Yesterday, Amherst students went to the online polls to cast their vote for the AAS president and vice-president. Well, some of them at least, if yesterday’s run-off election was anything like the previous year’s run-off, in which 797 of the 1414 students eligible to vote actually cast a vote for AAS president. As a percentage that translates into a voter turnout of about 56 percent, which is fairly close to the voter turnout of 58 percent in the 2012 US presidential election. That is not to say, however, that they are comparable because they are not.
Amherst students like to be credited for their work. Many would be mortified if they neglected to put their name on an academic paper, and most would take offense if someone quoted their work without properly attributing it to them. It is ironic, then, that few display a similar possessiveness when writing online. Perhaps, the internet simply inspires a sort of altruism in students so they may feel compelled to share their wisdom without selflessly coveting recognition and acknowledgment.
In the past couple of days, students have received emails from the Office of Residential Life about room draw. Room Draw can be extremely stressful; after all, the placement of one’s room draw group on the room draw list might determine a significant portion of the quality of one’s social experience at the College for the entire next year. This is to a large extent unavoidable.
As deadlines approach for summer internships, The Student can commiserate with the stress and anxiety of prospective interns. Summer internships can be a serious ordeal and scoring a prestigious internship is often more highly valued than success during the academic semester. Internships present a crucial opportunity to not only advance one’s career goals but also to clarify and define what those goals should be. Nonetheless, many students do not carefully deliberate why and where they hope to find an internship, and it can be difficult to find good advice and guidance along the way.
There is always something a little magical about snow days. They are a serendipitous holiday — a fortuitous chance to enjoy the idyllic side of the winter season before the snow turns to grimy slush and ice — and for those of us who grew up in the northeast, evoke a certain nostalgia for grade school. Nonetheless, while many of us rejoiced at having our classes cancelled last week because of the snow, it is important to remember that not everyone got off so easy.
Many of us probably noticed the massive banners hanging from the front of Frost Library and Valentine Dining Hall last week. In prominent bold letters, they displayed the question, “When do you conform?” Ironically, the large size of the banners, their positions overlooking the campus’ main quads and their odd wording in the second person all gave them an eerily Orwellian feel, as if they seemed to be aimed at promoting the same sort of groupthink that the question was meant to address.
On Monday, Dean Larimore resigned as the College’s Dean of Students. The Student sincerely regrets his leaving. It was only a year ago, last February, that Dean Larimore was selected through an extensive search process to be the College’s new Dean of Students. Since then, he has established a genuine and meaningful relationship with the students, and many cannot help but feel that his resignation is both abrupt and perplexing.
