Mythbusting College Friendships

Friendship, for most of my life, has been a word packed with conflicting emotions and unwelcome baggage. In second grade, as a quiet, slightly chubby and bookish kid, I didn’t have many friends. But things got much worse when I moved to the city and began elementary school all over again. Making friends admittedly takes time, but months passed and I hadn’t a single friend. I was designated the “uncool” kid of my new second grade class. To get caught talking to me was to also receive that label,

Connecting Over Loneliness

Both within the “Amherst bubble” and beyond, loneliness has become a taboo word. No one wants to talk about it, let alone admit that they themselves are — gasp! — lonely. But silence only breeds ignorance, and ignorance gives rise to misinformation, fear and exaggeration. Claims that we’re now suffering from “unprecedented alienation” and that as time passes, we have “less and less society” — from a viral 2012 story in The Atlantic that spawned both outraged criticism and enthusiastic consensus

Ebola: Separating Fact from Fiction

Let me tell you a story about a disease straight out of Stephen King’s darkest novels. Once you’re infected, there’s a high chance you’re doomed. But you won’t know it for a while. Instead, for eight to 10 days you’ll seem normal, talking to your friends, doing your homework, eating, sleeping and procrastinating. The usual. Even as the signs begin to show, you won’t know what it is. The dull thump of a headache and the mild warmth of a fever will tell you you’ve got the common cold. “I’m not fee

Inside Camp Amherst: The Best and Worst of Orientation 2014 Part I

Confession: I have not been an Amherst student for a very long time. Four weeks, to be exact — I arrived on campus on the morning of August 24, heart filled to the brim with nervous expectation, a grin plastered on my face so I wouldn’t scare away any potential friends. Although I haven’t even had my first slice of Antonio’s yet, let alone experienced my first midterm, I do believe I’m well qualified to write about my experiences with orientation 2014 as part of the class of 2018. I was thrown

“Singing College” Lives Up to Its Name

Last Sunday, the six a cappella groups of Amherst College combined their collective energies and talents to put on the first showcase of the year. The first-year a cappella showcase in Johnson Chapel was intended to give the entering class of 2018 a taste of a cappella at Amherst and what each group had to offer. From hip hop to R&B and jazz to contemporary, the variety of the performances presented both familiar sounds and bold departures from the norm. Each group (Route 9, DQ, the Bluestocking