My parents emigrated from Lahore to Brooklyn, NY in the early 1990s. I’ve often imagined their arrival in the U.S.: they settled in a country far from home, where people who looked nothing like them spoke an unfamiliar language, with little in the way of a support system. When I imagine their difficulties, I’m impressed by their resilience. Today, Muslim immigrants like my parents are faced with unprecedented circumstances of danger, difficulty and hostility. More importantly, migrants are often members of the larger global working class, which involves them in even larger class struggles.
American culture demands that college students experience immense personal growth during their education. Under such external pressure, how can we make our time and growth at Amherst meaningful? It can feel as if the worth of our education is often framed as dependent on how much we change or how much we learn. While the pursuit of growth is an admirable ambition, we should be cautious of obsessing over volume and should remain critical of what our growth actually looks like. What are the indicators of development? Who chooses those indicators?
Earlier this year, I wrote an article for The Amherst Student titled “Try Tray-less.” In it, I urged those who were against the tray-less movement to simply give it a try and see if it really affected their dining experience in Valentine. I was driven to write this article because I was initially skeptical of going tray-less, but once I stopped using one, I realized that it didn’t greatly affect my Val experience. In fact, since going tray-less, I’ve found that I am far less likely to end up with a significant amount of food waste on my plate.
This letter was written by the Department of History in response to an opinion article by students on the college's disability policies published in The Amherst Student on March 8.
To The Roosevelt Institute at Amherst,
This letter was written by the Department of Black Studies in response to an opinion article by students on the college's disability policies published in The Amherst Student on March 8.
Dear Students,
This letter was written by the Committee of Six in response to an opinion article by students on the college's disability policies published in The Amherst Student on March 8.
Dear Amherst Students,
Before I arrived at Amherst last fall, I had never thought much about improvised comedy. I knew the basics of what it was, and I vaguely knew that many well-known comedians had an improv background. I’d never seen it performed, nor had I really sought it out. However, after I auditioned for Mr. Gad’s House of Improv on a whim and was somehow accepted, improvised comedy has become a huge part of my life. At this point, I am obsessed with improv — and that description could even be putting it lightly.
