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Opinion-Columns


A student retrieves their food from the ghost kitchen at Bell Tower.
OPINION

Bell Tower is a dystopian nightmare

"GrubHub is completely distanced from the user and does not provide any direct methods of remediating an issue. Have a problem with an order? You can’t talk to a cashier, but you can report an issue in the app; maybe a chatbot or worker in a third-world country will get back to you."


OPINION

The gift of guilt

"We’ve gotten good at not finding peace, but constructing illusions of it. We push out regret, sadness and uncertainty, but they don’t go away. Every emotion, no matter how nuanced or uncomfortable, exists for a reason, and therein lies a lesson to be learned."


Starship is a 400-foot-tall, stainless steel, Mars rocket made by SpaceX. Photo by Steve Jurvetson.
OPINION

The unavoidable politicization in modern space exploration

"I was fascinated by the company and dreamed of one day working there, helping to build that interplanetary future that it promised. But, as years passed, cracks began to show. While SpaceX has remained fairly apolitical and out of the spotlight, it became caught up in the absolute mess that was its founder, Elon Musk."


The Oxford Lane Library is in close proximity to campus.
OPINION

Restoring the magic: Why our public libraries should not be defunded

"Libraries are a vital public service and play an important role in education. They offer free and easily accessible learning opportunities to the public, and they allow people who do not have the privilege of receiving adequate education or educational resources to find such opportunities in one place, for little to no cost."


Liz Wilson teaching a religion course, one of the several majors targeted by Miami University.
OPINION

Miami: You’re a liberal arts college, not a polytechnic institute

"The new system changes how funding for departments is calculated. Now, 40% of instructional revenue will be given to a student's primary major, a large increase from the 25% set aside previously. This means that a department will get far less funding for offering courses to students from other majors, emphasizing ones that mostly offer courses to its own students and punishing ones that participate heavily in the Miami Plan."


OPINION

We aren’t bored enough: Doomscrolling is outdating hobbies

"The option to continually swipe after two seconds of disengagement feeds and affirms the catalytic nature of boredom: anything that is slower and quieter is automatically correlated to what the mind recognizes as a type of harm to the mind and in need of relief. Even if cognitively, we want to enjoy our hobbies, we just can’t."


(from left to right) Hailey Boye, Kenzi Perkins and Kira Boye pose in Uptown with the flowers and coffees they bought from the weekly Oxford Farmers Market. Photo provided by Kenzi Perkins.
OPINION

What is the college experience, really?

"A lot of their plans included going out to the bars Uptown or checking out parties, so I was a little bummed. I wanted to have fun like the others around me, but my idea of fun looked different from theirs. I decided to take matters into my own hands and find my own version of the college experience."


Pearson Hall is the biological science building at Miami University. Photo by Wikimedia Commons.
OPINION

The surprising art of Pearson Hall

"The line between science and the humanities might be thinner than people think. There’s an inherent beauty to microbiology and chemistry, one that students sit in front of without knowing how it came to be or how it might relate to their studies. The intersection isn’t obvious, and Miami is aware of this, letting the artworks fade into the background and exist with practicality."


OPINION

Giving myself, and Miami, a second chance

"This past summer, I resolved to make my second year something to look forward to. I started researching on and off-campus activities I knew I’d love and started a little note in my phone detailing how I’d avoid the sophomore slump."


Protesters encircle tents in Academic Quad
OPINION

Pro-Palestine advocates face unequal pressure from Trump administration

"Throughout the years, Miami’s chapter of Students For Justice in Palestine (SJP) has hosted numerous fundraisers for humanitarian aid in Gaza, protests and encampments. Advocacy has been difficult, however, as many students – especially those who have recently immigrated to the U.S. – hesitate to show their support for Palestine in the wake of governmental opposition."


OPINION

Inquiry to apathy: Artificial intelligence earned my degree

"Most people can identify the familiar pattern of our higher education training: study, memorize, spit out, rinse and repeat. But somewhere along the way, what was meant to be the foundation became the forum, and what was meant to be the means became the method. Much like a search engine and its results, we have become information generators, automating and bending to what is prompted of us."


A student does work in the Farmer School of Business
OPINION

Divestment from the humanities

"Universities are meant to be places of learning, where students become more adaptable to the ever-changing world. Now, it feels as though universities are viewed as job factories, where students enter for the sole purpose of employment. While the acquisition of a job after graduation is a huge factor for attending college, oftentimes it can cloud passion. "

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