Have you ever wondered what it feels like to see the snow for the first time in your life? It is beyond doubt that the Minnesota winter generates mixed feelings amongst many students. For some students who, like me, come from warm places, Minnesota winter is indeed part of our BREWing. I have come to…
Category: Columns
The vast wasteland
We all have our vices. For some it’s video games, others it’s a controlled substance, and if you’re like me, you can’t get through the morning without a can of Diet Coke. Nobody’s perfect. While I can safely say that I have several bad habits, probably one of my biggest is watching TV. I don’t…
National New Year’s resolution
After a hectic semester, winter break was truly glorious. It was nice to catch up with family and friends from back home and, most importantly, catch up on sleep. Compared to the crazy schedule of finals, I was almost in shock the first few days being unable to grasp the concept of free time, something…
A Cobber sunrise
Yes. I have talked about working my desk, and I always refer to it as “my” desk. Know why? I am the 3:00 a.m. – 6:00 a.m. desk creature. I work four “breaking dawn” shifts a week between Park Region and Livedalen hall. Oh, calm down, I can practically hear the maternal you gasping. I’m…
Melting pot or not?
People often say the United States is a melting pot, a place where immigrants arrive and accept a new, “exceptional” identity, that of an American. In this melting pot, people are proclaimed to be equal and their different previous national identities become one. More recently, however, individuals are questioning this assertion, and as Andrew Hacker…
Reevaluating teacher evaluations
About this time every semester, faculty members leave their classrooms for a few minutes to allow students to answer questions about their performance and experiences with the course. While the process of evaluating faculty is widespread and encouraged by academic divisions and departments, the instructions and background information about the process provided to students is…
A merry Cobber Christmas
So Cobbers, it is Christmas break. Many of you are like “what do I get my parents… what do I get anyone!?” Do you just go to the bookstore and get some heartfelt Cobber gear and charge it to tuition? Do you lie and say you forgot your gift in your room and then buy…
Christmas time is (almost) here
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always looked forward to the winter holiday season. It seems like each year as the calendar rolls around to December, the atmosphere just becomes electric. People’s moods change, the number of random acts of kindness exponentially increases and there’s an overall sense of optimism that pervades daily…
In support of optimism
In a week and a half, I’ll be a college graduate. Since this will be my last article for the Concordian, I thought I’d break from my usual format to voice a concern that I’ve been carrying with me for a while now: as a culture, it seems like we’ve given up on optimism. Bear…
To the cloud
Ask any of the dancing hipsters in Apple’s newest ads, and they’ll tell you: tablets are cool. Ask them why and they might explain that tablets are super portable (though anything larger than the 7” Kindle Fire really isn’t), that access to hundreds of thousands of apps means you’ll never run out of ways to…