Hopkins is a diverse university where an incredible mix of cultures, academic interests and personalities coexist and thrive. Here is the section where you can publish your unique thoughts, ideas and perspectives on life at Hopkins and beyond.
5, 6, 7, 8... Step here... Spin... Wait, shoot, I missed a beat. It’s okay. As the choreo chairs like to tell us, the audience won’t know you messed up if you exude confidence in your movements.
I’m an indecisive person. Deciding where to eat for lunch is as difficult a choice for me to make as deciding my majors was. I go over the options relentlessly until I feel (mostly) confident I’m making the right choice. I find it nearly impossible to act spontaneously.
I’m a graduate student in Engineering for Professionals (EP) at the Whiting School of Engineering. A previous article described how a Hopkins math professor discriminated against me, horribly, as a disabled person. The summer after that class, I reached out to Student Disability Services (SDS) for help.
It’s fall again, but this year is a little different. To me, fall is the time to reflect, to daydream about summer beach days and the tide rising to fill its vacancy, to remember the sunny shirtless days I spent on the roof reading The Alchemist and Where the Crawdads Sing.
“We can buy that for you,” my mom told 4-year-old me, “but your dad will have to sweat a whole wok full of sweat for us. Do you still want it?”
“Wait, so how are they going to make the beam of light that stops the meteor that’s magnetically attracted to the moon pool?” my friend asks me, equal parts confused, concerned and amused.
If you asked 8-year-old me to share a fun fact about herself, she’d tell you that she has so many pets she basically lives on a farm. She would probably even count them off for you, only exaggerating a little bit for dramatic effect, of course.
Mrs. Rogers was my first and only cello instructor, and she was, and still is, the sweetest lady. Lessons started with eating strawberry bonbons — a tradition I carry to every audition, concert and recital — and ended with three octave scales
August 16: the day I finally returned to Hopkins after the pandemic unpredictably stole a year from many college students. As I sat in the rental car with my parents and drove down the oh-so-familiar N. Charles Street, memories from freshman year flooded my mind, and I couldn’t help but feel teary-eyed at the sentiments from the past.
As a prospective lawyer, I have an embarrassing confession to make: I finally saw Legally Blonde for the first time this week. Whenever the movie would come up in conversation, I would always nod, smile and chuckle, hoping no one could tell I was bluffing my way through.
I applied to be a First-Year Mentor (FYM) on a whim, not expecting to actually be hired. Mostly, I applied so I could tell myself (and my parents) that I had at least attempted to get an on-campus job.
My morning routine in Urayasu, Japan consisted of eating a bowl of leftover curry for breakfast, walking my host family’s poodle around the park and chopping vegetables with my host mom as we watched reruns of her favorite game show.
Sitting on campus in between classes the other day, I looked out and saw a toddler chasing after soap bubbles. His grandma was sitting in a chair a few feet away, blowing these bubbles out of a circular wand, and there he was, running after them.
When I was 10 years old, I was standing in the hallway at school talking with a friend. I was wearing shorts. Sometime during our conversation, my friend looked down at my legs, then back up at me, and said, “You haven’t started shaving your legs yet? Doesn’t your mom let you?” The answer to both questions was “no,” but I didn’t know what to say.
It’s a friends’ night, my mind is racing with all kinds of thoughts, my heartbeat is fast and I am trying to calm myself down after reading my current favorite book, A Century is Not Enough: My Roller-coaster Ride to Success. I am thinking about what completely transformed me from the most extroverted kid to a socially awkward girl who overthinks whenever meeting a new person.
My daily nightmare as a child stemmed from the classroom roster. I remember my first day of seventh grade; I sat in homeroom waiting for Mrs. Mitchell to say “Aashi.” I had made a bet with my friends earlier that day: She would be able to pronounce my name.
In September 2021, after two heavy rainstorms, Baltimore welcomed its fall season. Now, in the beginning of October, leaves have started turning yellow, winds are blowing harder and people are piling on a few more pieces of winter wear. These are just a few of the many observations I make as I stroll around campus to go to classes each day.
Content warning: The following article includes topics some readers may find triggering, including gender-based violence, sexual assault and death.
I first came across the term Myers-Briggs Type Indicator when I was still in middle school. I took the test for the first time and got ESTJ, also known as the executive type. I didn’t give it much thought and forgot about the result shortly after.
When I was 5 years old, I wished upon a shooting star. I was swimming in my backyard at night and saw a flash in the sky. Now that I’m older, I’m pretty sure it was just the blinking lights of a commercial airplane, but that possibility didn’t occur to me then. I had watched enough Disney Channel to be convinced my life was about to change.
