The opinions presented below are solely the views of the author and do not represent the views of The News-Letter. If you are a member of the Hopkins community looking to submit a piece or a letter to the editor, please email opinions@jhunewsletter.com.
If you spent your break checking Canvas from the beaches of Cancún or frantically writing papers from airport terminals, you are not the only one. Contrary to what the name might suggest, spring break doesn’t always feel like a break. Our academic responsibilities seldom pause for our vacations with friends or trips back home.
Hopkins is not insulated from the trend of rising college tuition and student debt. In the past decade, the cost of attendance at Hopkins, including tuition and living costs, has increased 10% more than the average increase at other U.S. colleges. Although the University states that it is committed to making every attempt possible to prevent students from taking on loans, many still graduate with substantial debt. The average debt among Hopkins undergraduates who have federal loans is $12,750. For the 6% of graduating seniors who borrow from private lenders, the average loan is an astounding $52,734.
The notion that the humanities are inherently less valuable than STEM has pushed students away from studying societally important subjects. While a sizable number of students continue to study the humanities, the number of humanities degrees awarded drops every year, dropping nearly 25% from 2012 to 2020. This decline of the humanities could deeply hurt academia and society as a whole.
Another day, another TikTok trend. Yesterday it was the “clean girl” aesthetic, and today it’s “mob wife.” What do these things have in common? They’re both ploys to get impressionable young girls to buy into a new trend. This makes these girls a cog in the capitalist machine — it makes rich influencers richer, rather than giving girls the space to carve out their own lifestyle and sense of fashion.
If you haven’t noticed yet from the many posters around campus or the flurry of social media activity, it is officially time to elect our student government representatives for the next year. The Student Government Association (SGA) elections are set for March 11 and 12, and positions range from class senators to the Executive Board. Yet, we’re disappointed to see a relative lack of interest in the Executive Board positions.
There are reasons why we’ve all read the classics in high school that seem to get annually recycled in English curriculums nationwide. Timeless themes of human compassion and conflict, dynamic character development and carefully crafted motifs remain a source of inspiration and recurring analysis for readers. Yet, these key components vital to what we call truly “classic” literature are dwindling in the modern publishing industry, where rising consumerism and mass production are leading to the imminent decline of the creation of future classics.
When Colorado and Maine made the decision to remove former President Donald Trump from their ballots back in December 2023, and based their decision on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, I was surprised to see concrete action taken on disqualifying him from the elections. I thought responses to Trump’s presidential candidacy wouldn’t go further than complaining and criticizing his past actions.
If you have TikTok or any short-form social media, have walked into a bookstore recently or have simply spoken to someone who likes to read, you’ve probably heard of BookTok.
It is unacceptable for Hopkins to pay their graduate students less than the cost of living under any circumstances, but especially egregious when considered alongside the vast surplus that Hopkins has accumulated.
If you’ve ever traveled from Homewood Campus to Fells Point, you’ll know how hard it can be to get to certain parts of Baltimore without shelling out money for an Uber. The Blue Jay Shuttle only offers rides within a limited radius, making it difficult to get to neighborhoods in East, West and South Baltimore. But, there’s an alternative to calling a shuttle or an Uber — Baltimore has a public transportation system. Why don’t we use it more often?
The SAT is one of the most contentious aspects of college admissions. It has drawn scrutiny from many on the left for discriminating by race and socioeconomic status, propelling already privileged students to advantages in admission to top colleges in the U.S. Many elite universities have made their pandemic-era test-optional policy permanent, like Columbia University, or gone test-blind entirely, like the University of California system.
Those of us who have been following changes in governance here at Hopkins have watched as President Daniels has, over his long presidency, accumulated power at the expense of other University constituencies. Even at an institution in which power has become centralized as it has at Hopkins, however, the idea that an epistolary exchange between a dean and university president could unilaterally dissolve an elected faculty body seems quite extraordinary.
A city gets its personality from its people — likewise, people are heavily influenced by where they call home. In the complexity of modern life, we often forget about this simple, symbiotic relationship — what we give to our city is what we get. In this light, making cities more walkable and pedestrian-friendly gives back to a city that has already given us so much.
In contrast to the careless mass production of content by AI, student journalists at The News-Letter devote much more time and effort to their work. Our staff spends hours attending events, conducting and transcribing interviews, and writing and polishing content, all while balancing school work. It is a slap in the face to have our work lazily swiped.
At a competitive school like Hopkins, students can often feel pressured into activities that improve their resumes and medical school applications at the expense of engaging in activities for leisure. Although you may claim that doing research, volunteering at a clinic or participating in a consulting club is a hobby, at the end of the day, you are probably doing it with the aim of advancing your career. We should find fulfillment outside of pursuits for academic or professional validation.
The discourse following the ouster of Harvard University President Claudine Gay has been decidedly muddled by a variety of conflicting perspectives across the political spectrum. But the truth of the matter is not complicated at all — Gay was the target of a politically motivated attack launched by right-wing activists who openly proclaimed their goal to suppress diversity in higher education.
There is a dark side to American Exceptionalism, though: The U.S. is one of the worst countries for new parents, as maternity laws and daycare available are painfully far behind the rest of the developed world. This needs to change.
As the Republican primary and caucus results are starting to come in, confirmation of former president Donald Trump’s long-expected candidacy for the 2024 Presidential Election is getting even more inevitable. So far, only the results from Iowa and New Hampshire are in; however, they strongly demonstrate that Trump’s only major rival, Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has a slim chance of prevailing in the primaries — unless she manages to attract Trump’s detractors successfully.
Swaminathan argues that students should re-evaluate the use of rhetoric labeling the Israel-Palestinian conflict as a genocide and focus on activism that will alleviate the conflict’s suffering.
Despite the ways in which AI proves itself useful, it also harbors the potential to be used for far more sinister purposes. Last week, deepfake pornography of Taylor Swift circulated online, sparking public discourse on the potential dangers posed by AI. A deepfake is defined as “an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said.”
