McKenzie Andrews – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Fri, 13 Jun 2014 07:11:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 McKenzie Andrews – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Speak Out https://stanforddaily.com/2014/06/13/speak-out/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/06/13/speak-out/#comments Fri, 13 Jun 2014 07:11:42 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1086444 Only 12 percent of rapes of college women are reported to law enforcement. As cited in the same Time article, a 2007 study by the National Institute of Justice found that over a third of victims did not report their assault to law enforcement, because they were unsure whether what “they had experienced was a crime and whether harm was intended.” It’s not just about the victim and the perpetrator, but the bystander too. If you see something, speak up.

The post Speak Out appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
A few weeks ago, a friend came into my room and said she needed to debrief. She’d gone to “Take Back the Night” and wanted to talk through her emotions after listening to the stories she’d heard.

Take Back the Night is a rally held across the nation to protest violence against women. There is a rally in White Plaza that moves to a silent candlelight march and vigil and concludes with a “Speakout” to bring the community together. As the Take Back the Night website notes, “At lease one out of every three women worldwide has been the victim of sexual or domestic violence. As many as one in six men are also believed to be victims of sexual or domestic violence in their lifetimes. Of these crimes, less than 50 percent are reported to the police.”

For many students at Stanford, the most visible way we see sexual assault is when we see SUalerts on our phones and in our email inboxes. “The suspect is described as a heavy set white or Hispanic male, approximately 5’6” tall, of unknown age, wearing dark pants and a dark grey or navy long-sleeved sweatshirt.”

The reality, however, is that most sexual assault doesn’t occur in back alleys by strangers wandering in sweatshirts, but in more familiar places. According to a recent Time article, a study of the males at the University of Massachusetts found that 6.4 percent of college men commit or attempt rape; however, among that relatively small group of perpetrators, more than half were repeat offenders, averaging close to six rapes each. Most guys aren’t getting girls drunk to sleep with them, but there’s a pattern occurring with those who do.

When I was a freshman in college, I went to a frat party in spring quarter. A guy I’d used to see had recently pledged, and I had just come back from bowling at a Screw Your Roommate event. He had invited me to go to with his friend to the event, so after our group returned to campus, everyone headed to his frat.

When I got to the party, I immediately started drinking. Within twenty minutes, I’d taken several standard drinks worth of shots, and my former something/new frat star began getting forward. I’m a friendly drunk, and before I could process, the guy I hadn’t seen in three months was convincing my drunken self to go back to his dorm. During the course of the party, three separate people had approached me and asked if I was okay. I laughed and said, I can’t consent, because I’m drunk. When we left together, I wanted to bike, but my frat friend discouraged that as we stumbled back to his room.

Fortunately that night, my friend passed out before anything I really regret happened. As I left around 2:30 a.m., I ran into an RA who gave me tea, listened to me try to process what had happened and biked me back to the side of campus that I came from. It wasn’t until later that weekend when I debriefed with a gay friend that he pointed out that I’d been sexually assaulted.

It’s an issue that occurs to 19 percent of undergraduate women before graduation. President Obama recently released a video with Vice President Biden, Daniel Craig, Seth Meyers and Steve Carell calling to end sexual assault and underlining that sexual assault isn’t just a women’s issue. As Biden states in the video, “This is about respect, responsibility.”

Only 12 percent of rapes of college women are reported to law enforcement. As cited in the same Time article, a 2007 study by the National Institute of Justice found that over a third of victims did not report their assault to law enforcement, because they were unsure whether what “they had experienced was a crime and whether harm was intended.” It’s not just about the victim and the perpetrator, but the bystander too. If you see something, speak up.

 

Addendum: Defining sexual assault

Sexual intercourse is considered non-consensual and, therefore, rape when the person is incapable of giving consent because s/he is incapacitated from alcohol and/or drugs, or if a mental disorder or developmental or physical disability renders the victim incapable of giving consent. Whether the accused is a stranger, acquaintance, spouse or friend is irrelevant to the legal definition of rape.

Beside rape, other acts of sexual assault include forced anal intercourse, forced oral copulation, penetration of the anal or vaginal area with a foreign object and forcibly touching an intimate part of another person. Men as well as women can be victims of these other forms of sexual assault.

 

Contact McKenzie Andrews at andrews7@stanford.edu.

The post Speak Out appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2014/06/13/speak-out/feed/ 1 1086444
Body beautiful https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/21/body-beautiful/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/21/body-beautiful/#comments Tue, 22 Apr 2014 06:34:16 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1084726 There can be a negative side to our extreme achievement when it comes to body image. Every shape, every size and every one is beautiful. Eating and exercise are some of my favorite activities, but they shouldn't be our shackles. If you’re a young Stanford student, it’s hard not to be conscious of how you look. At a school that strives for excellence, that pressure can sometime manifest itself in unhealthy ways. Stanford’s one of the best universities on earth, and it’s important we stay healthy healthily.

The post Body beautiful appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
Stanford doesn’t have fat people. At least, it seems that way. If you’re looking around Arrillaga, you soon realize that between the pre-made salad, tofu, and Israeli couscous options, we don’t reflect the general statistics on American obesity. California is a land of yoga, kale and avocados, all of which contribute to a general emphasis on maintaining a sometimes-extreme healthy lifestyle.

Stanford’s dining halls offer an incredibly rich selection of both healthy and non-healthy options. Friends have said they have a more varied dining experience in dining halls than at home, and I can’t deny that an omelet and smoothie at Wilbur brunch leaves me pleasantly stuffed with good food. You can switch from Stern burritos to burrito bowls or salads, and there are a plethora of healthy options at any of the many dining halls on campus.

Not only do we have amazing, good-for-you food, but also, our student-athletes set an example for the rest of us by maintaining incredible bodies and dedicated fitness routines. Armed with free books and the flood of athletic gear otherwise known as Nike Christmas, our athletes are pretty uniformly good-looking individuals. I’ve been lucky to room with two Division I athletes since coming to Stanford: caring, smart girls who also happen to be some of the best lacrosse and field hockey players I’ve met. Seeing your roommate’s rocking body on a daily basis is a motivator to get to the gym. Given that they may be practicing three to four hours, I can probably bust thirty minutes on the elliptical machine.

I was reflecting over the weekend at a conference with other universities on why I chose Stanford over other similarly elite Northeastern universities. To be honest, a huge factor was the weather and a sighting of the men’s soccer team fountain hopping shirtless at Admit Weekend.

A friend at Harvard recently sent me an article published in their student newspaper about how Stanford is a better place to be, and our newest class of 2018 is officially the most exclusive group ever: its admit rate was 5.07 percent. We top the charts as America’s dream school; however, there’s also a darker side that’s not advertised in admissions material.

Like any college, Stanford is not immune to body image issues, and I’d argue we’re perhaps worse, in that diseases such as anorexia are highly correlated with high achievement. A friend studying abroad described an experience of one girl who had their group enter and then leave four different restaurants in the search for a ham sandwich, so she could just pick off the meat. Other universities may spend a substantial part of the year below freezing, requiring everybody to wear sweatshirts and multiple layers. At Stanford, as a friend once said, “When you’re wearing yoga pants and a tank top, we know what you look like.”

According to the Massachusetts Eating Disorders Association, 91 percent of college women have attempted to control their weight through dieting. One survey by the National Eating Disorders Association found that nearly 20 percent of a surveyed group of male and female college students indicated that they had or previously had eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia or binge-eating. They also noted that because so few students seek treatment, it’s difficult to say how serious the problem is on campuses. They also noted that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder, and a suicide rate that is fifty times higher the general population.

There can be a negative side to our extreme achievement when it comes to body image. Every shape, every size and every one is beautiful. Eating and exercise are some of my favorite activities, but they shouldn’t be our shackles. If you’re a young Stanford student, it’s hard not to be conscious of how you look. At a school that strives for excellence, that pressure can sometime manifest itself in unhealthy ways.

I have a friend who used to be a great high school cross-country runner and now is rooming with an ex-Olympian track star. Your measure of talent in every area rises and readjusts, and it’s humbling. My friend’s roommate has encouraged him to develop Stanford’s Running Club, and as a leader he is able to provide competitive running options to non-varsity athletes. I have another politically minded friend whose rowing team roommate has encouraged him to go to the gym at midnight and take random jogs into Palo Alto. Stanford’s one of the best universities on earth, and it’s important we stay healthy healthily.

 

Contact McKenzie Andrews at andrews7@stanford.edu.

The post Body beautiful appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/21/body-beautiful/feed/ 1 1084726
Rush: A non-Greek perspective https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/08/rush-a-non-greek-perspective/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/08/rush-a-non-greek-perspective/#respond Tue, 08 Apr 2014 08:01:35 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1084199 As an ex-high school athlete, I figured it was worth checking out rush to possibly meet a good group of girls. All my closest high school friends had come from sports teams, and I liked the idea of a female community. I wanted to give rush a shot and see whether I could meet more people than the ones who just lived in my residence. I’m glad I rushed, and it was one of the worst experiences I’ve had at Stanford.

The post Rush: A non-Greek perspective appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
In freshman year, I was involved with nothing besides hanging out in my dorm. In high school I had jam-packed my schedule with every extracurricular I could find, and by the time I landed myself at Stanford, I was ready to chill out. I hadn’t had much free time in the years preceding my arrival at the Farm, so I made a very conscious effort to do nothing but “enjoy college,” my freshman year. That roughly translated to taking 13 units freshman fall, overcompensating by taking 20 in the winter, and by the time it got to spring, taking Spanish film studies classes that were unlikely to count towards my degree, but did involve watching a movie a week.

While I do admit that I dabbled in a variety of campus activities, from my shaky tenure as Cedro’s IM Sports Coordinator to attempting to make waking up for 8 a.m. triathlon practices a habit, I honestly didn’t get involved with anything freshman year. I made some great friends derping around in my freshman dorm, but I really didn’t do anything outside of it. Freshman me also had no idea what I was majoring in. Lost in a sea of young adult uncertainty, by spring quarter I had had a lot of fun and had done nothing of note thus far at Stanford.

Fast forward to spring rush: I decided to do it. I’m not a super girly person, but as an ex-high school athlete, I figured it was worth checking out rush to possibly meet a good group of girls. All my closest high school friends had come from sports teams, and I liked the idea of a female community. I wanted to give rush a shot and see whether I could meet more people than the ones who just lived in my residence.

Let me just say, I’m glad I rushed, and it was one of the worst experiences I’ve had at Stanford.

As a girl who grew up with four brothers, I’m not the best “girl-flirter” – in other words, someone who makes great small talk with women who don’t really know or care about you. There are seven sororities at Stanford, and on the first day, you are whisked from chapter to chapter where you will be judged based off of your appearance and the quality of your three-minute interactions with various sorority members. The first day takes around seven hours. As a PNM (potential new member), first impressions matter as chapters may see 400 girls on the first day and can only offer bids to 40. There is simply no equitable way to judge that many women, so it can come down to who knows whom, extremely good first-impressions, or simply how attractive a PNM is. I recently learned the rush synonym for being extremely attractive is “polished.” This trait can up your desirability in rush, because it’s important for good-looking sorority pictures.

Regardless of whether someone gets into their number one choice or decides to drop out of rush after the first day, there are a wide variety of emotions that come at the end of the process. Some girls get matched with a new group of people who will play a huge role in their collegiate social experience; others end rush without a group at all. Because we’re Stanford students and generally pretty awesome people, the inequity in the process leads to great matches for some friends and disappointment for others. This is true for boys’ and girls’ rush, though the boys get more free food and sometimes get to smash things with frats.

I’m so glad that I rushed, because my short meaningless conversations caused me to reflect on my time thus far at Stanford and spurred some introspection. Though I had done some awesome things in the past, I realized that I hadn’t done anything I was particularly proud of since coming to college.  Talking to sororities who chatted with a hundred girls who had been dorm derping like myself made me realize that I wasn’t that unique, and I wanted to find more interesting ways to spend the rest of my time at Stanford. This thought encouraged me to get involved with activities that have been excellent parts of my post-frosh life and introduced me to people who share interests similar to my own. As someone writing from a non-Greek perspective, I can honestly say that I’m extremely glad to have rushed and perfectly happy to be unaffiliated.

Contact McKenzie Andrews at andrews7 “at” stanford.edu.

 

The post Rush: A non-Greek perspective appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/08/rush-a-non-greek-perspective/feed/ 0 1084199
A Tribute to Scott McKeon https://stanforddaily.com/2014/03/10/a-tribute-to-scott-mckeon/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/03/10/a-tribute-to-scott-mckeon/#respond Tue, 11 Mar 2014 06:11:18 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1083272 Despite the fact that Stanford is one of the best universities in the nation, many of our introductory classes are huge and fairly impersonal. I’ve been frustrated by the heavy weight of exams in class grading. Back in the heyday that was high school, there were points for class participation, projects and turning in homework. […]

The post A Tribute to Scott McKeon appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
Despite the fact that Stanford is one of the best universities in the nation, many of our introductory classes are huge and fairly impersonal. I’ve been frustrated by the heavy weight of exams in class grading. Back in the heyday that was high school, there were points for class participation, projects and turning in homework. Here at college, Stanford’s big quantitative classes weigh more heavily content and test performance. Talking to one Economics professor, I got a bit of faculty insight on the lay of the Stanford land.

A bit of background: Scott McKeon is one of the best professors I’ve had at Stanford. He writes extensive and comprehensive lecture notes, stays after class to answer his students’ questions, replies to emails and generally is engaging and understandable when teaching econometrics.

When a friend posted an article about his time teaching at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business on my Facebook timeline with the subhead “All Hail Scott McKeon,” more than 20 people liked it. When Asian tourists pass Econ 102B, they take pictures of Scott McKeon. He remembers students’ names. In a world where students are sometimes taught by teachers who, to put it diplomatically, focus more on research than teaching, McKeon is available, funny and invested in his students’ learning.

I emailed Professor McKeon to ask how I could improve my performance on exams at Stanford. There was probably some frustration between the lines. I wrote it after disappointing myself on an exam, and generally feeling crushed by the academic excellence that is seemingly personified by everyone else at the Farm. Should I apply for extended time? I wondered. Should I transfer to somewhere easier? Professor McKeon responded with these words:

“This school is different. I believe most professors here write exams with the intention of forcing a fairly low average, so they can get a curve (although sometimes that’s the very thing that prevents a curve). Writing a test that averages above 90 percent causes huge grading problems; grades are then dictated by minuscule differences in student performance. Most professors overcompensate by giving brutal exams. There’s no way to say whether that philosophy is right or wrong but my point is that the issue here could be the testing philosophy as opposed to something with you personally. I assure you that Stanford’s culture can give you a very warped view of your place in the world.”

He noted in closing, “…my sense is that you are unfortunately just as normal as the rest of us.”

Stanford is hard. It takes resilience to be here amongst a lot of intelligent, ambitious people: We have people doing big things, and our successes take different forms. The bubble isn’t an easy place to practice failure when it seems to contrasts so sharply with the success we drown in.

Consider Scott’s wisdom: “My recommendation is that you quit being so hard on yourself,” he told me. “For better or for worse, nasty exams are the culture of this school for quantitative courses. When I was a business school instructor, class averages were about 85 percent. There is simply no question in my mind that you would have finished those exams very well ahead of time and you would have simply crushed the other people in the room.”

“Duck Syndrome” pressure can cause small or serious problems. This year, I had a conversation with someone falling through the cracks that inspired me to take the class to work at The Bridge, a student-run counseling center with a mission to help and support others through personal interaction.

In the last few weeks, we covered suicides. According to their numbers, our university has about 70 suicide attempts a year. From bad midterms to bad breakups (or weird hookups that come and go without ever really being defined), life isn’t perfect, even at Stanford. The Residential Dean who spoke to the class said that at any given time, attempted suicides have usually put about one student in the hospital.

My Dad once told me, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” Regardless of what we’re going through, it’s important to remember how valuable every member of our community is and to take time out of our busy schedules to care for those around us. Stanford is a humbling place, and it’s OK when we don’t always succeed in ways that we’d like. Coming from a professor, McKeon’s words are touching as we work to maintain perspective at college.

McKenzie hopes everyone is taking care of themselves as the quarter comes to a close. Contact her at andrews7@stanford.edu.

The post A Tribute to Scott McKeon appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2014/03/10/a-tribute-to-scott-mckeon/feed/ 0 1083272
Have Fun (by Papal order) https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/20/have-fun-by-papal-order/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/20/have-fun-by-papal-order/#respond Thu, 20 Feb 2014 09:53:23 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1082518 This week, one of my friends pulled two all-nighters and didn’t sleep for two days. It shouldn’t be a badge of honor that our students are so overcommitted that when they don’t have enough time to go to bed it’s considered normal, and there’s almost a pride that comes with not sleeping enough. Now that […]

The post Have Fun (by Papal order) appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
This week, one of my friends pulled two all-nighters and didn’t sleep for two days. It shouldn’t be a badge of honor that our students are so overcommitted that when they don’t have enough time to go to bed it’s considered normal, and there’s almost a pride that comes with not sleeping enough. Now that we’ve hit and passed midterm season, and individuals are scrambling to figure out summer and future plans, it’s recently become a little hectic on the Farm. So in the midst of a more stressful time of the quarter, I’ve compiled a list of fun activities and adventures you can have on campus.

Pope Francis declared, “Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport.” I found this after dutifully searching for “quotes on the importance of leisure time” on Google, but even if you aren’t Catholic or simply surf Google, the Pope has a point.

Since coming to Stanford, I’ve learned some hidden gems of the campus. There are a number of ways to have fun on campus that it’s easy to forget in the hustle and bustle of the quarter system.

1) Hike the Dish. It’s horrific, but I’ve met juniors at Stanford that have never made it over to this iconic part of campus. Just this weekend, the Running Club sponsored a 5K on that side of campus, but even for those of us that move more slowly, the Dish hike is a classic Stanford walk. Some of the best conversations I’ve had at Stanford have begun with me inviting someone I’ve found interesting to hike the Dish. It requires you and your friends to carry conversation for about an hour and a half, and it’s a great way to get to know someone a little bit better. When you get to the top, the view of the Bay is gorgeous.

2) Let tourists into Hoover Tower. If you’re the proud carrier of a Stanford student identification card, you can use your card to go to the top of Hoover Tower for free. What you can also do, which is also super fun, is use your student ID to let in five guests to Hoover Tower as well. While the normal charge is two dollars for adults, it’s entertaining to use your Stanford student powers to let in five people in line free of charge. Adopt an Asian tourist today. [Editor: As a former Asian(-American) tourist, I firmly support this sentiment.]

3) Stanford Yoga and Aerobics. Over in Hacienda Rains Commons, there’s a secret grad yoga studio. I discovered it this year, and every day, they offer different classes that are pretty great. Get there early, because they fill up quickly, but if you’re looking for a group fitness class, those are pretty decent as well. It’s a six dollars drop-in fee and seventy bucks for the quarter.

4) Play some golf. On the other side of campus, we have the driving range. Regardless of your golfing prowess, it’s pretty fun to drop a few dollars for a bucket of balls and try to whack them farther than your friends.

5) The new Arrillaga gym: the new climbing wall offers free belay classes at 5 and 7 P.M. most days, and the new wall has complex new routes and super friendly staff. It’s a good time, and afterwards, you can take a swim in the rec pool. If you’re trying to find ways to explore the outdoors, the Outdoor Education center has information about the latest redwood trips, and gear for you to organize your own wilderness exploration.

6) Go off campus. Though it’s easy to forget, we’re only a train ride away from San Francisco and a drive away from Santa Cruz. Some of my fondest freshmen memories include driving Santa Cruz and enjoying Dippin’ Dots and Italian food with friends, cruising along the winding highway overlooking the ocean.

I encourage every Stanford resident to figure out ways to use their dorm funds to finance various shenanigans. Stanford is, put simply, a gravy train of money, and if you figure out the right doors to knock on, there’s usually one that opens to free and fun activities. There’s always a slew of a cappella, theater, sport, speaker and dance events on campus, so keep your eyes peeled and read your email bombardment for events that intrigue you. Make time to find things you do that you enjoy and explore some of the adventures to be had at our school.

Contact McKenzie Andrews at andrews7@stanford.edu

The post Have Fun (by Papal order) appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/20/have-fun-by-papal-order/feed/ 0 1082518
Coming to College; Falling from Faith https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/05/coming-to-college-falling-from-faith/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/05/coming-to-college-falling-from-faith/#respond Wed, 05 Feb 2014 08:05:14 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1082062 Falling away from church while starting college is a common story. Commitment is hard, and finding a new faith community is daunting.

The post Coming to College; Falling from Faith appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
In high school, my family went to church every Sunday.

I went to a Christian elementary school, and we had a Bible class with New and Old Testament sing-a-longs. As I got a bit older, my youth group went on church ski trips and fundraised for Heifer Ranch (hunger relief) and Invisible Children (Uganda). We went on mission trips to places that weren’t Nashville, Tenn., and I had my first kiss (on the cheek) with a boy I met at church camp. By high school, I helped teach a Sunday school class, volunteered at Vacation Bible School and played basketball in the church league.

When I moved abroad, I found a bilingual church and befriended the Texan preacher who’d traveled there to convert the locals. To be honest, I don’t think moving to a foreign country where you don’t speak the language is the best way to spread the gospel, but it was nice to meet another American.

In summary: Church was a big part of my pre-collegiate experience, and I was quite involved in my faith community.

Fast forward to Stanford. I thought about going to church, but church sort of fell to the wayside given other weekend revelries. I was invited to a nearby church once in fall quarter, and the new church scared me. My home church has an organ and hymnals, and the average age of parishioners is about fifty-five. Rather than seeing faces I had known since I was born, I was at a contemporary church with a rock band, flat-screen TVs and a light show filled with young people from Palo Alto. I didn’t connect with anyone, and I didn’t go back that year.

During freshman year, I was scared to get deeply involved with campus religious groups because I wanted to experience college. I was unsure if I’d make a truly diverse group of friends if I got really involved in a ministry group with a large social component.

I was also lazy. It takes work to develop a connection to a church in college. I didn’t put that work in. When I got to church, it was uncomfortable to be in a new scene surrounded by people I didn’t know, and I didn’t stick it out. My senior year of high school, I gave the sermon at Youth Sunday. My freshman year, I was intimidated by stepping into a new church.

Falling away from church while starting college is a common story. I’ve met so many Stanford students who used to be Catholic and stopped at some point in their life. As a Methodist, I’ve been guilty too. It’s not even that I don’t want to go to church; it’s just that my Sunday morning starts around when brunch opens. By the time it’s close to 4 P.M. or 10 P.M. for services at MemChu, I’m at the gym or working on an assignment. Commitment is hard, and finding a new faith community is daunting.

At Stanford and in life, I’ve found that if someone says they’re too busy to be doing something, it’s because they aren’t prioritizing it. If I had made a real effort to spend two hours a week going to a church since freshman year, I would have found the time.

Across the United States, the retention rate for young people staying in faith communities as they transition to college is low. According to a LifeWay Research study, two-thirds of young adults who attend a church in high school will stop attending church regularly for at least a year between the age of 18 and 22.

In my home church, the big draw was “fellowship” — a Christian term for socializing, but more importantly, generally caring and staying up to date with those in your community. Fellowship, whether it’s in your dorm or in your faith community, has to be built, and that isn’t going to happen if you don’t put in the time.

There are great faith communities on campus. Hillel hosts 6 p.m. Friday Shabbat services followed by dinners. There are Christian groups such as Intervarsity, Cardinal Life and Chi Alpha. Every Friday at 1:15 p.m., the Islamic Society of Stanford University holds Jummah, or community prayers, on the third floor of Old Union. There are also Sikh, Hindu and Baha’i options. I recently went back to Sanctuary, the contemporary Christian Sunday night service; pick-up at the Escondido turnaround is around 6:50 p.m.

If you’re interested, these communities exist and bring students together. If you want to reconnect with your faith or are interested in exploring it, there are choices on Stanford campus. Though conversations around religion aren’t as prevalent here as they are at BYU or Yeshiva University, Stanford has religious options.

 

If you’d like to talk to McKenzie about your relationship with God, contact her at andrews7@stanford.edu

The post Coming to College; Falling from Faith appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/05/coming-to-college-falling-from-faith/feed/ 0 1082062
One Summer in Peru https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/22/one-summer-in-peru/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/22/one-summer-in-peru/#comments Wed, 22 Jan 2014 09:46:32 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1081684 This article is a shameless plug for the awesome, random opportunities Stanford has to offer. If you only have time to read this, I urge you to find these opportunities and take advantage of them – as they teach in ME104S: Design Your Stanford, YOSO (you only Stanford once). Last summer, I went to Peru courtesy […]

The post One Summer in Peru appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
This article is a shameless plug for the awesome, random opportunities Stanford has to offer. If you only have time to read this, I urge you to find these opportunities and take advantage of them – as they teach in ME104S: Design Your Stanford, YOSO (you only Stanford once).

Last summer, I went to Peru courtesy of the Stanford archaeology department, and it was extraordinary. As Colin Powell once said, “It is important for American students to learn other languages, experience foreign cultures and develop a broad understanding of global issues.”

I took high school Spanish, but it’s safe to say I had no meaningful relationships based in the Spanish language until the summer of 2013. During this time I was an indentured servant in Chavin de Huantar, Peru. Stanford covered the costs; we worked 40 to 50 hours a week.

In the day, I worked with Peruvian archaeologists, rural laborers and other Peruvian and South American students. Everyone was knowledgeable about archaeology; I didn’t even know that Indiana Jones was an archaeologist until this summer. I met all sorts of people, like Gaby, a 25-year-old girl from Santiago who had a nose ring, studied chemical engineering until switching to archaeology and has now worked all over South America. She told me about her novio (boyfriend) and encouraged my crush on my 29-year-old boss.

My coworkers and I spent eight hours together a day; being someone who loves to talk, my Spanish improved a lot. In any given classroom at Stanford, there’s one native-Spanish speaking professor for every five to 15 students. While doing manual labor in Peru, it was five Spanish speakers and me in our unit. We were working 45 hours a week in the field, as opposed to maybe five hours a week in school.

Oftentimes, the best learning happens out in the real world. Words like carretilla (wheelbarrow), ceramica (ceramic) and hueso (bone) became more familiar in Spanish than English. Rather than by studying a vocabulary list, brichero, the word for a Peruvian
man who goes after the foreign gringa (white, generally American) girls, stuck in my memory after laughing about a Stanford girl and a Peruvian archaeologist’s drunken weekend hookup. We also joked about another Peruvian’s mysterious pasado blanco (white past), which seemed to be a theme with the male archaeologists who had spent enough field seasons working with Stanford students at Chavin.

We also witnessed the corruption in Peru. A Stanford friend stated that Peruvians’ favorite pastime is telling him what’s wrong with their country. Our first Friday in Chavin, a small bus carrying mothers and their children drove off an unpaid mountain road which more two million dollars had been ostensibly spent to pave. The car tumbled a quarter of a mile down the mountainside; the accident was visible from our site.

After a stunned silence that lasted several long minutes, the men started to run to the mountain. One student, a Boy Scout and freshman dorm friend who encouraged me to come to Chavin, helped the Peruvians carry up the bloodied, dead and dying bodies up the mountainside. Over 20 people died. This was real in a way I hadn’t experienced in my freshman dorm.

That first weekend, we gathered in mourning and to discuss the tragedy. We passed a bottle of rum and coke: it was our way to numb ourselves. I’d never seen alcohol used like this. Agosto, a head archaeologist and a type of Peruvian Spartan who loves “Game of Thrones,” denounced the mayor who had embezzled the road money and thanked my friend for the help he had given to the Peruvian people; he was welcomed as a brother to stay with him anytime he was in Peru.

As I spent more time at the site, the predominant Chavin archaeologist political preference – communism – revealed itself. Communism is a political preference that reveals to me a deep dissatisfaction with the status quo. I had never previously debated with people who were serious about communism, but this worldview began to make more sense as I was exposed to the world my communist archaeologist friends had grown up in. Though I still don’t think communism has ever worked particularly well in any country, democracy has some serious flaws in Peru.

Though I won’t be majoring in archaeology, my time in Peru left me with hard questions on how to build good governance in the midst of corruption and how a lack of infrastructure can literally kill in poor countries. Stanford provides gateways to a variety of worlds, and this Peruvian one taught me not just a lot of Spanish but also how to think about the world from a perspective I’d never seriously considered.

I went to Peru because I thought it was what would stretch my comfort zone the most; I left tired, more proficient in Spanish and incredibly grateful for the stability and security I’d taken for granted in the United States. At Stanford, take advantage of the doors that open for you. As Dr. Seuss said, “Out there things can happen, and frequently do, to people as brainy and footsy as you.”

Contact McKenzie Andrews at andrews7@stanford.edu.

The post One Summer in Peru appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/22/one-summer-in-peru/feed/ 3 1081684
Pull Up, Drank https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/13/pull-up-drank/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/13/pull-up-drank/#respond Mon, 13 Jan 2014 16:52:28 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1081405 There’s novelty that comes with the first quarter as freshmen drink, make out with randos at frats and engage in the sort of debauchery that can accompany the start of college.

The post Pull Up, Drank appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
This article is inspired by a freshman I saw making out on a dance floor this weekend.

Freshman year, students start drinking. A sizable contingent of our campus was not pounding “Natty” Lights when they were in high school, so there’s novelty that comes with the first quarter as freshmen drink, make out with randos at frats and engage in the sort of debauchery that can accompany the start of college.

Asher Roth, the poet and white rapper of my generation, put it simply stating, “Time isn’t wasted when you’re getting wasted” in his hit song “I Love College.” Roth reflects on his time and lessons of higher education like remembering to wear a condom, not leaving the party “till the booze gone,” and “don’t have sex if she’s too gone.” To be honest, I’m on board with some of these suggestions, but it also reflects on a culture where the collegiate expectation is a lot of alcohol consumption.

When I arrived at college, I was unable to sleep the night before, because I was so excited to move in. I deferred my admission for a year, so I had been waiting for more than a year and a half to move into Stanford.

I’d seen high school friends have the college experience, and I longed to meet all of the people who’d play a role in mine. During New Student Orientation, I already figured out what events were attendance-optional, met my awesome, athletic roommate and found an 8 a.m. aerial fabrics course on SimpleEnroll (8 a.m. — rookie mistake).

I was trying to still trying to remember people’s names on the second or third night when the “water pong” came out. Given that NSO is one of the few mandatory dry weekends on campus, at least for freshmen, it was somewhat shocking to me that we were already warming up for the drinking games to come. With water pong. For those who haven’t played or spectated, imagine beer pong played with water rather than booze.

It was kind of ludicrous that on my third night at the best university in the United States, the loudest, most visible social option was to watch large dudes throw ping pong balls into Solo cups filled with water.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “the first six weeks of freshman year is an especially vulnerable time for heavy drinking and alcohol-related consequences because of student expectations and social pressures at the start of the academic year.”

College students also have higher rates of binge drinking than their noncollegiate peers, and there are scary statistics on the consequences for excessive college drinking in regard to sexual abuse, injury, assault, and death (don’t drink and drive).

The drinking culture is a loud, visible contingent in many dorms. There are definitely positives to drinking, but it’s not the only way to have a good time. An RA friend and I recently talked about the importance of providing visible alternatives to going out for residents who want to socialize, but maybe not drink. It can be challenging to create a comfortable environment for residents regardless of their alcohol policy on a given Friday or Saturday night.

Before coming to Stanford, I’d spent a year living in a country where the drinking age was 18 and spent some time in bars and clubs accordingly. During this time, many of my high school friends who didn’t drink started at their respective universities.

It can be pretty fun, but I noticed that a lot went fairly hard at first and then backed off. This happens at Stanford too. David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, recently wrote an article titled “Weed: Been There. Done That,” reflecting on how he grew out of smoking marijuana: “Like the vast majority of people who try drugs, we aged out.”

There’s a similar backing-off phenomenon for the aggregate student body’s binge drinking, as we grow older and maybe drink a little less. It gets old.

 

Contact McKenzie Andrews at andrews7@stanford.edu

The post Pull Up, Drank appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/13/pull-up-drank/feed/ 0 1081405
Confronting Socioeconomic Class https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/07/confronting-socioeconomic-class/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/07/confronting-socioeconomic-class/#respond Tue, 07 Jan 2014 08:19:50 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1081244 My impression of socioeconomic class is this: It completely affects people’s life experiences. It can be embarrassing to talk about, because it’s not going to be the same for everyone.

The post Confronting Socioeconomic Class appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
“What do you think is most difficult to talk about at Stanford? Race, sexuality, or socioeconomic class?”

My friend asked me this around midnight while her roommate was wrapped in a Snuggie watching lectures on her laptop, and I was trying to understand confidence intervals for homework.

Tired from the p-set onslaught, I thought for a second before replying, “Socioeconomic class. It’s the most hidden of the three, so I think it’s hardest to talk about. Race is usually pretty apparent, and sexuality generally comes out if you’re friends with somebody.”

Socioeconomic class shapes the way someone grows up, and there are extremes on both ends at Stanford. I’ve met a friend whose dad is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and a friend whose dad immigrated to the U.S. and works at Safeway. According to an article in The Stanford Progressive, “Almost half of Stanford’s students come from families making more than $300,000 a year.” There’s also a slosh of students who come from upper-middle-class backgrounds with doctor/lawyer/professor/engineer parents.

Last year, I was fortunate enough to go on an Alternative Spring Break trip. Each night of our trip, we’d feature someone on “Spotlight,” a bonding exercise where a person sits and tells his or her life story. The group listens, and then asks questions, and people are generally left with the warm feeling that comes from getting to know someone a little better.

During our week, the variety in people’s background was highlighted. One spotlight story contained stories of a parent being one of the first employees at Microsoft then a childhood growing up in Mexico, Canada, and France, leaving said individual trilingual; another story featured someone overcoming homelessness in New York with a mom who makes less per hour than her daughter’s on-campus job pays.

My impression of socioeconomic class is this: It completely affects people’s life experiences. It can be embarrassing to talk about, because it’s not going to be the same for everyone. Its distribution is based on luck. If you’re gay or black today, it’s easy to argue that the world shouldn’t treat you differently, and we’ve had civil rights movements that fight for this sort of equality. That isn’t the case with socioeconomic class.

When I started to write this article, I asked several friends whether they thought socioeconomic class was hard to talk about at Stanford.

Every friend said yes. “Most people come from fairly homogeneous backgrounds, and there’s a fair amount of political and social apathy, so people don’t want to discuss class. That’s not what they care most about, and they’re not forced to face it, because Stanford is, again, pretty homogeneous.”

One friend from a socioeconomically disadvantaged background replied, “Despite the fact that Stanford tries to create an environment of equal opportunity both in and out of classroom settings — and does a pretty good job, in my opinion — socioeconomic status is still pretty hard to ignore for less wealthy students when they see their wealthier friends posting statuses about their excursions abroad for vacation, spontaneous purchases of tickets to the World Cup, and other similarly expensive events. It’s easy for the less well-off to feel a bit insecure, and frankly feel like they have less to contribute to the conversation because they feel less knowledgeable about the world than their richer peers, and are afraid that their richer peers will think so too.”

One friend stated, “The only thing open-minded people with different backgrounds can do is accept. And if that’s the best possible outcome out of a conversation about class, how do you progress to narrow that gap? Plus, there’s a huge barrier to enter into that kind of conversation, because it’s easy to overlook the other side of the spectrum if you tend to flock towards people of a similar background.”

When everyone in your dorm lives in a one-room double, it’s easy to think there’s no difference between how individuals experience Stanford. Coming to an elite university opens doors to big places. At Stanford, wealth appears to be the norm, and this façade can leave students feeling isolated. We need to work to create safe spaces where students can learn from one another, and respect the variety of backgrounds we have on our campus. Though I feel seeped in the ignorance of my single life experience, these issues are worth contemplating. Let’s talk to build a more open, understanding Stanford community.

 

http://progressive.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/article.php?article_id=429&archive=1

https://stanforddaily.com/2012/10/30/op-ed-flip-confronting-the-challenges-of-socioeconomic-class-on-campus/

The post Confronting Socioeconomic Class appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/07/confronting-socioeconomic-class/feed/ 0 1081244
A Fistful of Dollars https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/08/a-fistful-of-dollars/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/08/a-fistful-of-dollars/#respond Fri, 08 Nov 2013 16:33:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1080335 In effect, the Senate Innovation Fund sounds like the Senate passed legislation to give themselves $3,000 dollars of personal discretionary spending.

The post A Fistful of Dollars appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
If you’re reading this article and you went to Stanford last year, there’s a 50 percent chance you didn’t vote last year. Half of our student body doesn’t.

For those who don’t follow Stanford student politics, Stanford’s undergraduate Senate is composed of 15 elected senators. Each undergraduate voter has 15 votes to cast and election winners are simply the 15 candidates that receive the most votes.

In recent memory, this body elected to represent the Stanford student body is overwhelmingly composed of sophomores. Last year, no one who was a senator ran for re-election and only one non-freshman candidate was elected.

Each spring, there’s a campaign season where candidates run via an intense campaign of canvasing, endorsements and dining hall and dorm-to-dorm conversations. The endorsement process consists of various Stanford student groups interviewing potential candidates and giving a subset of this group their stamp of approval. Then, said endorsing group will spam their email list asking their community members to vote for their endorsees.

Last year, one of the biggest endorsement groups, the Students of Color Coalition (SOCC), endorsed 12 students, and every one of their endorsees won a seat in the Senate. Though personal campaigning gets your name out, one of the most effective ways to get elected is to get endorsed.

Last year, 3,420 undergraduates voted out of a 6,678 undergraduate potential voter pool: that’s a 51.2-percent turnout.  Freshmen vote the most and election turnout gets progressively worse as students grow older. At the end of the spring election season, 15 students become officially elected senators.

The Senate’s power comes from the purse: They approve funding for students groups and events on campus. The ASSU provides funding for over 500 volunteer student organizations (aka student groups). The secret about ASSU funding is that there’s more money available than actually gets distributed to Stanford student groups just about every year.

Because Stanford is excessively wealthy, our student government can liberally finance student groups. The Senate can dole out up to $6,000 dollars per student group through general fees, and we gave out close to $2.5 million dollars in last year’s special fees.

This quarter, our current Senate is looking to give $50,000 dollars away in the Winter Grant Program, money they hope will create new events for Stanford students during the somewhat dreary winter quarter. Last month, the Senate passed the Senate Innovation Fund, which allocates “$3,000 to each elected Senator.” According to the Senate’s Spartan WordPress website, “Senators are ‘hereby charged to spend their Innovation Fund to make a meaningful difference in the undergraduate community,’ meaning that they are able to sponsor events, projects and initiatives of individuals and groups at their own volition.” The Fund was created last month and has an annual budget of $52,000 dollars.

As stated on their website, “each Senator has $3,000 in their pocket to give you, the Student body.” The Senate Innovation Fund’s page also states, “There is no funding process each Senator is free to fund whatever they deem is appropriate to their personal or the campus’ collective goals.”

In effect, the Senate Innovation Fund sounds like the Senate passed legislation to give themselves $3,000 dollars of personal discretionary spending. Dear senators, just because your face stared at me whenever I went to the bathroom in my freshman dorm doesn’t mean I consented to this amount of money being arbitrarily allocated.

I know several of the current senators and like them, but they certainly aren’t representative of Stanford’s student body: Nearly all of them are in the Class of 2016. If freshmen are the only students who vote, the Senate next year will, again, consist of mostly sophomores.

Engage in your political process, people. Last month, the Senate essentially created a committee to give themselves (and hopefully us) more money. If you’re interested in huge amounts of free cash, you should meet your representatives, figure out the bureaucracy and apply for the funding. Involving yourself in the process as a whole will help enforce proper standards of accountability and make sure that the ASSU doesn’t serve as senators’ personal piggy banks.

 

Contact McKenzie Andrews at andrews7@stanford.edu

The post A Fistful of Dollars appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/08/a-fistful-of-dollars/feed/ 0 1080335
Slumped https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/01/slumped/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/01/slumped/#comments Fri, 01 Nov 2013 18:51:20 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1080070 As an undecided major, it’s hard trying to figure out what you want to study and what options that leaves you with after graduation.

The post Slumped appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
Last week in Stern dining, a freshman stated “I just don’t think people would respect me as much if I majored in the humanities.” A few weeks into Stanford, he had already picked up on the underlying difference in respect we have for academic disciplines. Sitting at a table with a friend RAing in Zapata, I felt my sophomore struggle: deciding a major while being at peace with the future repercussions.

After a wide-eyed freshman year, sophomore year is here. An upperclassman once told me that the biggest transition was the jump from freshman to sophomore year: Greeks have self-separated, athletes can room with athletes, and freshman year friends have solidified.

There’s more work, a different social scene, and for the other half of the sophomore class California has lost its newness. Walking around the activities fair, my friends sat behind the booths.

Sarai (a sophomore like me!) got 40 plus likes on her declaring Symbolic Systems status; by the end of the year, we’ll all make a decision. The Class of 2016 is no longer the newest banner in Old Union, and we’ve gone and integrated into the larger Stanford community.

Since coming back to school, I’ve been trying to figure out what academic trajectory I want to be on and what major will also lead to a happy, healthy life. Stanford has a plethora of opportunities, but it sometimes feels like the default career opinion is computer science and engineering and of the remaining majors, there aren’t many humanities people that aren’t trying to be a doctor or lawyer.

As an undecided major, it’s hard trying to figure out what is it that you want to study and what options that leaves you with after graduation.

When I came to Stanford, my name became the source of good-natured jokes referencing McKinsey; to be honest, I didn’t know that consulting existed in high school.

At Stanford, one default option is consulting or finance. I don’t think many of us come to college with the intention of dating PowerPoint and Excel; however, for a chunk of us, these relationships happen.

Rob Reich, a Stanford professor in Political Science, and Ezra Klein, a blogger for the Washington Post, have both written on how Stanford and its peer institutions send its students rushing into finance and consulting.

The pay is high, there’s a set precedent on how to get there, and like Stanford, the acceptance rates are low, and the club is exclusive. Klein’s opinion is the post-grad flee to Wall Street is partly due to universities failing to teach students applicable skills in many undergrad classes.

Elite colleges produce intelligent liberal arts students with terrifyingly disciplined work ethics who have no idea what to do next. According to these writers, the finance industry profits from this confusion, attracting students who didn’t intend to work in finance but aren’t sure what they want, so it becomes the next step.

My resident tutor from last year worked at such an institution over the summer, and his commentary was that this path is a way for people who care a lot about money to make it given they don’t have a more creative way to do so.

A senior in my dorm talked about his investment banking internship hours from 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. There was about one girl for every 20 male interns, but fortunately, it didn’t feel uneven, because all the secretaries were women.

To be honest, I feel a little cheated right now. Our generation has been told do what you love, but as I grow up, it’s become apparent that not all academic disciplines are equally valued.

Everyone in our student body is amazing, but the average graduating BA student from Stanford has a starting salary of $33,251 while the BS makes $76,785. For the humanities to gain further respect at Stanford, more incentives need to be there, but for now, I’m not surprised that the freshmen are scared of the humanities. I am too.

Contact McKenzie Andrews at andrews7 ‘at’ stanford.edu

The post Slumped appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/01/slumped/feed/ 3 1080070
Full Mooning https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/22/full-mooning/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/22/full-mooning/#respond Tue, 22 Oct 2013 07:46:43 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1079663 FMOTQ could only exist on the West Coast academic Disneyland that is our school. Never before had I been to an event where painted nudity was an expectation.

The post Full Mooning appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
As a high schooler who had only kissed boys while sober, I first heard about Full Moon on the Quad when I opened up to the California section of Insider’s Guide to Colleges and flipped to Stanford University. At America’s dream school, the smartest kids in a faraway land wait until midnight when the gifted princes kiss the brilliant ladies. Because the admissions rate was low, everyone must be perfect and talented. It is a tradition that began with senior collegiate gentlemen bringing roses to the freshman girls; FMOTQ was a fairy tale that only could exist far away in an unimaginable place.

Fast-forward to freshman year: I was living the dream. The excitement of fall quarter in a Wilbur dorm is contagious. Making friends on the scavenger hunt in San Francisco; discovering that FloMo serves Indian food every Sunday at dinner; being awoken by the virtuoso piano music from your dormmate in the lounge: Life was good.

Cedro stayed up into the wee hours of the night talking about life, eating Late Night, and finishing p-sets. We were sure that we had the highest “work hard, play hard” ratio of any freshman dorm on campus.

My RA had a list on her closet door that described all the things “To Do Before I Graduate,” and “get kissed at Full Moon on the Quad” was there. Inspired, I knew that that was something I wanted to check off my list. Never before had I been to an event where painted nudity was an expectation.

Never before had I gotten drunk on a Tuesday. Never before had I had such an opportunity to shamelessly make out with randos. At FMOTQ, all of this changed.

They told us there’d be free Chipotle, but there wasn’t any left by the time we got there. With a pack of dormmates and SUID in tow, I was ready to throw away my Karel worries away and experience college in California.

As they say in Designing Your Stanford, YOSO: You only Stanford once. I shuffled into the Quad and stuck with the familiar faces from my dorm. Not quite sure of the names of all the people there, I waited in anticipation for the clock to strike midnight.

Freshmen, when you head to the Quad for your first time, be prepared. Use some mouthwash. Embrace that kissing unknown suitors is only awkward if you let it be.

Head there and back with people you know. 5-SURE exists, so our students can golf-cart home rather than walk. The Sophomore Class of past and present does not admit visibly intoxicated students to Quad (keyword: visibly).

At 12, it began. It was kind of like a frat party, but outside, with more kissing and less grinding. About one-third of the people were shy and maybe spectating, one-third were there to party and get a couple friendly kisses, and one-third were rampantly trying to make out with as many people as possible.

Surprisingly, people mostly maintained a casualness and respect for those around them: Remember to stay classy. Though the kissing got shut down in less than 20 minutes, the madness was everywhere, and I managed to peck the Tree as well as few other gentlemen.

Back at the dorm, I was surprised to realize that others had a number for the night. (Pro tip: Keep count.) One friend admitted he’d just had his first kiss with a girl whose name he didn’t know.

Another girl managed to kiss a boy from home she’d known in high school. I’d just kissed my first (and possibly into the double digits) Stanford boys. Everyone saw the painted, swinging bodies.

FMOTQ could only exist on the West Coast academic Disneyland that is our school. I love that at America’s No. 1 dream school, it’s school tradition to have a massive make out orgy that increases the number of connections between the newest class of Stanford students and those of us who have been here a bit longer, a chance to be more open with those with whom we work and play.

FMOTQ is an intoxicating experience enjoyed by budding adventurists and those looking to have a good time alike. Freshmen and upperclassmen should go, experience the craziness, then head home. For the brief time it lasts, in the Quad there is an undeniably palpable and unique energy; equal parts trepidation, irreverence, hope, and curiosity.

Contact McKenzie Andrews at andrews7 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

The post Full Mooning appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/22/full-mooning/feed/ 0 1079663
America’s Exceptionally Sorry State https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/18/americas-exceptionally-sorry-state/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/18/americas-exceptionally-sorry-state/#respond Fri, 18 Oct 2013 09:51:00 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1079567 My common app essay started with the line “American by birth; Southern by the grace of God.” I keep a large American flag in my dorm, and I regularly wear a bro tank that sports Old Glory and reads “Back to Back World War Champs.” The Star Spangled Banner is my favorite anthem: I’m proud […]

The post America’s Exceptionally Sorry State appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
My common app essay started with the line “American by birth; Southern by the grace of God.” I keep a large American flag in my dorm, and I regularly wear a bro tank that sports Old Glory and reads “Back to Back World War Champs.” The Star Spangled Banner is my favorite anthem: I’m proud to be an American.

At the beginning of this month, I was ready to get a job.  Not really, but as a Stanford sophomore, I was ready to get some free start-up t-shirts and shot glasses: aka, the Career Fair. I had some inkling I should print some resumes after morning classes, but instead I ate lunch and then biked over to White Plaza.

When I got there, the first thing I did was go to the map of attendees and find the U.S. State Department: table 105. They (and all y’all taxpayers) paid for my gap year of Chinese study in Taiwan that fueled an interest in diplomacy in East Asia. When I got to table 105, however, I was let down. On Oct. 1, 2013, the yellow slip of paper read, “The Department of State is not attending the fair today.” The U.S. Marines made it, but our civil servants did not.

I love America, but I’m disappointed. A friend of mine captured my sentiments well. “Our generation, the millennials, continues to suffer from short-term and ultimately self-destructive governance of many of the Baby Boomers. Our country, in every facet from global credibility, economic stability, education, infrastructure, healthcare, etc., is at risk for our future.”

In my opinion, the United States is the best and most influential country in the world, but we’re suffering from a dearth in leadership. The political motivations that have gotten us to this point reflect hubris that sacrifices cooperation. We —through our elected politicians — have brought the international ridicule over the state of the United States on ourselves.

To make things worse, the domestic chicken dance in Washington over the debt ceiling (which, until an 11th hour conclusion, had the potential to cause unprecedented chaos in global financial markets), almost made the recent government shutdown seem practically quaint.

Asian nations such as China and Japan, who hold large chunks of our debt through U.S. treasuries, are appealing to our government to resolve the stalemate.

Chinese state-sponsored news agency Xinhua stated, “As U.S. politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world.”

China is concerned that American gridlock will hurt other economies as our political dysfunction reverberates through the world; they’ve voiced their frustration with the impasse that has frozen our capitol.

This sentiment is echoed globally. Indian business leaders told Voice for America that they did not understand how a developed nation like the United States could shutdown due to a legislative impasse.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said to the BBC, “It is a risk to the world economy if the US can’t properly sort out its spending.” France’s Le Monde christened the shutdown “grotesque” and described how American cemeteries in France will be closed: War memorials abroad operate on our domestic funds.

The American government is unable to fulfill its basic legislative functions, and the international community is rightfully unimpressed.

If the United States wants to remain great, it’s time for our leaders to come together and negotiate a solution. I’m proud of being an American, but the partisanship that has split our nation is shameful.

Our politicians have created a situation that is embarrassing and reflects disconnect with the needs of the constituents who voted them into office.

Governmental incompetence doesn’t mean that I’m about to move to Canada, but it’s making me question my interest in working as a civil servant. If our politicians’ failure shuts down the public sector opportunities, maybe I should consider serving my country by majoring in computer science and working for the start up with free t-shirts. Or the (generally apolitical) military.

America’s sad state inspires doubts and apathy towards what our government actually can get done. Domestically and internationally, people aren’t impressed. It’s time for our leadership to work together — our futures depend on it.

Contact McKenzie Andrews at andrews7 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

The post America’s Exceptionally Sorry State appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/18/americas-exceptionally-sorry-state/feed/ 0 1079567
Letter to the Class of 2017 https://stanforddaily.com/2013/09/22/letter-to-the-class-of-2017/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/09/22/letter-to-the-class-of-2017/#respond Mon, 23 Sep 2013 05:22:25 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1078673 The next four years are going to be some of the most exciting in your life. As they drilled into you at NSO, the folks at 355 Galvez make no mistakes: Welcome to the Cardinal family. We're so glad to have you.

The post Letter to the Class of 2017 appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
Welcome home, freshman! The next four years are going to be some of the most exciting in your life. As they drilled into you at NSO, the folks at 355 Galvez make no mistakes: Welcome to the Cardinal family. We’re so glad to have you.

Hard work pays off, and during the next few years you’re going to have more opportunities than you can humanly pursue. You’ll also meet classmates who are just as smart as you are and some smarter, not to mention professors, some of whom advise presidents. In the last year, I’ve casually run into Chris Christie outside an economics class and listened to Al Gore, Rachael Maddow and Jane Goodall speak.

It’s a different world than many of y’all may be accustomed to, but you’re now a part of it. In a few years, your friends (and maybe you) will snag that Google/Goldman Sachs/Microsoft/J.P. Morgan summer internship that could lead to a career. Summers will include traveling to exotic places or seeing Facebook updates from friends who did.

With fall quarter excitement in the air, I want to offer some advice as you start your Stanford career. I’m the first in my family to come to Stanford, and I didn’t have any idea of what I was trying to get out of my elite, private education when I came to campus.

It felt like Jesus had a performed another miracle when the acceptance came senior year, and I continued to move forward, despite being paralyzed by awe and jubilation for the majority of my freshman year, just trying to “enjoy college.” I worked my ass off in high school and had no intention of jumping back on that hamster wheel immediately. In retrospect, I had a fun freshman year, but I did learn some things that I’d like to impart to y’all, the Class of 2017.

1. GET INVOLVED. I can’t stress this enough. I loved being in an all-freshman dorm, but at the end of freshman year, the freshman dorm ceases to hold you and your friends and a new class moves in.

Go to dorm events: figure out what makes your neighbors incredible, but also find something outside of that to be a part of. The options are so numerous that it’s overwhelming. Join the Band; learn to twerk better than Miley with a dance crew; embrace the fact you’re a college student and join a capella or ultimate Frisbee. At some point in the year, you’ll have an interview for a summer program or a job or something you can’t imagine yet, but something you’ll really want to be a part of. This will help.

2. Ignoring that last point, get ready to fail. Stanford is inherently a competitive place. When there’s a Stanford in Government fellowship, a tour guide interview or a spot at Sierra Camp, you’ll be competing against Stanford students who, like you, got into Stanford.

You won’t get everything you apply to, but keep trying. When you take tests for Math 51 or CS106a, everyone in your class is smart. If you were used to sailing through high school and picking A’s off trees like apples, those days are probably over.In the excitement of coming to Stanford, it’s easy to forget it’s an extremely academic place. You might work as hard as you can and get a B. If you can reconcile this with yourself, you’ll be a happier person.

3. Find some classes that you’re super pumped to take and take them. Find something in the IntroSem book you got over the summer or enroll in CS106a if you’ve never taken computer science. (If you’ve recently moved to the Bay area, you’ll be hearing a lot of preaching about tech for the next four years.) Invite your professor to faculty night. If they’re busy, ask when they’re free and grab a meal.

4. Go to campus events. If you played a sport in high school, go watch our D1 teams play it. Paint up for football games, see the dance concerts and listen to our musicians at Bing. Stanford’s theater scene is incredible and talented: You should check it out.

You could probably go without a meal plan and just eat free food at all the campus talks. Stanford is bursting with energy, and you’re missing out if you don’t support the people around you.

5. Take care of your dormmates and your friends. If you go to the Row with someone, try not to forsake them and hold your friend’s hair back if it’s the right time. Partying is something you have the chance to hone in college, and try not to be that kid who got transported. Everything you learn in class is probably on the Internet, and the friends you’ll meet in the next four years are the best part about being on campus.

I don’t have it all figured out yet, but I know that you’re going to be incredible. A lot of people love you. We’re excited to see you thrive at the Farm.

Love, McKenzie

Contact McKenzie Andrews at andrews7@stanford.edu

The post Letter to the Class of 2017 appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2013/09/22/letter-to-the-class-of-2017/feed/ 0 1078673
Q+A: Gender scholar Londa Schiebinger https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/30/qa-gender-scholar-londa-schiebinger/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/30/qa-gender-scholar-londa-schiebinger/#respond Fri, 31 May 2013 06:52:57 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1077589 Londa Schiebinger, professor of history and the former director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, was recently awarded an honorary degree from Vrije Universiteit Brussel for her work founding Stanford’s Gendered Innovations project. The Daily sat down with Schiebinger to discuss her award-winning scholarship, the roots of her interest in gender and history and the sexism in the Barbie Doll’s first words.

The post Q+A: Gender scholar Londa Schiebinger appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
Londa Schiebinger, professor of history and the former director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, was recently awarded an honorary degree from Vrije Universiteit Brussel for her work founding Stanford’s Gendered Innovations project. The Daily sat down with Schiebinger to discuss her award-winning scholarship, the roots of her interest in gender and history and the sexism in the Barbie Doll’s first words.

 

The Stanford Daily (TSD): What questions do you primarily investigate in your research?

Londa Schiebinger (LS): There are three strategic approaches to the field of women and gender in science. The first is to look at women in science in particular. This is [studying] the biographies of great women. This is to study what percent of women there are at the faculty at Stanford, for instance– how many women, where are they, what fields do they cluster in.

And the second strategic approach is to look at gender in academic culture and… look more at the kinds of barriers women encounter [and] to look at how universities reasonably developed around men’s lives, because you know men were the professors from the 17th century until long into the 20th century. So those kinds of questions looks at what we need to do to transform institutions so both men and women can flourish.

And then the third strategic approach– which is really the one that I’m most interested in and have devoted a lot of my intellectual work to– is the question of, how do we use gender analysis to see something new? So this is a question of harnessing the power of gender analysis to discover new things in science and engineering. We often talk about bias in those fields, but if we do the research correctly in the first place we can avoid the bias and just get the very best research.

TSD: How did you become involved with such a dynamic– and pertinent– subject?

LS: When I was in graduate school, it was considered professional suicide to write anything about women. This was the late <\#213>70s, early <\#213>80s. I was a graduate student at Harvard University in the History Department, but eventually I got a Fulbright [Scholarship] and went to Germany, and it was getting away from my home department that gave me permission to really follow my intellectual passion. I was doing something called intellectual history and I was interested then in intellectual women, and when I got back from Germany to Cambridge, Mass., I was completing my dissertation and there was the very first lecture series on women in science [at MIT].

And I listened to these women for a while, and they were all telling a similar story. It was an interesting one, and I could see they didn’t understand the social structures behind their personal experiences and they didn’t understand the historical origins of the barriers they were encountering. I thought, ‘Okay, I’m a historian. This is where my contribution can be.’”

 

TSD: Earlier in your Stanford career, how did you make the transition from history professor to the director of the Clayman Institute?

LS: I was recruited to direct the Clayman Institute and my tenure home was in history, so I was always half and half. Then I stepped down. The idea of the Clayman Institute is to keep the leadership rotating through different schools. We have never had two directors who were in the same discipline, which is really great for keeping that institute fresh, so I directed for six years<\p>…<\p>and then I just went back to my home in history.

 

TSD: Why did you step down from your Clayman Institute position when such a position seems so close to the research you do?

LS: [I stepped down] because it was time for [other] people to step up. I took one of the projects with me, the Gendered Innovation in Science, Medicine, Engineering and Environment [project], and that’s an international collaboration. That started kind of as a Stanford start-up, and then I got European Commission money and National Science Foundation funding, and through a series of international collaborative workshops we developed the Gendered Innovations project. The idea is that scientists and engineers who do not learn about gendered analytics in their curriculum can go to this website and see a message that might enhance their work.

 

TSD: Is there biological evidence that men are more predisposed to scientific success or is this a social construction?

LS: Oh boy, I see people have not taken my class. I teach two classes: One is Gendered Innovations… and then I teach one through Science, Technology and Society and History that’s called the History of Women and Gender in Science, Medicine and Technology, so this question that you’re asking requires about a week’s worth of analysis.

But the short answer is there are biological differences between men and women. However, the gender differences– the social experience that children have from such an early age– are so strong. So going back to the biology, we have never documented a biological difference that leads more men into science and more women not into science, but we have documented many, many social experiences that lead more men into science and fewer women.

For example, the very first time Barbie, the famous platinum blond doll, said anything, her very first words were “ Math class is tough.” OK, there’s a message for young girls.

And then Angelina Jolie, when she was playing [Evelyn] Salt, a big CIA operative, in one of her movies, smashes through a window as only Angelina Jolie can<\p>…<\p>and in the room she swings into, there’s a little African American girl doing math, and then Angelina Jolie turns to the camera and says “I hate math.”

Girls just don’t need too many of these messages before they think that math is not for them. So one thing we can do is change our culture and make science and math friendly for girls, and eventually women– this is one of the biggest things we can do to encourage more women into science and engineering.

TSD: What do you envision as the future of science and gender studies?

LS: Now we have developed these methods and case studies so that researchers can begin to understand how sex and gender function in their research, so what I see– what I think we will have– is science and engineering that in fact serves everybody well.

So, for instance, if you look at drug development, ten drugs have been withdrawn from the U.S. market recently and eight of those drugs worked worse in women. So if researchers can get the research right from the beginning, we won’t have this very expensive phase of having drugs that really don’t work well for people. I see a future where the research will truly be excellent.

This interview has been condensed and edited

The post Q+A: Gender scholar Londa Schiebinger appeared first on The Stanford Daily.

]]>
https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/30/qa-gender-scholar-londa-schiebinger/feed/ 0 1077589