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Learning to embrace solitude

“I’m too scared to eat in the dining hall alone.” That is a sentiment many college students share, especially those at the beginning of their journey. It’s easy to see why: you...


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Ditch the campus hustle and find your focus instead

Every late August, the Binghamton University campus undergoes a familiar, chaotic transformation. For incoming freshmen, the first few weeks feel less like an academic transition and more like a total sensory overload....


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Remember all the people you were

I get a strange feeling every time I look at myself in the mirror. It’s as if I am seeing my face for the first time — it is familiar, yet foreign....


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The geography of luck

When I first arrived in the United States as an international student from Turkey, I found myself navigating a fascinating series of culture shocks. I vividly remember sitting in a dining hall...


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Don't live through your Instagram feed

Many of us may be familiar with the term “do it for the gram.” While on the surface it is a funny phrase about doing something outrageous for social media, I believe...


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Worth can't be measured on a 4.0 scale

We live in a world that is fundamentally obsessed with measurement. For a Binghamton University student, life is often reduced to a series of quantifiable metrics — credit hours, LinkedIn connections, internship...


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Creativity has become too individualized

Has anyone ever just been sitting on the couch when out of nowhere, your dad drops the most insane story you’ve ever heard in your life? My dad has plenty of “dad...


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I always feel like somebody's watching me

You are being watched all of the time, whether you notice or not. From supermarket monitors to your own phone, your every move is tracked and recorded. But these are all normal...


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Learning new things is worth the struggle

Childhood was centered around experiencing a variety of things for the first time and pursuing activities to find passions, inspirations and time to practice skills. But as we progress into adulthood, opportunities...


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It's time to embrace letting go

Sometimes I feel like Dory from “Finding Nemo.” I learn my lesson time and time again, only to always return to the same genius revelations. I came to this realization recently when...


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A first-year’s rant about college

I’m currently stuck in a limbo. One half of me feels like I’ve grown drastically from the beginning of the fall semester. My face has matured. I’ve started putting events on a...