Qatar, they chose a deferred prosecution agreement. RTX Corporation paid the U.S. government a total of $950 million, avoiding a formal indictment. While the APL frequently works with the RTX, citing them as their primary contracting agency in several announcements, the extent of their involvement in RTX corporation affairs is not well-documented.

Upon asking University administration about recent controversies regarding APL's contribution to the Tomahawk missile's development, a spokesperson reiterated APL's mission, as listed on the website, and directed attention towards previous public statements on the Tomahawk missile.

Some students have shared their unawareness of APL's controversy, stating their primary knowledge comes from the University itself. A sophomore Mechanical Engineering major, choosing to comment under the pseudonym "Lindsey," described their limited knowledge of the APL in an interview with The News-Letter.

"I know the APL is research-based and involved with defense and aerospace," Lindsey said. "[Hopkins] markets the APL through the Life and Design Lab."

In an interview with The News-Letter, another student, a freshman Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering major, choosing to comment under the pseudonym "Alex," shared their knowledge based on being on APL's mailing list.

"It's really good for internships for engineers. We need to try to get the internships because it's really competitive," Alex said. "It also gets a lot of funding from the government."

The student did not know any connection between the APL and the US' current war in Iran.

Approximately half of Whiting engineering students on the professional track go into aerospace or defense after graduation. According to the Imagine Center's "first destination" survey, the top employers for these Whiting graduates are BAE Systems Inc., Boeing, Collins Aerospace, the DOD, the APL, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Technologies, RTX Corporation and the U.S. Navy. The APL's recruitment of Hopkins students operates within the context of broader patterns of University and national defense collaborations. APL's recruitment methods promise innovative opportunities and experience with technical projects with "real-world impact."

Janvi Madhani, a PhD candidate in astrophysics and community organizer, spoke at an "Extractive Histories of Johns Hopkins" panel at the Homewood Friends Meeting House. Madhani spoke about how APL has furthered imperial ambitions and how University students must understand APL's connection to the broader institution.

"I think it's really important for people to research what the APL has been complicit in, and not even complicit, but what the APL has manufactured. I think the story is really clear that Hopkins has been a primary manufacturer of U.S. imperialism - I think that's a really important narrative for students to know before they join Hopkins, when they join Hopkins, while they work at Hopkins," Madhani said. "It is to know that what you are contributing to is a very explicit relationship with U.S. imperialism. These warfare technologies have been used everywhere. These are very active contributions to this project of empire."

Artemis II Crew returns to Earth after splashdown

Astronauts aboard Artemis II completed their final maneuver and returned safely to Earth after a successful journey around the moon. Throughout the mission, astronauts performed tests on spacecraft systems and how the human body responds to deep space conditions such as radiation exposure and microgravity. For example, they have collected detailed medical and performance data that help scientists understand how long duration missions affect an astronaut's bones, cognition and muscles. This information will help design future safety protocols and training for crews who may one day travel to Mars and can help us even better understand the human body.

The Artemis II mission was monumental. Not only did it mark the first time humans have traveled this far from Earth in over 50 years, but it has also laid the foundation for future lunar landing and long-term human exploration of space. The lessons from Artemis II will directly inform the planned Artemis III mission, which aims to return humans to the lunar surface and potentially test innovations needed for sustained presence on and around the moon.

Nutrient that could improve cancer treatment

Recently published in Cell Reports Medicine, researchers have identified a common eye health nutrient, zeaxanthin, and its ability to help the body fight cancer more effectively. Scientists discovered that it strengthens T cells and enhances the impact of immunotherapy treatments. Zeaxanthin is commonly found in foods such as corn, egg yolks and vegetables. It is already used in numerous supplements that support eye health. Because of its familiarity and relative safeness, researchers are optimistic about its potential to be incorporated into future combination therapies.

This could lead research into a new direction as this nutrient shows strong potential as a cancer therapy booster and its potential to regulate tumor growth in cellular pathways. Thus, more targeted, personalized approaches to oncology that are ultimately more effective without compromising patient care can be used. However, more clinical trials are needed to fully grasp zeaxanthin's efficacy. Researchers explain that future studies will look into how specific nutrients interact with the immune system at a molecular level.

Dragonflies advance the field of optogenetics

Recently, scientists from the Osaka Metropolitan University have revealed that dragonflies can detect extremely deep red light, even extending into near-infrared wavelengths, using opsin, a visual protein. This is a protein that is similar to the one found in the human eyes. However, this helps dragonflies further by telling potential mates apart during flight by detecting subtle differences in light. Studying such finely tuned visual systems can reveal new strategies for designing sensitive light-detection tools.

This study led to important revelations about applications in technology and medicine. Through the alteration of the opsin protein, researchers were able to shift its light sensitivity toward longer wavelengths and engineer a version that can be activated by near-infrared light. This could be invaluable in optogenetics, where light sensitive proteins are used to control cells and study biological processes deep inside the body. Furthermore, being able to activate proteins with near-infrared light is invaluable because this light penetrates tissue more deeply and causes less damage. In the future, similar engineered proteins could enable researchers to turn neurons on or off in brain regions or even regulate heart and muscle cells without invasive surgery.

Friday

Candlelight and Clay at Empty Bowls, Maryland State Fairgrounds Exhibition Hall, 2200 York Rd., Lutherville-Timonium, 6:30-9:30 p.m.

This evening fundraiser brings together food tastings, live dueling piano music and a silent auction in support of St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore. Guests receive handmade ceramic bowls while sampling dishes and drinks in a social setting that supports local hunger and housing programs. Tickets are $100.

Emo Nite with guest DJ set by Tigers Jaw, Ottobar, 2549 N. Howard St., 9 p.m.

Emo Nite returns to Ottobar with a night of throwback emo and alternative tracks, featuring a guest DJ set by band Tigers Jaw. The 18 and up event brings together fans for a late-night dance party centered on early 2000s and indie favorites. Tickets are $25.

Saturday

Station North Matsuri Sakura Market and After Party, Mobtown Ballroom, 30 W. North Ave., 11 a.m.-3 p.m. market, after-party at 6 p.m.

This all-day event celebrates Japanese culture and the start of spring with a Sakura-themed market in Station North. The daytime market features vendors, food and community activities, followed by an evening after-party with music and dancing. Market admission is free, with after-party tickets starting at $20.

Snail Mail with Swirlies and Sharp Pins, Union Craft Brewing, 1700 W. 41st St., 4 p.m.

Baltimore indie rock artist Snail Mail, known as Lindsey Jordan, headlines an outdoor concert at Union Craft Brewing alongside bands Swirlies and Sharp Pins. The rain or shine show brings live music to the Union Collective space with an afternoon lineup of alternative and indie sounds. Tickets start around $40.

Sunday

Rise Bmore, 2640 Space, 2640 St. Paul St., 8 p.m.

This annual performance honors the anniversary of Freddie Gray's death through music, poetry and spoken word by Baltimore artists. The program brings together performers from across the city for an evening centered on reflection, community and creative expression. Admission is free.

This is not only an issue for current students. Prospective freshmen who have yet to commit to the school should be able to weigh their options by mapping potential path projections of their upcoming degree. Though information is available on the Hopkins Public Course Search website, further investigation yields a number of courses with misleading titles and one-sentence descriptions without mention of a semester schedule, course readings or required assignments.

Students already enrolled at Hopkins should be awarded the same information. While a Molecular and Cellular Biology major can predict that Organic Chemistry I and Organic Chemistry II will be unique courses, it is much more difficult for a humanities student to predict whether a given course will require them to read the same texts - for example, Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto, Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince or Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism - which they very well may have already studied at Hopkins. In addition to identifying redundancies in coursework, students should be able to evaluate ahead of the registration period whether a syllabus is reductive, one-sided or simply not expansive enough.

Last semester, I enrolled in an upper-level undergraduate course that was revealed on the first day of class to be structured around reviewing and critiquing the professor's manuscript. By the time I realized that this class was not well-suited to my interests, all other equivalent classes were full and I was given few options but to remain in the course.

Syllabi are almost always made available by professors on the first day of class, characterizing the first two weeks of the semester as a period where students regularly use the conditional add/drop feature to switch out of courses that they wrongly predicted would be beneficial to them. If syllabi were published before this hectic window, registration and the add/drop period would be much less stressful.

This is not to say that professors shouldn't have the opportunity to edit syllabi post-registration; a general guideline should be sufficient for students to make informed decisions regarding their schedule. If this guideline has not been created prior to registration, it is unclear on what grounds the professor's department is approving their course.

There are a few potential reasons that Hopkins might shy away from making such information available, like the fear of political backlash or a desire to include timely material that cannot be easily predicted in advance. Should course syllabi be published, staff, alumni, board members, investors and the general public will have free rein to criticize the institution's learning principles and standards, which has the potential to damage its efforts to develop a reputation of being politically balanced. Professors should be able to update syllabi as the semester progresses, but should also be required to provide an outline.

Such concerns have been raised at other institutions of higher learning and should Hopkins require syllabi to be published, they would not be the only prestigious university to do so. As of the 2026-2027 academic year, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) will release all syllabi as public records. By redacting instructor names from the documents, the school is protecting its faculty while also providing critical information to its community and the general public regarding grading policies, semester calendars and required course materials. Though some students base their course selection on the professor for the course, this is still considerably more information than is offered when syllabi are not published at all.

This decision was reached following the submission of dozens of public information requests for UNC syllabi by The Oversight Project, an attorney-led coalition founded in 2022 and backed by the Heritage Foundation. The organization which, according to Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, is "dedicated to investigating and exposing the Biden administration, policymakers, and anyone else engaged in the destructive work of implementing radical leftist policy," sought to discover whether syllabi were compliant with President Donald Trump's executive orders regarding the removal of diversity, equity and inclusion programs at publicly funded institutions through these requests, as reported by The Daily Tar Heel.

Though UNC's adoption of a new syllabi policy is a direct response to these controversial political tactics, the detrimental effects of failing to publish syllabi remain clear. Under the current system at Hopkins, students are left at a course-selection disadvantage, and members of the community are left in the dark about the specific nature and quality of the education provided by the University - and, therefore, about whether their investments in the University are being made under misleading pretenses.

Julia Schager is a sophomore majoring in International Studies from Stamford, Conn.She is a News & Features Editor for The News-Letter.

I've been thinking about my arrival at Hopkins a lot, especially because my amazing academic advisor Christine sent me an email talking about the big decision I will have to make soon: declaring my major.

Instead, I think back to orientation week, when everything felt possible and terminal at the same time. The air inside the Hopkins pre-med bubble was, and still is, dense with ambition. Everyone speaks in acronyms: MCAT, JHMI, CGPA, BSPH. Back then, during orientation week, everyone had a plan. Everyone knew where they were going. Or at least, they knew how to say it.

I intend to do research. I used to say this with hesitancy because medicine was always there, an optional path I could go down, gleaming at the edge of every "What do you want to do with your life" conversation. It beckoned like a gold star.

Medicine is legible. It's noble in a way everyone understands. There's a white coat at the end of the tunnel. There's a salary you can Google. It puts a clock next to your passion and asks how fast you can start prepping for THE BIG SCARY MCAT®. The path is paved here. There are upperclassmen who can tell you exactly where each stone leads.

By no means is the path of Medicine easy, but in a place like Hopkins, it is not unfamiliar.

Research is harder to narrate. It doesn't get that reaction.

It's pipettes and failed experiments and staring at data that refuses to behave. It's years of training with no guaranteed endpoint. It doesn't come with a ceremony as cinematic as Match Day. There is no single moment where the world applauds and says, "Yes, you made it."

When I first told people I intended to do research, I said it defensively. Like I needed to justify it. Like I was explaining a deviation instead of announcing a desire. But the truth is, medicine beckoned because it was visible. Research pulls me because it feels magnetic. There's something deeply unsettling - and deeply thrilling to me - about not knowing. About standing at the edge of what's understood and deciding to push. About spending months, maybe years, trying to untangle one small segment of the vast universe's logic.

Coming to college almost stole this from me, but I don't blame Hopkins for any of this. After all, it is known for producing doctors. The hospital looms large. The history is tangible, of course students arrive wanting to wear white coats. Of course a large percentage of us come in pre-med. Of course the culture bends toward what it does best.

Which is why I think about my "Biology in Deep Time" lecture a lot.

To be clear, no one has ever asked me in an interview to identify avian synapomorphy, and, to my quiet disappointment, no recruiter has leaned across a table and whispered, "But what do you think about the taxonomic evolutionary transition from theropods to birds?" But I often think about what it felt like to sit in that lecture hall at eighteen years old, watching Prof. Amy Balanoff talk about her evolutionary biology research questions with the kind of reverence most people reserve for their gods, their mothers, their dead.

She didn't just teach fossils, she held them close to her heart, sometimes in her palm, sometimes only in slides of a PowerPoint presentation. She spoke about bone not as structure, but as story. About avian skeletons, hollow, impossibly light, as living evidence that the past is never really past. That evolution in flight is a history refined by patience.

And I remember sitting there, stunned by scale.

By the audacity of studying life not in semesters or decades but in hundreds of millions of years.

That biology, at its deepest, is time made visible.

What stayed with me wasn't the terminology. It was the feeling.

The sense that the world was made of questions worth asking. That asking was enough. That asking was the point.

I think about that class now because it reminds me of a version of myself untouched by the Hopkins Pre-Med Bubble. That somewhere between the doubt and the choice, between the walks to the Hutzler Reading Room and the LinkedIn updates, the world asked me to justify my awe by how respectable it would make me. And I, eighteen, ambitious, slightly afraid, started doing the math on my dreams.

So now, I'm working toward stopping the hesitation from creeping in.

I intend to do research.

Full sentence. No footnote.

Because to me, research is loving a question enough to let it ruin your week.

And I'm starting to realize I've always been drawn to question marks.

Samika Jain is a freshman from Mumbai, India, majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Her column holds onto things she probably should've forgotten by now, but she writes them down anyway.

After snacks in Dunning Hall and the distribution of binoculars, reference sheets and field guides, the adventure began. Given the warm springtime weather, the day was suited for birdwatching. Students were encouraged to download the Merlin Bird ID app, a tool developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to identify bird calls and songs. Walking past the Ralph S. O'Connor Recreation Center and subsequently the Imagine Center, some of the species often roaming campus could be identified -including the bright, red-colored northern cardinal and the American robin with its distinctive orange underbelly.

The bulk of the excursion was spent traversing the Stony Run Trail at Wyman Park Drive. Historically, the trail has suffered environmental challenges, including soil erosion and potential pollutant fallout. Through volunteer work and significant community involvement, the location is now considered a beloved park by residents.

As dusk approached, many birds could be spotted exchanging calls and heading into their nests. From white-throated sparrows to carolina wrens and even one lone barred owl, a wide array of species could be caught in action by observant students. Discovery was not limited to the skies, as one student uncovered the lower jawbone of an unidentified rodent on the trail.

Senior Alexander Jeffords, majoring in Behavioral Biology and Environmental Science, was one of the leaders of the excursion. When asked about the kinds of birds that could be found around campus, he responded in an email to The News-Letter.

"I think there are quite a number of exciting birds around Hopkins. The barred owl (Strix varia) that we saw on Friday was a first for me, and one of the birds that I've been trying to see for a while. I also think that the red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) is a very cool bird as well, though quite common on campus and the greater Baltimore area as well. I think one of the coolest birds that we caught on recording was a wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), though I have no clue where in Wyman Park that could be. Finally, one of my favorite birds of prey, the osprey (Pandion haliaetus), is quite rare to see in Baltimore City, but we have a few recordings."

Participating student Amelia Joseph, a freshman majoring in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, described her experience favorably.

"I enjoyed meeting fellow students interested in ornithology and learning more about our behavioral biology department. The organizers' excitement was particularly contagious, especially when we spotted a barred owl. This made me want to keep looking for unique bird species to cross off my list," she stated in an email to The News-Letter.

When the sun began to set, students returned from their expedition. Organizer Tom Wang, a senior majoring in Behavioral Biology and Public Health, described the organization of the event and upcoming experiences to keep track of in an interview with The News-Letter.

"We did [a birding expedition] last semester, and thought that it would be fun to do it again this semester. There's a fishing trip run by Behavioral Biology on May 1st," he said.

For any students with further interest in ornithology and bird research, there is much work being done at Hopkins. Elaborating in an email to The New-Letter, senior Alexander Jeffords highlighted some key faculty including Amy Balanoff and her research into the evolution of avian brains. He also addressed some projects around campus that are linked to investigating our campus birds.

For example, one project under the guidance of Balanoff, Kirsten Bohn and Jerry L. Burgess aimed to establish both a biodiversity index for bird species around Homewood campus as well as understand the effect of the campus architecture on their mortality. Using microphones recording outside Olin Hall during 2025's major migratory periods and processing this acoustic data using the deep learning software BirdNET, up to 153 species could be detected. Furthermore, inspections of campus buildings resulted in the discovery of 30 bird carcasses over the course of the study.

"However, I do want to make it clear that this is likely an underestimation, as there are birds that could have been scavenged, died later after flying off, or were at buildings we simply didn't survey," Jeffords wrote.

These results have led to presentations at the Hopkins Annual Sustainability Symposium and chapter meetings of the Ecological Society of America, highlighting the potential scientific depth of the area's avians.

Surya utters jumbled verses of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" to his buddy as he pursues an immigration officer; he's desperate for a chance to travel abroad and impress Meghna, the woman he's fallen head over heels for. It seems unlikely for him to roam through the streets of Berkeley, strumming his guitar, only for her to leave her dorm and let him in. But this happened in one of the beloved Tamil films, Vaaranam Aayiram, which translates to "A Thousand Elephants."

In Vaaranam Aayiram, Meghna served as a mirror for many Tamil millennial women who look to the horizon and see the United States not as a distant dream, but as an achievable destiny. I relate to her not for her academic capabilities, but for her quiet, stubborn unwillingness to settle for a life smaller than the one her father envisioned. But the magic truly begins when Surya enters, setting in motion the coming-of-age journey that requires crossing an ocean just for a chance at love. If Surya is the pulse and Meghna is the breath, San Francisco is the body that holds them. It stands as a silent witness to the truth that sometimes, the hardest part isn't crossing over - it's the landing.

But the weight of destiny, and the glory of the thousand elephants, is a tale older than cinema.

"வாரண மாயிரம் சூழவ லம்செய்து, நாரண நம்பி நடக்கின்றா னென்றெதிர்!" is transliterated as "Vaaranam aayiram soozha valanjeidhu, Naarana nambi nadakindraan endredhir." Long before it became the name and soul of this Gautham Menon film, these were the words of the eighth century poet-saint Andal, a rhythmic, sacred chant describing a dream in which a thousand elephants march in a grand procession to usher her toward her divine destiny. As much as it sounded like a delusion to others, including her father, it was a vision of unstoppable momentum for Andal.

But for those of us living outside the silver screen, like myself, as the leading lady of my own life, traveling 8,600 miles just to resolve a fight and landing in San Jose felt less like a royal procession and more like a soft and necessary exhale. After every little previous trip had nearly strangled the spirit out of me, I found a different kind of air here. Every steep climb in the Vargas Plateau rewarded my lungs with a breeze, and every descent in the Bay Area led to a different version of home.

It wasn't just the warmth of the Sunnyvale; it was the tenderness of being truly seen like someone dear whispering, "I see you, you are here and you are worth all the effort." It was in the second helping of rice and the delicious hot idlis offered without asking, the spontaneous drives to the Pacific, the joy of witnessing the amber glow hitting the waves at Half Moon Bay and the lenses that captured a smile I hadn't felt in months that contributed to the warmth of being seen more than the sun. I spent time with people who didn't just tolerate my chaos, but leaned into it like the Victorian houses of the city, sorting through the trouble I caused, with the same patience one uses to untangle the red string that tied me to the one that my heart was beating for.

In San Francisco, I wasn't an inconvenience; I was a person worth the effort. Because it was never about the place, it was always, always, about the people you share it with!

While Surya's journey to the Golden Gate was about pursuing love, mine was about preserving a decade-long connection. He traveled to Berkeley to be seen, whereas I travelled to Union City to be remembered. While Harris Jayaraj's "Mugam Paarka Thavikiren" (translated to "I long to see your face") played on the radio, the cross-country trip felt like a quiet undressing of a love letter to the Golden City. The towering grace of the Golden Gate reminded me that no ocean is too wide. Witnessing the same in reality, I realized it isn't just a landmark that withstood the tides, but it's a monument to the canonical Tamil American dream.

I believe we are all like Surya, chasing our own versions of Meghna across vast, blue divides. We cross oceans not because we are guaranteed a soft landing, but because some goals are worth the weight of a thousand elephants. And as I stood where the bay meets the sky, I realized that the greatest promise I ever kept was the one I made to myself: to never settle for a life, or a love, that didn't require me to be this brave.

" In animals, a fundamental property is the ability of the body's internal environment to remain constant in the face of a continuously changing outside world... and the sympathetic nervous system is responsible for maintaining body homeostasis. It's classically been studied for fight or flight responses… but it's also responsible for making sure that your internal body homeostasis stays constant when there are environmental changes or during daily activities such as exercise or even adjusting for a drop in blood pressure on standing up," Kuruvilla said.

Given the many roles of the sympathetic nervous system in maintaining essential bodily functions, dysregulation of this system can lead to disease. Notable diseases linked to the sympathetic nervous system include congestive heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, and anxiety disorders.

Kuruvilla's initial journey into science was driven by her curiosity about the world around her.

"I was always curious. I loved biology. I really wanted to understand how things work… when I [found out] that you could also do a PhD and get paid to do research, I think that's what brought me to do my PhD in this country," Kuruvilla recalled.

Kuruvilla completed a PhD in biochemistry at the University of Houston, where she utilized diabetic rats as a model system to study changes in lipid concentrations that affect nerve conduction velocity. At the conclusion of her PhD, Kuruvilla decided to pursue neuroscience research further for her postdoctoral studies.

"I was fascinated by work coming from David Ginty's lab [at the time] in the neuroscience department at the School of Medicine," Kuruvilla said. "[The Ginty lab] had established a compartmentalized culture system to study neuronal signaling, where they grow neurons such that the cell bodies and the axons were in different compartments."

Kuruvila joined Ginty's lab as a postdoc, where she began to study nerve growth factor (NGF) and its transport through sympathetic nerves using the compartmentalized culture system. Her work shed light on the control of NGF transport from axon terminals back towards the neuron cell body.

After starting her own lab at Hopkins, Kuruvilla continued to study the development of the sympathetic nervous system and the crosstalk between target organs, the sympathetic nervous system and the brain. She continues to utilize the same model systems - mice and cell culture - that she employed in her PhD and postdoctoral research. One project in the lab specifically studied the role of the sympathetic nervous system in the pancreas.

"We know which cells in the pancreas secrete NGF... So we could, in a very targeted way, ablate NGF specifically from those cells using the Cre-LoxP system in mice… We use mice to do whole in vivo imaging and metabolic tests in glucose metabolism. But at the same time, if [we] want to understand the mechanisms, we have to go back to the cell culture system, and for example, grow neurons in these compartmentalized chamber systems [so] we can tag the receptors fluorescently and watch the NGF receptors shuttle from the axon tip to the cell bodies to trigger gene expression changes," Kuruvilla said.

Along with neurons, the nervous system is made up of supporting cells known as glial cells. An emerging project in the Kuruvilla lab is exploring the role of a special type of peripheral glial cell, satellite glial cells (SGCs), in protecting sympathetic neurons. These SGCs are known to wrap around the cells of sympathetic ganglia, clusters of nerve cell bodies that act as sites of synapsing between sympathetic neurons. SGCs are also present in other ganglia of the peripheral nervous system such as the dorsal root ganglia of sensory neurons. These ganglia are crucial for the transmission of sensory signals to the central nervous system.

Kuruvilla's team conducted single-cell RNA sequencing on both the sensory and sympathetic SGCs. Interestingly, they found distinct differences in the transcriptional profile of these two populations of SGCs. To explore the differences between these two cell populations further, Kuruvilla studied their relative permeability to outside molecules.

"It's been thought that all the neurons outside the [central] nervous system have easy access to circulation," Kuruvilla explained. "But this has been under-studied. So we asked, 'do these neurons have access to circulation?'"

To test this question, Kuruvilla's team injected a small fluorescent dextran tracer into mice and analyzed tissues after the tracer was allowed to circulate through the bloodstream. They reasoned that if the SGCs of the sympathetic nervous system were permeable, the tracer would leak through the SGCs and the tracer would be present inside the nerve cell bodies. However, they were surprised to see that the tracer was not present inside the nerve cell bodies of sympathetic ganglia.

"Basically, the tracer comes right smack against the boundary of the neuron and satellite glial cells, but they don't get into the neurons," Kuruvilla said. "So this really suggested… even if the tracer leaks out of the blood vessels, the satellite glial cells are acting as a physical barrier."

However, when they conducted the same tracer experiment in sensory ganglia, they saw that the dextran tracer leaked into sensory nerves. Along with the RNA sequencing data, these results further suggested that sympathetic SGCs somehow differ in function compared to those of the sensory nervous system, acting as a barrier similar to the central nervous system's blood-brain barrier. The lab has tested the permeability of SGCs to different molecules as well with similar results.

In addition to her work in the lab, Kuruvilla also holds an appointment as Vice Dean of Natural Sciences. This role adds many administrative duties in addition to research, which require precise management of her schedule.

"Mondays, Tuesdays and half-day Wednesday I'm in the Dean's office. Thursdays and Fridays, I try to protect for my lab. I meet with my students and postdocs one-on-one every two weeks… I really see myself as a bridge between faculty and the Dean's office."

What Kuruvilla appreciates the most about the University's research is its facilitation of collaboration.

"I think that the common interest in research at Hopkins breaks down all the barriers to collaboration, because people are truly curious and excited. So I think they just care about hearing a great idea, and then they work together to make things happen."