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Hudson '14: Struggle and growth

Struggle: The word evokes famous phrases, including “no pain, no gain,” and “there are no shortcuts to anyplace worth going.” Accompanying these sayings are stories of individuals who pushed through failure to achieve success. These stories include those of Michael Jordan, who was cut from ...


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Hartheimer '14: In rationis speramus

In an oversized bold font, at the top of Brown’s Spiritual and Religious Life website, it is affirmed, “A nonsectarian institution, Brown embraces all spiritual traditions and celebrates the diversity of religious identity on campus.” Considering this forthright affirmation of religious neutrality, ...


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Fuerbacher ’14: Keeping up with the Congress

Imagine you are earning a handsome salary, attending soirees in the most exciting cities and gracing television screens and newspapers regularly. The best part is that you do not need to apply an established skill set or engage in rigorous thought, as your assistants do most of the preparation and analysis ...


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Powers '15: Common-sense gun control

In the aftermath of a multiple-victim shooting, there often sounds a call to take up arms. Well, perhaps it’s more of a call to take away arms. Whenever the media sensationalizes these tragedies, the phrase “common-sense gun control” is tossed around to marginalize dissenters as no more than heartless ...


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Mills '15: In defense of athletics — and athletes

In my time at Brown, I have sometimes noticed a culture in which athletes are perceived in an unflattering light. In The Herald I’ve read stories about “the jock stereotype” (“Athletes struggle against ‘dumb jock’ stereotype,” April 24, 2012) and claims that athletics are overfunded or ...


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Taking Sides: Should students take unpaid internships?

Dreschler '15: Yes Every year around this time, students descend into applications for that three-syllable word that makes most of us shutter with dread: internships. For many, that means brushing the dust off resumes, updating cover letters with over-exaggerated examples of leadership and calling ...


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Katz '14: The need for real conversation on gun control

On January 7, Austin-based talk radio host Alex Jones excitedly claimed, “1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms,” during his appearance on Piers Morgan Tonight. While this comment was certainly entertaining — I highly recommend watching the entire clip on YouTube — what struck ...


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Eppler '13: In defense of grade inflation

Everyone seems to understand grade inflation to be real and to be a problem. Websites are devoted to tracking the average grade point averages at colleges and universities and shaming the universities that the sites’ owners consider to be the worst offenders. Last year, the Brown Conversation devoted ...


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Moffat '13: Fight for your right to part ... icipate

There is an insidious form of institutionalized discrimination written into our Constitution, and it affects virtually every student at the University. Young people under the age of 35 — nearly half of the citizens in the United States — do not enjoy the full benefits of enfranchisement: We are ...


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Corvese '15: A call for ethical media

The tragedy of the Sandy Hook massacre not only opened American eyes to policy and social issues affecting our nation, but it also illuminated some of the shoddy inner workings of the mechanism that shared this information with us in the first place: the media. Through news websites, Twitter, Facebook ...


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Asher '15: The gun mandate

When innocent people are killed in a burst of gun violence, gun control rhetoric can never be far behind. It is only natural then, that the latest mass shooting in America’s sordid history — the Sandy Hook massacre — has prompted some of the most heated debate over gun legislation in recent memory. ...


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Shaw ’13: Tearing ACLs and breaking heart after heart

A lot can change in the matter of a month. Here I was, preparing to invite the New York Knicks to the big boy club after rattling off multiple impressive victories over playoff-caliber teams, when their 20-point beat down of the reigning champ Miami Heat (that’s an incredibly ugly four words) signaled ...


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Enriquez '16: Success and life's 80 percent

As an alum of Gap Year University and a current humble first-year at Brown, I have experienced two wildly different years since I graduated from high school. Last year was full of real world experiences like job applications, fifty-hour workweeks, Craigslist roommate searches, grocery runs and rental ...


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Gianotti '13: When tragedy strikes

In ancient times, a natural disaster was often thought of as a collective punishment from the gods. Whether that punishment was just was irrelevant. It was served. Mankind today is an Olympian force of 6.9 billion strong and growing. Climate scientists tell us we are the cause of massive changes in ...


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Romero '14: The boundaries of comedy

Last summer, famous comedian Daniel Tosh performed at a Los Angeles nightclub and reportedly began his stand-up set with a joke about rape. Tosh said, “Rape jokes are always funny. … How can a rape joke not be funny?” A female audience member yelled back, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!” ...


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McCoy ’14: Confronting gun culture in the NFL and NBA

It is no secret that in the NFL and the NBA, a gun culture exists among the same players whose jaw-dropping athletic exploits bring family and friends together on a nightly basis. There is no official data on the exact number of professional athletes who own guns, nor on how many guns each athlete ...


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Husted ’13: Rethinking undergraduate economics

When I tell people I concentrate in applied math-economics, I get a handful of responses depending on the inquirer. “Oh wow, so you’ll definitely have a job,” is one. “Oh jeez, that sounds tough,” is another. Aside from making me uncomfortable, these comments dismay me. They are emblematic ...


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Carty ’15: Brown and its hidden conservatism

Though we may be both a bastion and a stalwart of Progressive America, Brown and Brown students will always have their conservative moments, elements and attributes. That should be obvious, but what parts of us do reflect conservatism? That is far from obvious because two of our most Brunonian attributes, ...


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Ingber '15: Constructive Irreverence

Seeing the inauguration of a new university president is thrilling. We are lucky our time at Brown overlaps with the end of one president’s tenure and the beginning of another’s. But it is not just the inauguration ceremony that intrigues me. Watching a new leader come into the Brown community and ...


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Katz '14: Why we need pluses and minuses

The average college student currently studies for a scant 14 hours per week — significantly fewer than in 1961, when the average was 24 hours, according to research conducted by University of California Santa Barbara professor Philip Babcock and University of California Riverside professor Mindy Marks, ...


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