Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896
November 3, 2025
November 3, 2025 | Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896

Voices

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.



COURTESY OF KAITLIN TAN
Tan shares her dilemmas about writing and attempts to make peace with their existence.

Why I don’t write about writing

More often than not, I’m thinking about writing fiction. And, despite this column’s partial intention of being a way to document whatever’s been persistently floating around my mind, I realize that I’ve never written about writing. How odd.


COURTESY OF HAILEY FINKELSTEIN
Finkelstein highlights the toxic struggle culture at Hopkins and points out that depriving yourself of your basic needs to succeed shouldn’t be normalized.

I hate struggle culture

There is nothing inherently dark or toxic about the girl who has signed up for too many student orgs, the boy who wins a new prestigious award every week, the person who consistently sets the curve in your most difficult class. What is dark and toxic  — and scarier than any horror movie you may watch this month — is how we talk about these hectic schedules in the language of prideful struggle.


COURTESY OF KAYLEE NGUYEN
Nguyen tells the story of how she found the balance between imagery and purpose in her writing.

Making peace with improving my writing

When I first began writing, I had an unfathomable obsession with imagery. For hours, I would park myself at my favorite table at Barnes and Noble with my latte in hand and write pages upon pages of descriptions. Taking in the senses around me, I’d let my mind wander to places that I could only dream of.


COURTESY OF RILEY STRAIT
Strait composes an ode for his second-hand car and commemorates their history together.

Ode to a 2001 Buick LeSabre Limited

Used 2001 Buick LeSabre Limited 4dr Sedan For Sale $5,000 cars.com. I guess you would call that our meet cute. My family tried to keep us apart: “A smoker’s car, really? You can’t get the smell of smoke out, you know.” I never had a keen sense of smell. 


COURTESY OF ANNA NIKISHINA
Nikishina explores the privilege of worrying about physical insecurities and recognizes that women of previous generations had more serious troubles.

We think too much about ourselves

I often try to imagine what my grandma’s teenage years were like. I myself will turn twenty soon, and in my final year of being a teenager, I have been given the grace to do what she never could when she was my age: worry about something as frivolous and fleeting as my appearance. 


COURTESY OF LINDA HUANG
Huang writes about how her perspective changed on sharing her emotions with others after reading an emotional wellbeing book.

Permission to feel

I’d mastered it: pretending that I was fine. Because the general expectation from us humans is quite straightforward: We cannot display sadness. We shall not reveal our vulnerabilities and weaknesses. No, we must present ourselves to others as optimistic, happy and motivated: always driven, always okay.


COURTESY OF RILEY STRAIT
Strait describes the experience of leaving Kansas and reflects on his changing feelings towards his home state.

We're not in Kansas anymore

I did not learn to love the land that raised me until I had already left. In every introduction during my first week of college, that land haunted me. Like a scar, it was irrefutable proof of where I had been, and it clung to every artifact of my life: my area code, my driver’s license and (most regrettably) my introduction.


COURTESY OF GABRIEL LESSER
Lesser celebrates his return to Hopkins as a graduate student while discussing the unexpectedness of life.

Baltimore, I’m not done yet!

While I hadn’t planned to do so during my undergrad, I’m now beyond thrilled to be pursuing a Master’s at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and I’m loving my current program and classes. It’s a testament to expect the unexpected and to make room for new and exciting opportunities, even if they aren’t what I had initially planned.


COURTESY OF YANA MULANI
Mulani reflects on her journey making friends, from kindergarten to Hopkins, and what she’s learned.

Finding my place amongst strangers

I desperately wanted friends, both back in kindergarten and as a freshman at college. I’ve always been the quiet kid — the kid who would rather get lost in books than go outside. At college, I was determined to reinvent myself, to be someone everyone wanted to hang out with, to be “fun.”


COURTESY OF SUDHA YADAV
Yadav expresses her gratitude to the friends she met during her Hopkins journey as a graduate student.

To my Hopkins friends

As I was eating my lunch near the lily pond in the Decker Garden while writing my research paper and watching the new students explore the campus, it suddenly hit me that now I am closer to finishing graduate school than the day I started it. When I first came to Hopkins in 2021, the thought of surviving and thriving in graduate school felt both exciting and terrifying.


COURTESY OF KAIYUAN DU
Du tells the story of how her passion for rap music transformed her insecurity about her stutter. 

Let my voice out (and drop the beat, please)

There was something about the structure of rap (its rhythm and cadence) that allowed me to speak fluidly, even rapidly. It felt like I had found a loophole in my speech disorder. From then on, I dove into the world of rap. For me, it wasn’t just a hobby but a safe space where I could express myself freely without letting self-consciousness trip up my speech.


COURTESY OF SARA KAUFMAN
Kaufman describes the experience of studying at a college in a city she never visited before and how she has grown to love Baltimore.

Maryland and Florida: Is the grass always greener on the other side?

I go to school in Maryland and come from Florida, but on a recent flight, I sat next to someone who is in the opposite situation: Her family lives near Baltimore, and she just graduated from a college around 10 minutes from my childhood home. As soon as I realized we drove to the airport from the same neighborhood, I became curious about why she chose to live there. 


COURTESY OF LANA SWINDLE
Swindle reflects on her first summer after college and shares her realizations on the beauty of nature. 

My summer: Translucent yellow-green

Sunlight on leaves always reminds me of summer, and even though summer now fades, making room for fall, I still cling to its translucent, yellow-green warmth. So maybe this is my love letter to summer. Maybe this is my way of saying goodbye — and not just to the sunlight on trees or the lovely 80-degree weather, though I will certainly miss them both.


COURTESY OF KAITLIN TAN
Tan ponders about time, discussing what factors might be changing how we perceive it.

On time

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about time. More specifically, how the same volume of time can be compressed or expanded so that a morning can feel like twenty minutes or five seconds or a week, even when the clock is ticking by at the same pace. I’ve been thinking about whether we can control it — not time itself, but our perception of it.


COURTESY OF BUSE KOLDAS
Koldas writes a letter to her least favorite class, Physics, and describes her journey with the subject. 

A hate letter to physics

I would have started with “Dear Physics,” but let’s not lie to ourselves here. You are not my dear, Physics. What would be a good antonym for “dear”? Unbeloved? I’ll use that.


YAIR ARONSHTAM / CC BY-SA 2.0
Ferrer writes about the dilemma that comes with leaving home to go to college and how it reminds her of a Biblical story.

Pillar of salt

My last goodbyes flow out of me like a disappointed sea, breaking and offshoring between the rows of my teeth, shaking my lips. As I see my parents’ faces, I am reminded once again of what must be done. Packing my life into three suitcases, I head off to college once again, with a quiet hope that this semester will be far better than the last. 


COURTESY OF AASHI MENDPARA
Mendpara goes back to her last week at high school as an almost college graduate and tells her journey of accepting life’s losses.

Mastering the art of losing

I remember sitting in my English teacher’s room during the last week of senior year, on the verge of tears. I was having an absolutely horrible day; I was exhausted, my limbs hurt a little more than normal and I could feel a stress headache from the subtly creeping impending doom. 


COURTESY OF HAILEY FINKELSTEIN
Finkelstein takes inspiration from a popular TikTok trend about aging and writes about the social pressure women face while growing old.

Aging incomprehensibly

Someday, I will wear my age like a badge of honor. I will have freckles because I am lucky to have time to sit in the sun. I will have emotions so pure and deep and all-consuming that you could trace them in smile lines and crow's feet.


fishermansdaughter / CC BY 2.0
Talwar comments on the instant gratification habits at Hopkins and contrasts it to how things used to be in the ancient times.

Choosing delayed gratification

As I enter my final year of university, I find myself in a never-asleep-but-always-tired world, where we have the power to summon the world's knowledge anytime at the tap of a finger. Instantly satiating our curious mind with an answer without letting it wander and dwell on the problem has its own pitfalls. 


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