Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896
July 6, 2025 July 6, 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 AASHI MENDPARA Mendpara reflects on her relationship with storytelling.

The spunky, sticker-collecting storyteller

By AASHI MENDPARA | February 4, 2024

I remember being asked, "What are three words that describe you?" in the fifth grade, and I decided spunky, sticker-collector and storyteller was the only combination that fit (this stuck for about seven years). Stories became my way to observe and store the world I hope to remember through my senses. I just want to slice into my deepest, most cherished memories and stuff them with the details I seek to share as a writer and human being. 

COURTESY OF MOLLY GREEN Green reflects on how pasta alle vongole shows up in her life.

On Venezia and pasta alle vongole

By MOLLY GREEN | January 28, 2024

I’m sitting in a tiny restaurant on a side street in Venice. It is late for lunch, nearly 3:30 p.m., and the restaurant is empty. The chipped brick walls curve up into the cracked white ceiling and the creamy tablecloths have little flowers printed on them. I order pasta alle vongole, or pasta with clams. 

COURTESY OF SARA KAUFMAN Kaufman reflects on her journey with learning.

Learning to fail

By SARA KAUFMAN | January 28, 2024

A few months ago, I began drafting an Admissions blog post about the beginning of my freshman year. I wrote about leaving home and finding a new one with my roommates in AMR III. I wrote about joining clubs and trying new activities. I wrote about walks around campus and dinners at Nolan’s… and then I stopped writing. I figured I could ramble about the ordinary, or I could turn attention to the taboo — highlighting what so many of us hide in the name of “success” seemed far more valuable. 

A semi-graceful guide to your early twenties

By AASHI MENDPARA | December 7, 2023

It seems as if every time I write, all I can think about is aging. As 2024 begins, I am on the cusp of my twenty-first year. This milestone comes with its own set of hassles, yet twenty is a big year for most. For some, it’s the first time they are living away from home; for many, it’s a moment of self-discovery and finding their identity; and for most, it’s the start of accumulating existential dread for what’s to come (kidding, kinda).

COURTESY OF KAITLIN TAN Tan offers a glimpse into her grandfather's life.

For my grandfather: A memoriam for the living

By KAITLIN TAN | December 6, 2023

My grandfather has been asking me to write his biography for years. A tome, he said. Something hundreds of thousands of words long to capture his every struggle and triumph. I brushed it off as a joke, and though he would laugh along, there was always a somber undertone to his request. He wanted to be heard. He wanted to be remembered and seen and celebrated.

COURTESY OF BUSE KOLDAS  Koldas reflects on how seemingly insignificant decisions affected the trajectory of her life. 

I’m scared of the butterfly effect

By BUSE KOLDAS | December 5, 2023

This Thanksgiving was full of gratitude, coziness and nostalgia for me because I spent it revisiting a family I got to know back in 2019 and haven’t seen since: the Gatniks, the family that hosted me when I flew to the U.S. for the first time in my life back in ninth grade as part of an exchange trip.

COURTESY OF JULIA MENDES QUEIROZ Mendes Queiroz recounts how her life has changed since her dad’s passing.

Dealing with the loss of a parent while in college

By JULIA MENDES QUEIROZ | November 16, 2023

The first time I went to see him at the hospital, I was in denial, staring blankly at the monitor that showed the stats of all patients in the ICU. When a nurse asked me what was wrong, I told her, “This is not happening to my father. This is a bad dream.”

COURTESY OF BUSE KOLDAS Koldas reflects on how her Turkish background has shaped her identity. 

Is being Turkish my only personality trait?

By BUSE KOLDAS | November 15, 2023

Was it about my accent? Honestly, I didn’t even know I had one until I started at Hopkins. People would tell me they couldn’t understand what I said because of it, or that I had the “typical Turkish accent.” What even is that? And how does everybody know what it is except for me, the only Turkish person in the room?

COURTESY OF LANA SWINDLE Swindle reflects on going home to New Jersey after spending two months at Hopkins.

Still waiting

By LANA SWINDLE | November 14, 2023

I never understood it, you see — never knew how someone could walk into my room (in its heyday, no less, with all the homework and books and everything piled everywhere) and call it small. It was many things, but it was never small. Not to me.

COURTESY OF GABRIEL LESSER Lesser reflects on his outlook toward the future. 

Looking ahead optimistically, even when I can’t see clearly

By GABRIEL LESSER | November 13, 2023

I’m not 15 or 16 anymore. Today, I’m 21 years old, and I’m a senior in college. As such, I’m constantly thinking about the future, whether I intend to or not. I think about what’s to come after graduation, which quickly leads me down a spiral of endless thoughts and what-ifs.

COURTESY OF VICKY ZHU Zhu reflects on her relationship with the piano. 

Hearing myself and seeing the world through piano

By VICKY ZHU | November 11, 2023

Since the moment my fingers touched the 88 black and white keys for the first time, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with the piano. While the joy that the piano brings to me always outweighs the frustration, it is those challenging moments that have made me grow as a musician and person and enabled me to love the instrument more and more.

On holding space for younger selves

By KAITLIN TAN | November 2, 2023

The other day, I watched myself age by scrolling through my camera roll. Picture by picture, video by video, I saw change and growth in ways I hadn’t expected. It spurred a little reflection.

COURTESY OF MOLLY GREEN Green reflects on her semester abroad thus far. 

A Wednesday in Bologna

By MOLLY GREEN | October 31, 2023

I wake up to the gentle sound of rain outside. Movie posters and postcards from my recent travels litter the walls and a soft, gray light escapes through my curtains and into my room.  I’m making breakfast when I hear a familiar tap on my balcony door.

Climate anxiety

By ALIZA LI | October 29, 2023

I’m a very anxious person. I worry about future finances, the weather tomorrow, my talent as a writer, how much people will like me — and of course, the possibility that the world will end by the time I’m 28.

COURTESY OF ISABELLA MADRUGA Madruga reflects on the beginning of her semester abroad.

Put Japan on your study abroad list

By ISABELLA MADRUGA | October 19, 2023

Whenever I told people I was studying abroad, I felt like I was lying. I felt as if I hadn’t done anything to deserve such a rare once-in-a-lifetime experience — the kind most people don’t get.  Ever since I met with my academic advisor and realized I could study abroad and still graduate on time, I had been set on going somewhere. I wanted something completely different from everything I knew.

COURTESY OF MADELYN KYE Kye reflects on how making lists impacted her writing practice. 

The lists I made this summer

By MADELYN KYE | October 18, 2023

Going into this summer, I knew it wouldn’t be about writing, but I told myself it would be — as if saying it could make it true. Honestly, I had hardly written in the winter and spring of 2023. At first, it was because I was busy adjusting to my life in a foreign country. As winter faded into spring, it was because I was grieving the loss of my cousin to leukemia.

COURTESY OF AASHI MENDPARA Mendpara reflects on her relationship with her grandmother.

To my baa's hands

By AASHI MENDPARA | October 16, 2023

My grandma, my baa, is the strongest, most beautiful woman I know. She married young, didn’t finish school and immigrated from India with her six children. We jokingly called her a family man. She made time for her 14 grandchildren, spent her days calling each of us before and after school and would ask for updates on our well-being and our friends. She was, and continues to be, my dearest friend.

COURTESY OF JULIA MENDES QUEIROZ Mendes Queiroz reflects on how her morning routine has changed.

Adjusting to a different kind of morning

By JULIA MENDES QUEIROZ | October 12, 2023

We’ve all done it: woken up some 15 (or 30) minutes too late, scrunched our eyes in exasperation at the steps of our morning routines that must now be skipped in order to make it to class on time. In high school, we were all guilty of it — exhaustion compounded after a particularly heavy week of assignments — and those extra minutes in bed felt like a worthy trade-off for having to eat your breakfast while walking out the door. But all of this changes when you get to college.

COURTESY OF DANIEL QUEZADA Quezada writes about the peace he finds in photographing airplanes.

Looking skyward: Finding peace at the airport

By DANIEL QUEZADA | October 10, 2023

As I am sitting on a park bench facing the runway at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, the ground begins to shake. As the plane thunders down the runway, the roar of the fan blades overpowers the sound of my camera’s shutter, as I gather as many photos as I can in the few short seconds it spends on the runway.

COURTESY OF GABRIEL LESSER Lesser writes about how his understanding of Yom Kippur shifted after spending the holiday abroad last year.  

Finding new meaning in the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur

By GABRIEL LESSER | October 6, 2023

Growing up, I used to feel anxious before the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. The thought of spending hours at my synagogue on an empty stomach made me feel uneasy, and I always found the holiday to be a lengthy challenge that I just had to push through without question.

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