Posts Tagged ‘college’

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Chapter 2: Hi, I’m Mia! Please Be My Friend!

Monday, September 25th, 2023

Once I had officially decided to go to Pace University, the next step was to find friends and someone I feel comfortable to live with. Pace has a designated building where freshmen live, so I couldn’t live with my friend since they were two years older. Even if I could, though, I didn’t want to. I knew that if I chose to live with someone I already knew, I would be too scared to branch out on my own and I wanted the independence of finding my own friend.

Part of my Facebook post from the Pace Facebook group for incoming freshman

So for the first time in several months (maybe even years), I opened up Facebook and edited my profile before searching for Pace University Facebook groups. The groups are student-made as a way to find fellow incoming classmates and potential roommates. I found two groups, joined both, and began adding almost everyone I thought wasn’t intimidating on Snapchat. Honestly, it felt like a dating app. Sometimes I would hit it off with people, and other times we would say hi and then instantly stop talking.

By June I was getting nervous, because the deadline for finding a roommate was coming up and I still hadn’t really clicked with anyone. It was also important I felt comfortable in my own room and because it was 2020, I wanted to make sure I was living with someone who respected COVID guidelines.

Me and Kathy after we both moved in

A few days into June I received a DM (direct message) from someone on Instagram. At first I was confused as to who this person was, but then I realized they found me from the Pace Facebook group, so I responded to her message. Instantly we clicked. We had all the same interests, were both nervous but willing to meet new people on campus, and were careful with COVID. Kathy (her name) and I ended up chatting everyday and eventually found the rest of our suitemates (the freshmen building had suites instead of just a classic two person or three person dorm).

With my suitemates and I texting each other every day, the idea of going to college seemed less intimidating now that I had more than just one friend. I was beginning to get excited as we all texted each other about what one person was packing, what movies we would watch on movie nights, and what clubs we were all interested in.

Me and a couple of my suitemates

If you’re an incoming freshman, I strongly recommend searching for any type of online group to meet new people. Having some form of established relationships will definitely help ease the anxiety of moving away from home. Even if you eventually find new friends or fall out with the old ones, you will always still have that bond with your freshman roommates. Nothing can take away that old nostalgic feeling of moving in for the first time and taking your first steps into the real world with these people. 

My suitemates and I would attend different events on campus, a lot of them virtual, some of them with social distancing, and together we all found friends. To this day, I’m still friends with my freshman year roommate and suitemate, and I’m forever grateful for them and the steps of courage we took together. We don’t live with each other anymore, but we still support each other and hang out together when we can.

However, I think my suitemates and I did have one unfair advantage that helped us grow close early on. Normal suitemates or roommates have a special bond because they are entering the real world together, but my suitemates and I actually didn’t get to take any steps outside because for two weeks we were all locked in our suite thanks to an increase in COVID cases. That’s right…in October, the entire freshman building got put into lockdown, forcing everyone to stay in their rooms for a whole two weeks.

To this day we still make jokes about how we were all trauma bonded because of this. We had to stay in our rooms, have crappy food delivered to our dorms, and watch movies almost every night to keep us from going insane. COVID may have made our freshman year difficult, but it also gave us a suitemate bond like no other.

I’d also like to mention the fact that, despite my suitemates and I helping each other out with meeting new people, my specific roommate Kathy was like a professional “friend maker.” Almost everyday she was introducing me to someone new. Thanks to Kathy, I met some of my best friends, one being my current roommate in my senior year!

My current roommate (middle), one of my best friends (on the right), and I on Halloween 2020. We all connected thanks to Kathy!

Another tip if you’re an introverted freshman like I was, make sure to meet someone who is very extroverted like Kathy is. This way, you’ll always be meeting someone new and each day will be exciting, and really that’s what every day of your freshman year should feel like. Even if you’re dealing with a global pandemic.

Summary:

  • Why Facebook groups are helpful before going to college
  • Go to events and clubs on campus! It’s the best way to meet friends!
  • Freshman year is all about excitement and meeting new people, don’t be afraid to try new things
Get 10% off any purchase at Baya Bar and enjoy a smoothie or acai bowl! Remember to bring your student ID!

By Mia Ilie

Mia Ilie is a student at Pace University, graduating in May 2024 with a degree in Writing and Rhetoric and a focus on publishing. She grew up in Rockland, New York and is currently living in Westchester, New York where she attends school and works at a local bookstore. You can always find her with her nose in a book or screaming to Taylor Swift with her friends.

For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.  

At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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Chapter Two: Commitment is Key

Monday, June 26th, 2023
Me (black shirt) gripping the frisbee disc at a tournament.

In ninth grade, I was running along the pier when I saw a girl on my high school frisbee team deliver a perfect flick throw on a field. As the disc cut crisply through the air, I wished I could do that too. I tried with my own frisbee at home later that day, but it came crashing to the ground a few feet in front of me. The throw seemed impossible. I’d probably never learn how to do it. 

When I joined ultimate frisbee in college, I already knew how to perform the basic backhand throw, where you bring your arm across the side of your body to release. I learned how to grip the disc correctly for different scenarios. To aim for accuracy and stability, I learned the fan grip, and for longer and more powerful throws, I learned the power grip. I had no idea how to do the flick throw, a notoriously difficult maneuver for beginners. It usually takes a couple months to learn and get comfortable with, and I was no exception. The flick involves bringing your arm back towards your forehand side instead of across your body, a hand grip shaped like a gun, and wrist rather than arm movement to release the disc. 

I was annoyed at myself for not being able to grasp the concept at first. Lots of these girls had done frisbee in high school but the ones who hadn’t seemed to be improving faster than me. I was embarrassed when I had to throw a flick and it wobbled to the side just seconds after the disc was released from my hand. But the energy and atmosphere of the team motivated me to keep trying. Even when I failed or messed up, I would receive high fives and constructive feedback from the captains. They always told me what I had done well and how I could improve. When we were doing drills or practice scrimmages, they would always yell at me to “get in there!” and cheer loudly for me. Not just me, for everybody, but I was especially motivated when they called out my name. And slowly, I began to improve. I gained confidence and was able to throw smoother and longer flicks. It was fun. It became so easy that I started to prefer flicks over backhands.   

At a tournament a couple months ago, I faked a deep cut and sprinted under to receive the disc. Now that I’d caught it, I had to look for someone to pass the disc to next. Almost like it was in slow motion, I saw one of my teammates running full speed towards the endzone. I had an instinct, like I knew what to do without even thinking. I brought my right arm back and 

swung the disc with all my might. It was a perfect flick, sailing through the air, headed directly towards where my teammate was running. The next couple minutes were a blur of cheers, screams, and hugs as we celebrated that amazing play. Everyone was in awe of that throw. It may have been the longest, most accurate, most beautiful throw I had ever performed in my ultimate career, and it came at the perfect moment without me even really preparing or thinking about it. It just came naturally. 

Me hugging my teammate who caught the disc after my flick throw described above.

Even though the whole play was probably under 15 seconds, I think fondly of it all the time. I watch the video someone took of that throw just to relive that moment and hear everyone screaming my name. I think about how all the practice, all the failed flicks, and all the wobbly discs have all paid off for that moment. All the frustration from my mediocre throws was motivation for me to keep practicing those flicks, and now throwing a seamless flick with the right grip is automated for me. There’s still room to improve, of course, so I’ve been practicing longer, more powerful throws. But now I know what I can do. I know what I’m capable of. I came from that first terrible throw all those years ago to an amazing throw just like that girl from high school. Practicing may not always seem like it’ll pay off, but there will be a moment where you know it did. That moment came about a year and a half after I joined ultimate frisbee, when I made that throw. I realized that while every practice and throw may not be my best, they all contribute to the end result. Commitment is key. Don’t give up. 

I was able to talk to Dawn Culton, a nationally regarded rising ultimate frisbee star. She played throughout high school and for the University of North Carolina, and is now part of the US Women’s U-24 team for ultimate frisbee. She talked about how being committed to the sport has helped her grow. There were significant challenges, including the pandemic, but being physically and mentally present to all tournaments and practices is what pushed her through. The point about being mentally present really spoke to me, because you can be in the best physical shape but without the right mindset, you’re toast. I’ve learned to have a growth mindset in frisbee and focus on my improvements rather than my failures, which translates to all aspects of college. I’ve had a lot of “oops” moments where I’m running behind on an assignment or I have an issue with my friend or roommate, but instead of getting in my head about it, I really try to improve for the future. I’m a big overthinker but frisbee has taught me to trust the process and be more free. To not think so much but to just let it happen naturally. I’m proud of the progress I’ve made and excited for the growth that’s yet to come.

Use this student discount to treat yourself to a smoothie or bowl!


By Agatha Edwards

Agatha Edwards is a rising junior at Brandeis University from Brooklyn, New York. She is majoring in health: science, society, and policy as well as psychology. She enjoys playing ultimate frisbee with her college team, going on runs, reading, writing, and binging TV shows. She enjoys exploring NYC and Boston with friends, especially where there are cute coffee shops involved.

For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.  

At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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Chapter One: An Introduction to Ultimate Frisbee

Wednesday, June 21st, 2023
My frisbee team, the Brandeis Banshee, at Northeast Regional Championships last spring

Jogging past the Hudson River on a breezy afternoon, I spy a disc zipping through the air. My high school’s ultimate frisbee team is having practice. I long to join them and sprint after that disc, make a sick catch and spike the frisbee hard on the grass, yet I can’t. I run Varsity cross country and track, and I have practice every single day. Turning my head around to focus on the path in front of me, I think, maybe someday. 

Three years later, I’m anxiously pacing towards a group of girls huddled on the corner of the Brandeis University club field. I almost didn’t come tonight because I’m nervous about a new sport and meeting new people. But I’m taking the chance and going to this first ultimate frisbee practice because who knows, it could be fun. 

Little did I know it would change my life. 

Ultimate frisbee is a seven versus seven non-contact sport played on an outdoor field. It is one of the fastest growing sports in the world, played by over 30 countries and by many high schools and colleges in the US. The goal is to pass the frisbee among players and make it to the endzone in order to score a point. The rules are like football and soccer, although ultimate is a non-contact sport. 

It was difficult at first to learn all the new terminology for ultimate. In terms of sports, I had only done basketball for a year in middle school, and then cross country and track for several years, which didn’t involve any ball or object. With ultimate, I had to learn how to hold and throw the disc, field formations (vertical stack, zone, poachy defense), names of certain plays we had to carry out, and how to cut successfully on offense, which is making a move on the field to get open for the disc. I learned how to be strategic and smart. 

Me, #64, high-fiving my teammate during a tournament

Another thing that was new to me was Spirit of the Game. Ultimate frisbee heavily emphasizes good sportsmanship, fairness, and honesty. As opposed to ice hockey or football, which can sometimes get messy, I noticed that my frisbee teammates were constantly encouraging and lifting each other up and giving positive feedback to each other. At my first tournament, we shouted team cheers and high fived after every single point. Though there is fierce competition with other teams on the field, we were all friendly with each other because of the pure joy that comes with playing this sport. The mindset of “I’ve got you next time” instead of “sorry for messing that up” really transformed my outlook on not just frisbee, but life. Immediately after each point during a tournament, my coach always says that the next point has already started, and to focus on that. For my schoolwork now, I try to focus on the next time, or the next opportunity, instead of drowning in failures of the past. I keep my head clear and focus on the future, what I can do to improve, and proactively go after it.

Now, three times a week, I have something to look forward to after classes. This motivates me to complete my work on time so that I can have fun and work hard at frisbee practice. This helps me balance my education with my extracurricular activities. I’m able to get great exercise in and focus on something other than schoolwork for a couple hours. And on days we don’t have practice, sometimes I’ll toss a frisbee casually with teammates to take a break from schoolwork or just to unwind and hang out. The positivity encapsulated by these teammates made me look forward to frisbee even more. The decision to go to that first practice that night may have been one of the best I’ve ever made. I’ve found a sport I love and a community I vibe with. Being surrounded by these friends helped me develop a passion for ultimate and motivated me to work harder at practice for the team. More on that next… 

Use this student discount to treat yourself to a free coffee with the purchase of a pastry at Paris Baguette!

By Agatha Edwards

Agatha Edwards is a rising junior at Brandeis University from Brooklyn, New York. She is majoring in health: science, society, and policy as well as psychology. She enjoys playing ultimate frisbee with her college team, going on runs, reading, writing, and binging TV shows. She enjoys exploring NYC and Boston with friends, especially where there are cute coffee shops involved.

For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.  

At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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Chapter 2: Keeping Parents in the Picture

Thursday, August 11th, 2022

After the last lamp is unloaded from the pile of Amazon boxes and set up in your room–with maybe a few choice words uttered along the way–, you follow your parents back outside to your family car. The trunk is still open from unloading all of your many (some would say too many) dorm necessities and decorations for your first year in college. With the momentous closing of the trunk, you exchange heartfelt goodbyes with your parents, filled with tight hugs, words of encouragement, and maybe even a tear or two for good measure. As the family car pulls away from your very first dorm building, you can’t help but take a deep breath and savor your newfound freedom. Your parents are (seemingly) out of your life for good, and you can’t help but feel a wave of excitement for all of the fun you’re going to have. No parents mean no rules, and no rules mean you can do whatever you want. It’s time to start a new adventure.

Except… that’s not really how it works. Your parents are not gone forever. In fact, they might even be coming back in four weeks for parent’s weekend. Maybe you have plans to see them over a fall break or Thanksgiving weekend. Regardless of how much you see them when your parents send you off to college, it doesn’t stop them from being your parents. For better or for worse, your parents play a significant role in shaping who you are as a person. On a strictly surface level, they feed you, clothe you, and give you shelter. Sometimes they are the ones driving you to and from school or registering you for different activities. They even impact your mannerisms, interests, and personality traits in ways you don’t even realize. Even though they won’t be present in your everyday life anymore, you can work to maintain a good relationship with them while in college. Using the following tips and tricks can help you to form a great bond with your parental guardians while still expressing your freedom in your time away from home.

My first and most important tip is to set a time to call your parents each week. While the average college student has frequent contact with their parents, remembering to do this can be valuable for anyone in college. I strongly recommend doing something like this for a multitude of reasons. It gives your parents an opportunity to know what’s going on in your life. If you have a positive relationship with your parents, it helps you catch up with each other. If you have a less than positive relationship with your parents, this can be an easy way to keep minimal contact with them. If you are a person who enjoys having structure and making plans to keep yourself accountable, regimented meetings such as these every week can even become benchmarks for organizing a schedule, or an exercise in debriefing your week out loud with people who care about you. Weekly phone calls were something that I struggled with at first because I felt completely sucked into my college experience, leaving no room to think about what was happening at home. This is largely because I go to a college that is close to where I live, so I was focused on completely separating my life at home from my life at college. I was afraid that my parents would try to act as if I had never gone to college and were going to expect me to be at home when I didn’t want to be. But by establishing firm boundaries between home and college, I was able to enjoy my time on campus while not feeling bad about coming home once in a while for special events. Now, going to my senior year, I often look forward to reconnecting with my parents. Instead of being a reminder of my home that I wanted to escape, they became an escape from some of my more chaotic times at college. 

One of the downsides to living on your own and away from your parents is that you lack them as a readily available resource. While adjusting to doing everything on your own can be difficult, it is okay to ask for help. Often, parents can become even more eager to help their children with whatever may be concerning them during this difficult transition to independent living at college. However, it can be tempting to abuse this and just ask your parents to do everything for you, like asking them to fill out certain forms when you don’t want to deal with them. This brings me to my next piece of advice, which is to ask your parents to teach you how to do things, not to have them do things for you. While Google can be your best friend for smaller tasks, you can use your parents as a resource for bigger tasks that require more explaining or experience to teach. Using your parents as a resource is important because it forces you to learn how to do the activity yourself instead of having to learn it on the fly when you’re living alone. College is all about learning, so what better time is there to learn life skills than in a safe environment where there are fewer consequences if something goes wrong? And if you’re someone who likes to talk with your parents, this can be another excuse to catch up or learn hilarious stories from when they were learning these life skills. 

In the same way that you don’t want to take advantage of your parents, you also want to make sure that your parents don’t take advantage of you and try to dictate your college experience. It’s no secret that parents today are more involved in their child’s life than ever before. While the ever-inflating price of a college degree may be perceived as a good reason for that, some parents use that as an excuse to control every aspect of their child’s life, from the classes they can take to the places that they can live. This can lead to students going through multiple years of college studying subjects they have no interest in or missing a social life they desperately need. While I acknowledge that every situation is different and that it can be difficult to go against your parent’s requests, I strongly recommend that you work as hard as you can to have a college and independent living experience that is good for you, not one that is strictly good for your parents. One helpful tactic when discussing with your parents about these issues is to not ask what they want but to ask what they are trying to accomplish. Here’s an example: a year ago, my parents asked me for the password to my log in to my portal account in college. I didn’t feel comfortable with my parents being able to go into my account at all times, so I asked them why they wanted access to the account. I learned that they wanted to know my grades at the end of each semester. We were able to come to an agreement that I could find a time to show them my grades each semester, instead of them going in to check themselves. While this won’t work all the time, addressing the root of the issue can help both parties come together towards a better solution. 

At the end of the day, every family is different, and your relationship with your parents is unique to you. Maybe you love to talk to them every day, or maybe you prefer learning how to do things by yourself. Nevertheless, I hope one or more of these tips can be useful to you. If you learn anything from this, it’s that a relationship with your parents is not only worth maintaining but can be invaluable for a great college experience. By the time I was getting ready to start my first semester, I, like many other college students, was basically starting to get sick of my parents. Everything they did and said annoyed me, and I felt like I had to get away from them at all costs. But by the end of the first year, I felt like my relationship with my parents was stronger than ever before. As long as you put in a little effort, happy parents can help you go a long way in both college and beyond.

Speaking of adults and responsibilities, setting dentist appointments are one in the large list of things that you’re going to have to figure out how to manage and afford for yourself. Luckily, Ultimate Dental of Cambridge has your back. You can get up 20% off an appointment with this coupon and a student ID.

By: Lucas Pratt

Lucas Pratt is a senior at Boston College studying Philosophy, English, and Chinese. He enjoys games of all kinds, Dungeons and Dragons, and getting around to finishing the copy of Dune that’s been sitting on his nightstand for months on end. Lucas has decided that the words “employable majors” don’t mean anything to him, and is eagerly seeing where the world takes him in the future.

For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet✎  and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services. At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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Chapter 1: Keeping Up With Your High School Friends

Thursday, July 28th, 2022

One of the most integral parts of the college experience is moving away from home to explore new horizons in the brave new world of college. However, people inevitably get left behind in the process whenever someone goes somewhere new. When you were growing up, it’s very likely that you made a couple of friends along your path to adulthood. Sometimes you saw these friends daily, whether in class, in clubs, or just hanging out in your free time. Not being able to see these friends who you’ve spent all of your time with for much of your daily life may be easy for some people but can be a big adjustment for others when they get to college. 

Image Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/jCEpN62oWL4

In my experience, people tend to have one of two reactions when interacting with their high school friends in college: people either stay very closely attached to those friendships, or they neglect them altogether. It is important to remember that wherever you go, these relationships will still be a part of your life, and there are ways to include them in your life in a balanced way.

The best way to manage high school friendships is to set times to talk to them each week. If there are high school friends that you find yourself wanting to maintain some kind of relationship with, the first step is to track how much time you’re already interacting with them, whether it’s long video calls or short text exchanges. If you find that you’re constantly catching up on long calls with your friends back home, the best solution to this is to set a time each week to chat with them. While staying connected with your friends is good, you want to be careful to avoid doing so at the cost of your social life at college. College has a diverse social landscape chock-full of opportunities to try new things and to meet new people. It is important to take at least some time to explore these opportunities. College is now, and it will likely be at least a few months before you see your high school friends again. Once you get to the point where you have some roots at college, you can start dividing the time between high school and college friends however you like. Setting times to talk to people can also be helpful if you already have trouble maintaining relationships with people, especially ones you want to keep. Set a reminder for yourself to send a text or two a week to a few friends, just asking them about how they’ve been. While it may not seem like much, these little gestures can go a long way in maintaining friendships, and they are an easy way to hold yourself accountable. Sometimes people can struggle socially at college, and these little messages can help friends lean on one another. 

My second tip for high school friendships is to recognize that people are going to inevitably change. College is a completely new environment that is different from that of your hometown, and that means people are going to have the opportunity to explore themselves without the influence of parents, teachers, or other people that they’ve had in their life. Maybe they pick up a new hobby or start to explore another side of their personality. Either way, the next time you see your high school friends, it is very likely they will not be the same person as when you left them. In some cases, this could mean strengthening a bond with a person who is more in touch with themselves than ever before. In other cases, this could mean that a relationship that was strong before doesn’t last a year after college. This is totally okay. Not every relationship you have has to last forever. Starting and ending relationships is just a part of life. You do not have to feel guilty that you don’t connect with a person the same way you did before. Now you can use the experiences from that relationship to become a better person for your new friends down the line.

My final tip is to give your high school friends a chance. I think some people tend to get caught up in the newness of college. People hear that college will be the best four years of their life, and, as a result,  will try to leave everything in their “old life” behind. Like it or not, your old life is still your life, and the things that happened in it are going to influence you moving forward. In addition, this attitude can create high expectations of your time in college that may never be reached. Yes, it is true that college can be the best four years of your life, but that doesn’t mean it has to or that it will be. Yes, it is true that you may drift apart from people you may not be as compatible with anymore, but sometimes you can keep some really good friends from your high school years and continue to grow with them. Just as you can’t afford to waste any new opportunities in college, you can’t waste any old opportunities with your friends back home. 

And finally, when you do go back home for break, what better way to catch up on college memories than on some good food in the city? You can try some great North Indian food at Punjab Palace! You can get 10% off your takeout order with your student ID!

By: Lucas Pratt

Lucas Pratt is a senior at Boston College studying Philosophy, English, and Chinese. He enjoys games of all kinds, Dungeons and Dragons, and getting around to finishing the copy of Dune that’s been sitting on his nightstand for months on end. Lucas has decided that the words “employable majors” don’t mean anything to him, and is eagerly seeing where the world takes him in the future.

For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet✎  and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services. At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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Are You Still Watching?

Sunday, July 24th, 2022

Surely we have all come across this question once or twice before in our lives—the one Netflix asks you when you have been watching TV all day and they want to do a cute little check in to make sure you’re still there. At which point you pause, think to yourself, “wow, have I really been watching all day?” and then you proceed to hit “continue watching.” What fun!

If there was a time that we needed entertainment the most, it was during the pandemic. We were cut off from our friends, our family members, our neighbors, and basically everyone who we didn’t already live with, and aside from worrying about our safety, it was a time of mass boredom. We seemed to have so much time on our hands, so what were we to do with it?

At the beginning, for me at least, keeping busy took the form of watching TV. It was easy to do before, in between, or after Zoom classes, and it doesn’t take a lot of energy to keep you engaged. I had just gotten Disney+ the previous winter, and during a time of increased isolation, you could say I was feeling a bit nostalgic. I started watching some of my favorite childhood TV shows like Wizards of Waverly Place. Then, I obviously had to undertake the very strenuous task of watching all of the Marvel movies in timeline order. I later started watching the more predictable teenage fan favorites, like The Vampire Diaries and Outer Banks, and after finally succumbing to all of the traction it was gaining on TikTok and Twitter, I regrettably watched the first season of Tiger King (key word, first). As many I’m sure can agree, it was a time that was favorable to consuming all kinds of content in whatever way we could get it.

But the allure of the television could only last for so long, and soon I was looking for other things to do once my time freed up after classes were done for the semester. First, it was making friendship bracelets (which turned out terrible), then it was painting any and everything in my room (not as bad as the friendship bracelets but still not my best work), and finally it was doing 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles (subtle flex, I know).

My family was also trying to find new ways to spend time together, since we were all getting caught up in the monotony. We started getting takeout every Wednesday so we could have a treat to look forward to, even though we usually just rotated between our usual favorite restaurants. When the weather started to get nice and it was safe to spend time with people outdoors, we took our dog on a family walk every Sunday at nearby parks and trails. Although I did not love getting up early on weekends, it was a nice way to get some exercise, leave the house, and spend time with my family.

Hunter, the 15-year old dog in question.

At school, trying to find ways to be social and have fun while keeping myself and others safe was also a challenge. We couldn’t go back to doing all the things we enjoyed doing at college, but we just had to find new things and expand our horizons. For instance, during the fall of 2020, my roommates and I went to a pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins and get ice cream. It was a great way to do something fun while also abiding by COVID-19 guidelines.

Self-explanatory.

Out of all the activities I did to keep myself occupied during the pandemic, the thing that I did the most was read. Throughout my life, I have always loved reading—getting lost in fictitious worlds, being inspired by my favorite characters. When I was little, I would go through books incredibly fast, especially if they came from the Magic Tree House series. Of course, children’s books are shorter, but I also just had more time and energy to immerse myself in a good read. In middle and high school, I still loved to read, but I didn’t make it as much of a priority as other things—like homework, sports, and extracurriculars. It wasn’t until quarantine that I truly began to rekindle my love for reading. I would take my books, lay outside in the sun, and read for hours. I also started to read a little bit each night before I went to bed, which had one of two effects: either it would help me fall asleep, or it would keep me up half the night turning the pages. Regardless, I made a promise to myself that I would read a little bit each day, even while I was at school; reading was not only something that I loved to do, but it was also a great form of escapism during a time when many of us needed it most.

Our lives are so busy that we rarely take the time to pause and do things for ourselves. We always come up with excuses or push things off, but it’s important to make time for things that matter to us. Of course, work will always be important, but finding small moments every day to do something for you—even if it’s just a chapter a night—can be just as important, whether you are at school or at home. Honestly, if the pandemic had not come along to slow things down, I might not have realized just how caught up I was in the motions of everyday life. I think that sometimes we feel like entertainment is synonymous with wasting time, but it’s always important to take a breather, blow off some steam, and immerse yourself in something that makes you happy. It won’t always come easy, since as I’m sure we can all attest, these last few years have introduced us to a feeling of fatigue like no other, one that makes social activities or hobbies feel just as draining as work. Finding what gives you joy comes in bits and pieces and changes all the time, so just remember to be patient with yourself. 

And, if you’re looking to start your own version of take-out Wednesdays, use this coupon to get 10% off Indian cuisine from Punjab Palace!

By: Katie Reed

Katie Reed is a senior at Villanova University studying English and Communication. She is in utter disbelief that she just admitted to being a senior. She loves to read, but has made barely a dent in the increasingly large pile of books on her bookshelf that she told herself she would read this summer. She hopes to enter a career in the editing and publishing industry.

For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services. At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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hot potato but make it a metaphor for zoom university 

Tuesday, July 19th, 2022

Picture this: you’re playing Extreme Hot Potato for the first time. 

You’ve never played before. You don’t automatically know what makes it extreme- you just know that you signed up, so now you’re playing. You’re a little nervous, a little excited. You bounce on the balls of your feet; you put your hands up like a baseball star, ready to play. 

Suddenly there’s a flaming lump being launched at you. 

Your eyes widen in shock. It’s coming fast, but your brain is faster. 

As the potato, hurls towards you, you process a few things. The first is that this is the potato you are supposed to catch. It is literally on fire, blackened at this point. Definitely overcooked.

The second is anger, because no one told you the “extreme” part of the game would be literally catching something on fire. You would’ve said no, or worn a catcher’s glove, or waited to say yes until you knew how to approach such a weird, wild concept, or something. There were a dozen ways to have handled it but now, with no way to prepare, you’ll probably end up with a hell of a burn.

But you don’t have time to be angry and, as the air around you gets warmer, you brace yourself for the incoming pain, your hands rigid in front of you, and prepare to catch the fiery starch. 

It’s too late to turn back now.

orange lineart drawing of a potato on fire
That is one very hot potato!

Sometimes that’s life- a game of Extreme Hot Potato, with twists and turns you never saw coming. Adolescent life, especially, can be capricious in all the worst ways. There’s dozens of coming-of-age films and books that’ve been written with the sole purpose of reminding fully-grown taxpayers about just how hard it was, and teaching up-and-coming adults how hard it will likely be. Between trying to balance autonomy with still needing support, learning to take care of yourself, doing schoolwork, making friends, holding a job, financing your education, and classes all at once, sometimes it feels like there’s barely time to breathe. Then, worse than any flaming potatoes, 2020 threw in a global pandemic. 

When COVID-19 hit an ill-prepared United States, no one was ready for it. It destroyed peoples’ lives and health, wreaking havoc on the country’s most vulnerable and marginalized citizens. For the people who weren’t dying or struggling with a weakened immune system, it was incredibly isolating. 

While not nearly as tragic as the numerous deaths it caused, the pandemic intensified the difficulties of young adulthood. It was disruptive to the college experience, leaving numerous students without housing or resources they thought they would have. A struggle it caused- that I can speak to more accurately- is how lonely it was. Best friends went from being neighbors to only being able to talk from six feet away, if you were lucky enough to live nearby. I was recently talking to my friend about some of the stuff I’d gone through over the pandemic, which had been a wild ride and a half. I’d broken up with my ex, gone through a few different jobs, dated, and tried to make new friends. My friend, one of the closest people to me when I’d been living on campus, only knew the parts of my life I’d shared online. We lamented the distance quarantine had created, the way the intricacies of social connection had been lost to distance. Not being able to be around one another on campus prevented us from being able to support each other as closely. You can’t really lean on someone from states away.

We were a single case study. Research conducted for the Children and Youth Services Review found that the impact of COVID-19 made students in India more “likely to suffer from stress, anxiety, and depression” (“COVID-19 and its impact on…”)) in addition to negatively affecting their scholarly habits. In the United States, the Center for Collegiate Mental Health found that of 43,098 students who sought mental health counseling, 94% reported that at least one part of their life had been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic (“COVID-19 Impact on College Student Mental Health”). The most affected part of life for the students interviewed, at a resounding 72%, was their mental health; at a barely-lower percentage of 68% were their feelings of isolation. Considering the CCMH report only acknowledges the responses of students who had the resources to seek treatment, it’s safe to assume the pandemic left its mark on the vast majority of us; it changed the course of our college experience.

I haven’t touched on everything else- the difficulties of staying focused in Zoom University, or the way the pandemic prevented students from accessing the facilities or materials necessary to do their work, or the way not everyone had a place to go or a family they could be around safely when it came time to evacuate campuses. Without any need for elaboration, I think it’s clear that all of it, compounded, created a hostile learning environment in an already-tumultuous period of life.

Perhaps the best thing to come from the COVID-19 College Experience was resilience. As someone who stuck through Zoom University, I was able to get a place off-campus, in the same town as my friends from school, and have a semi-normal senior year. Things got better. Proximity allowed me to be closer to my chosen family, to have people around me that I could go to for support, and to have access to my college’s resources. I saw the world start to heal, starting with the little community of Lesley University. For some people, persistence took a different form. Whether it was a gap year or the realization that a traditional college education wasn’t the path for them, the pandemic encouraged people to branch out, finding creative solutions that fit their needs, growing like plants through cracks in the pavement. We all found a way to keep going.

orange lineart drawing of two folks having a talk on a park bench
Sometimes you need a good heart-to-heart with the friend you got separated from at the hands of a global pandemic.

Extreme Hot Potato burns, but you make it out alive.

tl;dr: the only way out is through.

You did it! You survived quarantine and made it all the way through college. You- and your chosen family, made up of a ragtag group of college pals- deserve a sweet treat. 

With your student IDs and the help of a Campus Clipper coupon, you can get just that at Pavement Coffeehouse- and all from the comfort of your own home! By using the promo code specified in the advertisement, you can get five dollars off of your first mobile order.

By Ness Curti

Ness Curti is a freshly-graduated illustrator from the Lesley College of Art and Design. A part-time bobarista and full-time New England adventurer, they hope to one day tell stories for a living, whether through art or words. They enjoy doodling, procrastinating, and saying hello to the dogs they pass on the sidewalk.

For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.  At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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Living in Moments of History

Tuesday, July 12th, 2022

College is a time for a person to grow and reflect. I suppose that is why they call it “higher education,” since in four years, the goal is for you to leave school as a better version of yourself, and ideally, a better human being. You’re not just concerned about landing a career (sorry mom and dad), but you are trying to learn about the world around you and your place within it. It’s a turbulent time in a young person’s life, and when you mix that with a global pandemic that ushers in a time of increased isolation and awareness of current events, it prompts more learning, thinking, and reflecting than ever before.

During one of my Zoom classes in the Spring 2020 semester, my professor declared that we were all “living in history” as we were all exiting the meeting. It took me by surprise, for despite being such a short sentence, the truth of it resonated deeply with me. We were, seemingly, entering a new era of human life. Students read about things like the Black Death or the flu outbreak and thought “this could never happen to us,” yet there we were, dinosaurs with no warning of the impending asteroid. It seemed like, similar to some of our favorite apocalyptic stories, a worldwide catastrophe would connect all of us. Like the cast of High School Musical might say, we would be all in this together.

Spoiler alert! We were not. What was supposed to unite us—a common enemy in the form of a viral disease—was a topic of contention, especially as alt-right groups were fear-mongering to spread misinformation about the vaccine and calling COVID-19 a hoax.

Image credit: https://mississippitoday.org/2020/12/16/marshall-ramsey-vaccination/

But this was only the beginning, and the pandemic was not the only moment of history that we were living through. COVID-19, as many before me have pointed out, brought with it a social reckoning, one that opened many eyes—namely white Americans who did not understand the reality of the privilege they possess—to how corrupt our country truly is. The pandemic has been described as removing distractions from our lives, and it became a time to be engaged and plugged in, critiquing our society and the institutional systems of oppression that were always present but greatly exacerbated by COVID-19.

So much has happened over the last couple of years that it doesn’t do it justice in just one short piece of writing. Beginning with the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, systemic racism and police brutality were once again brought to the forefront of the minds of all Americans. We saw how unfair policing practices like no knock warrants took the lives of Breonna Taylor and Amir Locke. We lived through a dangerously heated presidential election—the first I ever voted in—and though the election of Joe Biden seemed to bring about a shift in the tide, the insurrection on January 6th demonstrated just how fundamentally divided and disappointing our country is. Guns have more rights than any person in this country, as there are always more mass shootings in the United States than there are days in the year (330 at the beginning of the day, 332 when I refreshed the data before posting). LGBTQ+ individuals are being targeted with dangerous legislation like the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida, which open the doors to the erasure and silencing of those who identify with the community. Most recently, those in this country who can get pregnant were stripped of their reproductive rights as Roe v. Wade was overturned—a decision made by only five people, but jeopardizes the lives of all Americans seeking abortions and disproportionately affects marginalized communities. More than that, Justice Clarence Thomas is looking to overturn other important cases such as Griswold v. Connecticut, Lawrence v. Texas, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which targets legislation that, respectively, guarantees the right to contraceptives, same-sex sexual relationships, and same-sex marriage. It feels like we are not only living in moments of history, but we are being sent back to the past and making the same mistakes over again.

Image credit: https://www.afscme.org/blog/marches-this-saturday-will-defend-reproductive-justice

If there is anything that I have learned from all of this, it is the importance of paying attention and having conversations driven by human empathy. The pandemic in general showed us that we need to be kind to one another and help each other out when we can, but it also highlighted the inequity our nation operates on and exploits. In a conversation with Dr. Mary Mullen, an English professor at Villanova last year, she astutely pointed out that college campuses like to think they operate in a bubble, one that merely spectates the history of the world around it; but they do not. They are shaping and being shaped by outside forces, and at such a critical moment in our lives when we are trying to figure out who we want to be and come to terms with our own identity, we need to be willing to learn and to listen, especially with all that is going on in our world right now. It’s important to take classes that you are interested in and push you to grow and reflect on yourself—what you think about the world and why. To look at perspectives that reach beyond your own, to remember that humanity can only be at its best when we accept and learn from one another. To include everyone who is left out of the conversation and to remember the stories that are conveniently left out of the K-12 school system.

It feels like the closest this nation has been to unity was in 2019 when we all promised not to post any spoilers for Avengers Endgame. How nice it would be for us to care about each other in the same way again.   

Tough transition, but if you are ever in need of some escapism and fun, be sure to use this coupon for Balance Patch and play some video games!

By: Katie Reed

Katie Reed is a senior at Villanova University studying English and Communication. She is in utter disbelief that she just admitted to being a senior. She loves to read, but has made barely a dent in the increasingly large pile of books on her bookshelf that she told herself she would read this summer. She hopes to enter a career in the editing and publishing industry.

For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services. At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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Love Like Her: Empathy

Tuesday, July 5th, 2022

“Oh, it goes beyond sympathy. Sympathy is to understand what someone feels; empathy is to project your imagination so that you actually feel what the other person is feeling: you put yourself in the other person’s place. Do I make myself clear?”

Funny Face. Directed by Stanley Donen, Paramount Pictures, 1957.

If I could have any superpower I would sprout a field of flowers that would give people empathy once a flower is picked. Empathy is a selfless gift all people need to possess, yet most do not. It’s a social intelligence people should learn when they’re small: to treat people how you want to be treated. 

“I don’t want to have sex with someone, unless, they’re my boyfriend,” I’d tell him, “we don’t have to be in love. I just want to make sure it’s worth it, I guess.” It was a rule I made for myself when I decided I was ready, but it was a rule I let slip. Nearly a week later, he would write in the essay I was helping him with: “my girlfriend is annoying.” I decided to ignore it. People should vocalize the people they want? He kept it up though, he would suggest in little ways I was already his girlfriend without ever communicating it. Maybe he was afraid? Maybe, even though I vocalized that I wanted to be in a relationship with him, he was still insecure? I kept extending myself to him in that way, collecting more and more flowers. Perhaps, some part of him thought I would change my mind. I understood how scary that is and so I let him in. Once I did, he changed. I would always think of him in some capacity. I thought of how my every word, action, and mood would affect him. I wanted him to be happy and I wanted to make sure I was making him happy, that’s all. When that was not reciprocated, I could taste the way things would end before they did.

During the evening of my mother’s and father’s relationship, my dad was incarcerated, my brother was on his way, and my mom was tired. Before he went away, for what was the next five years of my life, there were no more blockbuster dates. My dad had his own apartment and my mom and I lived in the same house just a few floors higher. She went to work a lot and sometimes I’d even go with her. The clues of separation only come to me now. I saw my dad less and less, but after a long week, he was my weekend vacation. I was in sweet little kid bliss. Even when we all hung out separately everything was okay. When my dad was arrested I saw their closing come to a halt. Whatever happened between them was now in a back pocket. When my dad needed someone most he knew who was in his corner, despite everything.

I knew the boy stopped thinking of me when I was no longer something to have. It was as if we were no longer friends. He didn’t want to hang out and play video games, talk, or watch movies anymore. He would only come around for two things: sex and empathy. He would always make up excuses that were tailored in an effort to get what he wanted. I knew I would never let him feel the way he was making me feel, but I stayed. I couldn’t understand why the relationship was changing the way that it did. From there, we were on a rollercoaster that was just in for a loop when we decided to quarantine together those first covid months. He had nothing to prove when it was just us but he never stopped being apathetic. When he became so naturally codependent on me and I decided I would never allow myself to depend on someone like him. “I don’t need you,” I’d tell him in the kindest way possible. “I can take care of myself,” I’d remind him. “I just want you, not need” he had to remember. During our true finale, when I told him, “you always said such mean things to me, I didn’t deserve that.” He would respond with “and you did too.” When I asked him to name examples he’d bring up those old conversations of how I never needed him, how he did me, and how I told it to him.   

I learned that undoubtedly from all the women in my family, especially my mother. Caring comes naturally to a woman in a relationship otherwise she couldn’t call it her own. Regardless of herself, she is supposed to tend, water, feed, and love so fiercely. My mother, she showed enough care and love for both of them to exist as parents. She wrote letters and letters reminding him of how much love he had.  She couldn’t bear the thought of being taken away from her daughter’s first day of kindergarten and her son’s first day of life. She wrote all the things she wanted and would want to hear if her mistakes had pulled her away from the things she loved most. Her heart broke in all the ways she thought his heart was. She put so much time and energy into her empathy. Her only remedy for being taken for granted was to never need in return. To take care of herself second and to depend on no one because how awful would it feel to receive love the same amount of love you give for it to be taken away. 

When she was finally on the outside, having that free time she then thought of herself instead. Picking flowers and actually smelling them. He was so far away now taking up less space and there was finally room to breathe and become. To become someone who wasn’t a pile of everyone else’s feelings. That is when she learned to dance. 

I never believed that everything he did and said was what I did not deserve. I kept telling myself that I wasn’t good enough and that was the best excuse he wore. I was angry at myself all the time and when I wanted to be hurt I’d call him. I didn’t love him. I wouldn’t ever love him in that way even if we were happy. But, I knew then I thought that was the love I thought I deserved. I let him treat me the same way I treated myself and the way I have always been treated. 

If I could have any superpower I would sprout a field of flowers that would give people empathy once a flower is picked. Not only would they learn to treat others how they’d want to be treated, but they’d learn to have empathy for themselves. When I  take the time to understand my feelings and give myself room to feel those feelings without shame, that’s empathy. I am going to be stuck with myself for the rest of my life. And as I grow older I find I would never treat someone the way I do myself. I can be unkind, ruthless to my brain and body, and still push myself to do and be in situations that steal from my person. The first step toward receiving what I deserve from the world is by creating a blueprint. 

Edited by Jackson Bailey
Take some time to self-care at Enail in NYC, where you can receive healthy and high-end nail services. Save up to 15% with this coupon and your student ID or 20% during happy hour.

By Melodie Goncalves

Melodie Goncalves is a rising senior at Rhode Island College pursuing her degree in English/Creative Writing and Sociology. She has passions for reading, writing, caring for others, and music. Spending lots of her time with friends and family.

For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services. At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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Overture: New Musical Beginnings

Wednesday, June 29th, 2022

The night before I was set to move out of the apartment I had been subletting for the fall  semester of my junior year, I found myself surrounded by boxes, bare walls and my two roommates. We were strangers upon moving in, but sharing a living space is a sure way to expedite friendship, and the three of us became very close almost instantly. In the corner of my empty closet, a violin case caught my roommate’s eye. “Lu, we’ve never heard you play violin before… will you play us something?” 

Her request made me hesitate. I hadn’t played violin in almost two years and couldn’t remember how to play anything off the top of my head. Suddenly, all the memories of dancing to our favorite songs in the kitchen came to mind, and I knew exactly what to do. 

“Here’s an idea – how about you pick your favorite songs and I’ll play them?”

“You can do that? Without looking up the sheet music or anything?”

“Sure thing,” I responded, thinking back to my years of sight reading, hundreds of hours of practice, and my carefully trained ear. I know my violin like an extension of my own body, and years of listening and playing have taught me how to instantaneously process a melody and bring it to life. 

Their dubious expressions turned dumbstruck as they started naming songs, and, one by one, watched me bring them to life by listening to a snippet of the song, bringing the violin to my neck, and using muscle memory to play it on the spot, adding harmonies and embellishments as I went.

“I can’t believe you were hiding a secret talent from us all this time!” they exclaimed. I wasn’t hiding it, exactly, but it’s true that my violin had been sitting at the back of my closet for almost two years.

An early snapshot of me playing violin.

I started playing violin at the age of five, driven to lessons and daily practice entirely by my mother’s volition. As a child, I dreaded the long hours and frustratingly slow progress, but with the help of my naturally musical ear I grew to embrace the hobby. As I entered high school, violin became one of the most central parts of my life. 

I loved the sense of community I found at music school, and cherished the feeling of playing in groups, the sense of being a part of something bigger than myself. And, of course, I loved the music itself. I was entranced by its sweeping declarations, its way of telling stories without words, conveying emotions that only music can. Living with parents who encouraged my musical pursuits, violin easily fell into my daily routine. Every day I came home from school and practiced for two hours a day, playing scales over and over again, picking apart notes and phrases, striving for perfection.

When I moved to Chicago for college, my violin came with me, and I kept up a daily practice routine. But without my parents looking over my shoulder, I began to question if I really wanted to continue spending time in the practice room, especially when I could be chipping away at an ever-growing mountain of homework or socializing with my new friends. I could feel my old routine of violin slipping out of my grasp, and it was scary. I wanted to hang onto this part of my life – hiding away in the practice room was my refuge from a sea of uncertainty that waited beyond the soundproof doors. But my time was too valuable, and I felt myself being pulled towards other things, new things. 

Just a couple of weeks into freshman year, I walked over to the club fair with a recent friend, recalling mishaps from our first few days on campus. The club fair was held in a huge room in the student center, and we followed a horde of fellow underclassmen up a wide staircase into a huge room of chaos. We were greeted by endless rows of tri-fold posters, folding tables, and streams of people walking up and down the aisles, each person talking a little louder than the person next to them. I lost my friend in the chaos and wandered down the aisles alone, totally lost, not sure how I would go about selecting between the five literary magazines and thirty volunteer groups. 

“There you are!” I was relieved to hear my friend’s voice, and even more relieved to hear that she was feeling similarly overwhelmed. Just as we were about to leave, we walked by a table in the corner with a notably more subdued vibe and a poster that said WNUR in huge letters. The seniors at the booth explained that the radio station was a great opportunity for music lovers to play music live on the air. I signed up, leaving with a sense of new beginnings. Although I didn’t know anything about working at a radio station, or rock music, I could envision myself being a part of the community. It was the first step I took outside of my comfort zone at college, and although I didn’t know it at the time, WNUR would become one of the most important parts of my life at Northwestern, a source of community and personal growth. 

It can be difficult to step away from something that has become such a large part of your life, especially when you aren’t exactly sure who you want to be or how to get there. By evaluating what aspects of my high school self fit into my life as I transitioned into college, I discovered that I needed to put my old hobbies aside to leave room to follow my instincts and see what I was drawn towards. In doing so, I chose to prioritize the person I wanted to become rather than preserving the person I already was. I didn’t know what lay ahead but I knew I was looking forward and envisioning the person I wanted to be. And that was all I needed to take that first step. 

Take this coupon and head over to one of my favorite bagel shops in NYC!! Save on bagels, sandwiches, coffee, and more.

By Lu Poteshman

Lu is a rising senior at Northwestern University, where she studies English Literature with a minor in Art, Theory and Practice. She is passionate about all things music and art, and loves to paint, draw, design things, write creatively, cook and explore in her free time. She is currently working towards her dreams of being a book editor by day and DJ by night.

For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.  

At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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