Virginia's Curse
By Samantha English '19
Don’t—no matter what anyone tells you—go to St. Ives in a snowstorm.
Read MoreWhen Chickens Come Home to Roost
By Olivia Funderburg '18
Content warning: racist hate speech
Nantucket is a tiny island off the southeastern coast of Massachusetts. Only one hundred square miles, the island is home to about ten thousand people year-round, and thousands more who flock there in the summer. It’s a place where everyone knows everyone, a place you don’t want to leave, a place you move back to when it’s time to raise your kids. A safe haven. But on the morning of March 11th, 2018, it was no longer such a friendly place.
Read MoreA Sim(ulated) Escape
By Emy Urban '18
Content warning: suicide
It was exhilarating to have complete control over Sebastian, whose life was always perfectly in order, his “mood meter” always full. At the times when I was most stressed, I would return to my little world of The Sims, half-jokingly telling my friends, “If I can’t have my life together, at least Sebastian can."
Read MoreKeeping the Faith
By Anonymous
Content warning: mention of rape and genocide
When people ask me about my faith, they often expect a word. I have a lot of words.
Read MoreThe Limbo Rock: Bending the Definition of Success
By Sarah Wong '20
I started my first year at Wellesley as an eager Wendy (yeah, I was totally a Wendy), unable to conceptualize the immense volume of academic knowledge I expected to learn. Over the past thirty-six months, I have learned more than I could have ever imagined, although it hasn’t been what I initially set out to discover.
Read MoreAchieving Inclusivity
By Anjali Benjamin-Webb '18
I recently gave a speech at Wellesley’s Town Hall on “Inclusive Excellence.” My demands seemed to resonate with many, but were likely only heard by those of us who need institutional change the most.
Read MoreOur Bodies Are Political
By Anonymous
Content warning: ableism, fatphobia
I’m twenty-one years old, a senior in grade level only, and I need to get a cane.
Read More"Privilege" List
by Anonymous
Content warning: Islamophobia, racism
This semester, my WGST professor asked us to create a list of our privileges. Instead, I decided to make a list of the privileges I was never afforded as a Muslim-American. The following is my “privilege” list.
Read MoreA Hero I Can Believe In
By Anonymous
Content warning: description of depressive episode
Spoiler alert: you should probably watch Black Panther before reading this.
I wasn’t prepared for Black Panther. It gave me something new to believe in.
This is not an origin story, and it’s not a typical superhero story. The Black Panther isn’t tasked with saving the world. The film is full of difficult questions and is unapologetically black. Ryan Coogler shows off blackness in all its complexity—as a diaspora.
Read MoreAre You There God? It's Me, Jake Peralta
By Abby Schneider '21
For y'all unaware of the greatest television show of all time, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a sitcom about the shenanigans that the police detectives get up to in a fictionalized version of Brooklyn's 99th precinct. The show first aired in 2013 and has been wildly successful amongst twenty-somethings and college students ever since. Created by Michael Schur (The Office, Parks and Recreation, The Good Place) and Dan Goor (Parks and Recreation, The Daily Show, Conan), the show seamlessly incorporates pop culture, millennial humor, and even addresses current, culturally relevant issues without morphing into a drama.
Read MoreLa Vie en Rose: My Year With a Conservative Catholic Family in France
By Anonymous
Content warnings: homophobia, racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny
When I decided in my first year at Wellesley that I wanted to spend my junior year in France, I hadn’t realized how being a lesbian might affect that experience. As I prepared to leave during sophomore spring, I decided I would not come out to my host family, but remain quietly closeted. In any case, I assumed LGBTQ+ issues would rarely come up and, if they did, that my imagined host family would be tolerant at best or indifferent at worst.
Read MoreI'm Sorry I'm Not Perfect
By Olivia Funderburg '18
Overall, I was left with a burning question: what if Lady Bird had really pushed boundaries? What if the film took its mother-daughter story and complicated it?
Read MoreThe Day After the Protest
By Anonymous
Content warning: discussion of transphobic rhetoric, mention of restricted eating
Yesterday, a Freedom Project speaker’s presence was an attack on trans students. Last year, it was an attack on assault survivors. What if something changed?
Read MoreMore Than Just Stress Culture
By Deb Rowcroft '19
If grades didn’t matter, why would we need a grading policy? Wellesley’s grading policy—or as it’s popularly known, the grade deflation policy—was supposed to attract students to STEM majors and make it so those who “really earned” an A got the recognition they deserved. I mean, really, how will we know how amazing and hardworking a student is if they’re stuck among others with the same grades?
Read MoreShipwrecked
By Samantha English
Content warning: mention of anxiety, depression, and emotional abuse
I fell in love with the Brontë sisters when I was sixteen. I read Wuthering Heights in a slow-churning tempest of terror and intrigue, Cathy’s ghost lingering over my shoulder as I drew complex family trees of the Earnshaw and Linton families at my kitchen table. I carried my black-penned copy of Emily’s singular work to you, Wellesley, where it sat watching me, witchlike, waiting to be joined by its sister novels. It didn’t take long. By my second semester, I was in the Nineteenth Century Novel class, combing obsessively through Jane Eyre. I wasn’t just hooked. I was haunted.
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