Essay

By Mamata.R CUISINE: Civilization old Preservative used: Culture Calories: rich in colours  Caution: may cause indigestion and burning sensation to disgusting guts and toxic ego Allergic to Imperialists and Narcissists Keep it away from the people of sick sensibility and weak sensitivity Ingredients: tolerance acceptance                        Adapting Hybridity Diversity Inclusiveness Gratitude Pinch of desire for validation Garnish with confidence                   Served w

By Jacob James Grigware The smaller the body the easier it is for a ripple to reflect chaos.  Imagine a still lake. The beauty and complexity of the sky is near-perfectly reflected in its surface. When looking at the moon in this lake, it is focused. Then a fish jumps, the wind gusts, a boulder crashes, and waves are made. There is nothing one can do to stop the fish from jumping, or the wind from gusting, or the boulder from crashing. Despite wants or wishes or exhaustive ef

By Jacob James Grigware and you’ve got the lead role. The play you’re currently starring in could be anything. It could be a comedy, a romance, a tragedy, a musical, for Christ's sake. It could be the longest god damn show ever, with little time for bathroom or popcorn breaks. It could also be short. Really short.  Characters within your show will come and go. More than likely, one or two or even a few will die. Their roles as family, friends, enemies, lovers, and even comic

By Ella Kang As animal lovers have been increasing throughout the past, animal testing started to float up to the surface of the spotlight with attention and concern. Hence, numerous problems, such as abuse and violence, have been acknowledged by the critical thinkers and the animal rights organizations. This caused the justification of animal testing to become one of the most viral topics in society. To increase the efficiency and the accuracy of scientific experiments durin

By Ella Kang As academic expectations drastically increased over the past decades, academic pressure on students have also augmented. As a result, students have been seeking new methods to enhance their academic performances: taking orally consumed ADHD pills, namely, Adderall. Being one of the most commonly diagnosed mental disorders, Attention Deficit or Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) causes several symptoms: difficulty in paying attention to one task, struggle to keep onese

By Ella Kang Most high school students, regardless of race or background, grind their sweat and soul, looking forward to one thing: college. Yet, prestigious colleges, where these dreamers pursue the most, require many qualifications from their applicants. These generally include high achieving grades and test results from nationwide tests such as ACT, SAT, AP, and IB tests. However, doing well on these exams are not good enough since colleges also look for elements such as a

By Brittany Lieteau Nutter Butters hold a sacred place in my heart. This cookie symbolizes my family dynamic. Two crunchy beige cookies, with four striations running along the top, and intersecting jagged lines to imply the texture of a real peanut. These are my parents, my foundation. Two light-skinned African American individuals who grew up post-civil rights era, but still faced adversity while growing up Black in South Central Los Angeles. They both persevered and carried

By Aashi Singh “ Hey ChatGPT, write me an essay about thinking for ourselves. ” That single line could easily create this very essay — fast, polished, efficient. But sometimes, I pause mid-sentence and wonder:  if AI can think for me, what’s left for me to think about? It was a Sunday evening, couple of months back, the day before an English essay was due. My iPad glowed softly in the dark. I stared at the blinking cursor and whispered to myself, “Just ask ChatGPT.” One click

By Asmi Mukhopadhyay We love to see the beautiful nature—blue sky, glistening sunlight, green trees, flowing rivers, captivating flowers, beautiful butterflies. But have we ever tried to be as compassionate as nature? We forget to have a broad mind as the sky, forget to glisten our heart as the sun, forget to be supportive as trees, receptive as water, selfless as flowers, and to open the wings of freedom as butterflies. Yes… we forget everything. We could not listen to the p

By Asmi Mukhopadhyay Again, there is Selfie-death! This time, the indiscriminate use of mobile reached new heights with two bizarre incidents in 2025. In July, a 15-year-old girl in Italy was crushed to death by a boulder while trying to take a selfie with friends at a scenic spot—another victim to the deadly risks people take for the ‘perfect’ shot. Around the same period, a 24-year-old man in Uttar Pradesh, India, tragically fell off a bridge while capturing a daring selfie

By Asmi Mukhopadhyay It all seemed fine until plastics silently made their way into our very bloodstreams. Unnoticed, they spread from the highest mountaintops to the deepest ocean trenches, infiltrating every corner of our planet. Yes, plastics — once hailed as a symbol of progress — are now threatening the very existence of life on Earth. But this crisis didn’t happen overnight. It began right in our homes, quietly spreading its reach into every part of our daily lives, fro

By Aribah Iqubal Oh, really? You claim to have conjured me? How quaint. I’ve always lurked in the shadows of your clenched jaws, nestled in that little itch you insist isn't hunger. Remember when you first uttered “mine,” taking that shaky breath? That was me, slithering in. You’ve draped me in shiny labels like ambition and progress, as if a mere word could wash away the stains of blood. You packaged this chaos into “civilization,” wrapping me up in PowerPoints and statistic

By Andi Van den Berge (Andi VdB) I am a wrist cutter. Or rather, I did it once. Had things happened with a thirty-second difference, I could be dead. The slice was lethal. When it happened, I didn’t think I was suicidal. In fact, it was the first thing I assured the paramedics. They believed me. So did everyone at the hospital.  The ambulance brought me into the emergency room, and I was warned that the hospital may place me in F-pod, but hopefully, they would not. F-pod was

By Cal Burgess May 17th, 2025— I am brimming with gratitude for those Dionysian moments I experienced this past spring— all those late nights, cuddles, dates, and thrilling emotions of attraction and companionship were the highest drug, and although it has all come crashing down, and although it seems it meant little to her in the end, I still had a good time and I have learned a lot. It’s funny how it all seemed like a weird, twisted vindication of my adolescence— the peck o

By Aakarsh Sharma Compassion is spoke of as though it were the heartbeat of morality that is as natural as breathing . Yet it is to be inquired that if it is really so innate , then why must it be instilled through education . You sense of stimuli is also innate , does it need to be taught ? The answer to this simple and brutal : compassion is natural , but it is crucified every day on the cross of our self-interest . We are born soft and rigorously programmed to be hardened

By Aashna Sinha Alan Turing, the father of artificial intelligence predicted, “ at the end of the century[1900s] the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted. ” Though the man was called mad in his time, we now see how true his words were. Ada Lovelace, the first person to recognise that a computer had applications other than calculations, stated the principle,

By Kalpana Rangan We are the country that produced daring beauties like Rani Padmini, Rani Jhansi, Vijayalakshmi Pandit and Indira Gandhi. Then why is it that a girl in India is still regarded as a burden and not an asset? I remember a few months after I delivered my son, my second child, my husband’s aunt had come home. As soon as she entered, she remarked, “Oh, you are so lucky. You got a son while my daughter got only a girl!” I thought she was foolish. However, when I int

By Niyati Mehdiratta When you hear the word “courtroom”, the first things that come to mind are: a judge in a black robe, a jury, and a gavel. But with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, all this could be reduced to a mere software. No more judges, no more objections, and worst of all, no more humanity. You might believe that AI can make the process more efficient, cheap and fair. It can quickly review case histories, apply legal principles, and reduce delays c

By Swati Sinha We like to believe that we are rational beings, guided by logic, driven by order, and masters of our emotions.  However, the truth is that sanity itself demands a little madness. The world isn’t built for those who calculate everything. It rewards the ones who dare to dream beyond the reasonable, hope beyond the sensible, and continue to try even when logic says “don’t.” Measured madness- that’s what it takes to live fully. Every person who has ever loved deepl

By Swati Sinha No one really noticed when it opened. It was small, tucked between a stationary shop and an abandoned post office. The Board above the wooden door read: “The Museum of Forgotten Things.” People walked past it every day, assuming it sold antiques and curiosities. But one rainy afternoon, when the traffic was slow, and curiosity was faster, a young woman named Rhea stepped inside. The air was quiet, not empty quiet, but expectant like the pause before a confessio