Humanities degrees are harder than STEM degrees.

Perhaps a bold statement to make, but I stand by it.

From that opening, you may think I’m some disgruntled English major who's tired of hearing people undermine how difficult my degree is— but, no— I’m actually going into my final year of a STEM degree. 

In recent years, it feels like the discourse over STEM vs. humanities degrees has grown. Many acknowledge the hard work put into getting a humanities degree and realize the positive and necessary impact the people with these degrees make. However, there are still many people who will tell you that STEM degrees are harder—no exceptions. 

Don’t get me wrong, this degree has pushed me to my limits and made me work harder than I ever thought possible, but STEM degrees aren’t the only ones that take hours of dedication and determination. Not to mention how STEM majors are rewarded for their work while humanity majors are often ridiculed and left without support. 

When I told my parents I would be switching to chemistry they were relieved; I’d previously been an athletic training major: a great degree, but notably harder to get a “good” job. Every time I tell someone I’m a chemistry major they usually look at me pitifully and ask why I hate myself. The next most common answer is someone telling me how horrible they were at chemistry in high school. Either way, they seem impressed. Adults tell me how good of a job I’ll get and friends are a little easier on me when I have to cancel plans to study. People respect what I do. 

But I’ve been on both sides of the coin. 

While in high school, all I wanted to be was a history major. My history courses were consistently my top marks and no job in the world seemed cooler to me than being a history professor. Of course, I never actually told anyone this. Instead, I told everyone I planned on being a physician assistant (which soon changed to an athletic trainer). I knew if I chose to pursue a history degree I’d constantly be asked what I would actually do with it—law school being the only acceptable answer to most people—so I kept that tucked away and pretended I could stand the sight of blood. 

Later, after switching to chemistry and finding the material extremely difficult, I had a moment of panic where I switched again to be an English-psychology double major. 

I lasted two whole weeks. 

Nonetheless, those were two eventful weeks. My parents and I fought over whether I’d get a job with an English degree and my STEM friends looked at me a little differently—to them I was a traitor who had jumped ship. In the end, I realized I did actually love chemistry and switched back.  

However, in my two weeks of panic, I got a taste of how people view humanities degrees: easier than STEM and less useful than business. Even now, back under my safety blanket of a chemistry degree, I watch my friends in the humanities get ridiculed and grilled about their plans after college. 

But the more I think about it the more I realize that it’s just as difficult to get a humanities degree as it is STEM.

In truth, I think this because humanities degrees require a type of ingenuity that STEM degrees don’t. In my first few years, my courses were all memorization and regurgitation. Yes, I would spend hours and hours studying, but the right answer was always right in front of me. The most out-of-the-box thinking I did was when I was asked to synthesize a specific molecule, and even then there was an objectively right and wrong way to do it. In my final year, I have gotten the chance to do a few more projects that involve thinking for myself instead of reading the answer out of a textbook, but again, there’s always a correct and incorrect way to do it. That isn’t to say a job in STEM requires no originality, quite the contrary, but we are not exactly taught to think that: we are just given an instruction manual (sometimes literally) and expected to follow it. 

Humanities majors, on the other hand, are trained to think for themselves from the jump.  A film major friend recounted a time when she had to drag heavy filming equipment down Forbes Avenue to shoot her own film. She had come up with the concept, written, and directed it. A whole film from the mind of one person. Similarly, an English major friend told me about all of the stories she wrote in her fiction writing classes and the personal essays where she had to completely rely on her own brain and experiences. Another friend, a psychology major, had to write a white paper—a paper summarizing topics of interest and their importance for a political figure to get involved with. She interviewed experts and activists and had to form her own ideas on how to solve the issue. These answers aren’t found in a textbook or Google, they had to shape their own unique opinions and present them logically and creatively. 

Another major disadvantage humanities majors have compared with STEM majors is success in the job market. While graduating with a STEM degree doesn’t guarantee you a job, it goes a pretty long way in getting you one. Tack on an internship or two and some research, and in a few years, you could be making six figures. I hate to admit it (because it makes me feel like a prick), but I have very little apprehension about finding a job after graduation. That’s not to say I’ll get hired for my dream job right away, but pretty much no matter where I go, I can find something. On the other hand, humanities degrees face a slightly more difficult path, with many positions nowadays requiring a higher-level degree. 

The suffering doesn’t end there though. Even after finding a job, STEM majors usually earn more annually than humanities majors (sometimes up to 50% more). 

Finally, I think humanities majors have it harder than STEM majors because they are braver than us. Us STEM majors are (practically) guaranteed a job, will make more money, and be thought of as “smarter.” However, most of us will hate the job we have, be overworked, and barely have time to spend with our families (a pleasant photo I’m painting of my own future). We at one point probably wanted to do something in the humanities—if it wasn’t for my own fear of not getting a job I’d undoubtedly be an English-history double major—but we’re too scared of failing, so we went with the safe option: STEM. 

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter which degree is “harder,” or who is “smarter,” there will always be something we can all agree on: we hate business majors.

Written by Kate Castello

Edited by Brynn Murawski and Elisabeth Kay

Women being afraid of men seems like a more-or-less universal truth. Something to be whispered about between girls in bar bathrooms and something angrily criticized by men in comment sections. “Not all men.” “Stop being so dramatic.” “It makes us feel bad.” 

It’s not as though we want to be afraid of them. 

We don’t want to always be looking over our shoulder when walking somewhere alone, we don’t want to question a nice boy’s intentions, we don’t enjoy having a little voice in our head quoting the statistics and horror stories we have learned about our whole lives. 

Because it’s true, for most girls we’ve been cautioned against men since we were little. Parents didn’t let us go anywhere alone with boys and police showed us videos in fifth grade where the victims were almost always girls, and the perpetrators almost always men. And the worst part is, none of these adults were necessarily in the wrong for warning us. The news wasn’t lying when it reported another woman murdered for saying “no,” a little girl abducted by male predators, a teen girl’s nudes spread across the internet by her ex-boyfriend. 

Yet despite these horror stories, we still lived in a culture that made it easier for men to threaten, harass, and violate us. Nothing ever changed. We grew up, and soon the stories started coming from our friends, our sisters. Boys that lashed out when their girlfriends wouldn’t sleep with them, grown men cat-calling teenagers, hands in places they shouldn’t be. The stories started becoming our reality.

It wasn’t even just stories anymore, it was everywhere around us. It was growing up in the #MeToo movement and learning that your favorite stars were victims. It was Jess Mariano trying to sleep with Rory at a party in Gilmore Girls, and being so upset when she wouldn’t that he yelled at her– and still remaining the favorite boyfriend of many fans. 

As much as it was a fact of life that women were afraid of men, it was a fact of life that men would act in terrifying ways. Often.

So, we were told to always stay vigilant. We were told to carry pepper spray, don’t walk with earbuds in, cover up, don’t go out late at night. But this fear is a lot to carry.

Because not only does it keep us wary on late night walks in mini-skirts, it makes us distrust our male friends and partners. What an insane amount of cognitive dissonance to be constantly reminded of how frightening men can be while also constantly encouraged to make connections, both romantic and platonic, with them. What a heavy thing to carry with you into a happy relationship, or a budding friendship. That voice in the back of your head, convinced they could suddenly snap into the villains you see on the news.

Of course I can’t speak for every girl, but I dare to say that at least a little bit of hesitance and fear is almost universal. And it’s not because I think this specific man I’m interacting with is actually secretly horrible, and it’s not because I think all men are bad. In fact, many men are amazing people who could change my life for the better, but it’s difficult to shake the nagging in my mind, the trauma that has been genetically coded into me (and for many people, actually experienced), the conditioning since before we even knew why a man would want to abduct a little girl. All of this to protect us, our fight or flight responses just trying to keep us alive. But why must it be so difficult to accept true vulnerability in relationships with men, and how can we fix it?  

Of course, I could sit here and rattle off a thousand little mental-health-guru tips. Therapy, meditation, or journaling, all of which can be genuinely helpful to process trauma. But why does the responsibility have to be put on us, again? 

No matter how much work we do on ourselves it won’t change the fact that we are living in a power structure that is conducive for abusive behavior to exist in men. 
So the real solution isn’t just on women. It’s on parents to teach their sons how to be respectful and how to take “no” for an answer. It’s on the media to stop glamorizing abusive, reactive men, both fictional and celebrity. It’s on the men who are truly good, to understand that their friends, partners, sisters, and daughters’ fears have nothing to do with them as a person, and everything to do with the world we were brought up in.

Written by Brynn Murawski

Edited by Julia Brummell and Elisabeth Kay

We only have access to idealized versions of life. 

There is always an ideal trend you should follow, an ideal life you should have, or an ideal person you should be. You really want to be that person, because everybody else seems to fit that standard already. They’re the person who dresses in a perfectly casual but stylish way. Their makeup looks seamless on their skin and their hair has a natural wave. They’re intelligent and successful. 

When you try to look like them, you feel like you’re trying too hard. Their clothes don’t fit you the same way, their makeup looks unnatural on your face, and their hairstyle feels like a borrowed wig on you. You have the same hobbies and interests, but you are nowhere near as good as them—obviously, you don’t work half as hard as they do. You’re here scrolling through their Instagram account instead of reading the book you’ve had on your shelf for months. 

And again, you’re here, alone, not having any fun. 

I go through this mental process almost once a day at college. Everybody is becoming exactly who I want to be, and I feel like I’ll never get there. But if I speak to anybody from my hometown, the real people I know in the real world, I learn that they feel the exact same way I do—but I would never know that by looking at their life through social media. I’ve found myself getting dressed up to go out, taking a few pictures, and realizing I can replicate the fake lives of all the people I am envious of. And I still feel like shit the whole time! Over eight hundred people follow my Instagram account, meaning a majority of these people “know” me based on whatever I choose to post. Being fully aware of that, I would never post a picture I don’t look my best in. This is how everybody thinks, and we know that, but somehow we believe that everything we see is real: that these are the lives we should be living. 

I knew this was something most of my friends, and nearly everyone around me, could relate to and understand. I reached out to some of them for ideas, stories, or opinions and I got thorough responses almost immediately. When I asked for specific topics I could discuss, my friend suggested, “Social comparison being the thief of joy”. This is one of the worst issues plaguing women’s self-confidence. Comparison has had a major effect on society since the 1950s and become much worse nowadays. Social media gives us immediate access to the lives of millions of strangers. We’re not only comparing our appearances—we’re also comparing our lifestyles. 

We get a glimpse into everyone’s lives now. Though it is crafted to be the most appealing version, it focuses a lot of our attention on different aspects of female appearance. Beauty standards for women have become more unrealistic by the minute as we only see a fraction of a person’s real self. What we see online is near perfection because nobody would be willing to show their flaws; though what we consider as flaws today tend to be the normal features of a human being. The use of social media has altered the female beauty standard to such an extreme that everything is incredibly specific and always changing. It is nearly impossible to achieve this idealized perfection, so we’re constantly chasing an unattainable goal. 

Occasionally, I can feel little bits of my brain slowly rot into my cranial fluid. I am lying in my bed after school with my eyes plastered to the Instagram Explore page, my thumb moving up and down without any conscious thought. Once this happens, I cannot physically sit through any content longer than 10 seconds. Sometimes I get up and talk to my mom, a licensed psychologist and fellow woman, to tell her of my horrible brain-rotting disease. She tells me there is also a lot of good to social media as long as I limit my time and cater to the algorithm based on how it makes me feel. I have tried apps that plant trees after you stay off of your phone long enough and tried the built-in time limits for certain apps, but none of that has been enough. I see the time limit go off and I always press, “Remind me in 15 minutes.” As for the content I am being mindlessly spoon-fed, it is based on what I know I enjoy, and I have slowly started unfollowing fitness and diet accounts. 

However, the majority of our time on social media is spent on an “explore page” or “for you page”, which is a fully algorithm-based endless stream of content. This was the reason I had to delete TikTok. The majority of people who I see on social media are other girls my age. The women may just be in the background of a screen of text with a silly song, but I can still see them and almost subconsciously compare myself to them. Anyone who posts on social media checks to make sure they look the way they want, even if they aren’t the focus of the video. I have grown to understand this and I know how bad it can make me feel.  

Sometimes, I am physically unable to do anything else with my time.

Since I have become addicted to my phone, I can only really consume content that is about 10-15 seconds long. I tend to take random facts from these 15-second videos as gospel. I know TikTok and Instagram are the least credible sources out there, but there is something strangely believable about a grown woman I’ve never seen in my life telling me how my body works. At one point, a video told me that a good tip for weight loss was to not drink anything but water. Even now as I get older, I still get a weird feeling in my stomach when I choose my drink with lunch, and most of the time still opt for water. Most of my perspective on healthy eating and fitness comes from a cumulation of tips, ideas, and routines I’ve seen on social media, with maybe a bit of influence from my parents and friends. 

I don’t think I have ever truly known what my body looks like. It looks different in the mirror, in pictures, and camera angles. If those pictures were taken on my phone, I look different in the front camera and the back camera. I have come to notice and worry about every little detail of myself. I also have so much documentation of every year of my life—when I am not comparing myself to other people, I am comparing myself with my past self. There are times when it becomes obsessive. I know how I can look my best, and if I don’t look exactly like that, it feels like I am doing something wrong. I have seen so many different versions of myself it’s nearly impossible to know which one is really me.

Written by Nina Sacco

Edited by Justin Pello and Kate Castello

I experienced my first break-up when I was in 8th grade. I was sitting on a purple-checkered chair amongst the library’s shelves of tacky teen books. I was obsessed with them at that age: love triangles, vampires, laid-back misogyny, orphans. As soon as the phone buzzes, I reach for it. His contact pops up — a name surrounded by red heart emojis — on the notifications of my Android phone, my first phone. It had a rubbery, hot pink case with a holographic pop socket and a big crack running right down the center of the screen. 

I don’t remember exactly what the text said. Something along the lines of things are awkward, you’re awkward, we’re better off as friends. Very middle-school relationship. But I do remember the immediate slouch into my chair, the way my heart skipped a beat before sinking to the bottom of my stomach alongside my small intestine, my colon, and my remaining self-respect. My mom walks by to check on me, and the tears can’t help but fall. I lie and say that someone in my book just died. 

The next day at school, all of the boys in my homeroom whisper to each other when I walk in. I wonder why he had to do this; there must be a reason. Was I too forward? I go home early — I tell my teachers that I’m nauseous and I keep throwing up. I wasn’t lying. 

I swore that I’d never forget the time and date that I received my first break up text. I feel the need to apologize to my younger self for breaking my promise. I do remember that it was January and 6:19. But I can’t remember the date, no matter how hard I try. 

Nowadays, I consider my first phone to be more of a first love. 

*** 

I do not have a strong sense of self, and my first real relationship taught me this. After 3 or so years, she broke up with me on the day of my grandpa’s funeral. I cried for about ten minutes before I was overcome with joy — no more betraying close friends to appease a lover’s threats, no more late-night cries because I’m well aware that I’m unwanted, no more passive-aggressive chuckles in response to “Am I stupid? Do you think I’m stupid?” No more doing things that don’t feel like me, because I wanted so desperately to crawl into the mind of somebody else. 

I can try to blame her for everything that went wrong, but I know it’s not really her fault. I’m the one who tried to burrow my way into a life that wasn’t mine. You have to dig to do that; you have to scratch along the ridges of somebody’s brain until you can finally cut open a socket big enough to live in. It’s not a pleasant feeling, and my arms are tired from digging, reaching, and holding. 

Three days later, my dad died, and we had a second funeral to plan. Three deaths in the span of two weeks, one of them being my relationship, my first real relationship, that I’m sure was my first real love at some point. Though I can’t pinpoint when, why, or how I felt that way, or if I felt it in a way that’s correct, should there be a “correct” way to love and be loved.

My dad’s funeral was the worst day of my life. I hated everybody, including him. But I’m grateful that my ex-girlfriend left me when she did, because it would’ve made the day so much worse, having to take care of her while trying to take care of myself. 

*** 

I try to listen to sad songs when I think of my dad, but they anger me because most of them are break-up songs. I feel isolated in my grief because I realize that some of my favorite artists, some of my favorite people, have never had a real struggle. They don’t understand what it’s like to never be able to see somebody again beyond a headstone in a graveyard. 

A few months later, I decided to put my already emotionally vulnerable self on dating apps because I’ve been through the worst possible thing that anybody can go through, so an extra problem or two shouldn’t hurt. I downloaded Tinder. 

I wonder if I get attached to men faster than I get attached to women. Again, I’ve underestimated my own capacities for love and pain — the way that I grip onto somebody’s side like they’re going to fly away, the way I check my phone with every buzz. I try to play the game the right way — don’t be too enthusiastic, but don’t be too careless, either. 

I forget that men don’t do things with rhyme or reason; wedding bells and sirens are the same pitch to the untrained ear. I wonder how to make someone like me, or if there’s some type of trick or hack to doing it successfully. I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. 

I wish that this was a piece about growth, but I don’t think that I’m any wiser than I was at 13 on that January evening in the library. I am still full of hope, romance, and care for another person. I still feel disappointment looming over the horizon, and I think that I’m addicted to the feeling.

Written by Wendy Moore

Edited by Sofia Brickner & Elisabeth Kay

Rory Gilmore is one of the most beloved and disliked characters in pop culture, simultaneously an icon and a lightning rod for critique. She is one of the protagonists of Gilmore Girls, a classic chick-flick drama that ran from 2000-2007, with a brief mini-series revival in 2016. 

My goal is to finally untangle the complicated relationship viewers have with her, why her arc progresses the way it does, and why her behavior is actually never out of character. 

So let’s start with the “what.” The issue most fans have with Rory is how she goes from what they see as a lovable, hardworking, nerdy girl to a selfish, destructive, mess of a person. When taking a passing glance at her arc, it could certainly seem this way. 

Early seasons’ Rory is constantly studying, working hard, and has goals and dreams and success. She graduates valedictorian of her private school, and gets into three Ivy League universities. Throughout all of this, she maintains a bashful, endearing femininity and constant hunky boyfriends. Her character is a role model for every young girl that wants to have it all, because, for the most part, she does. 

Most viewers mark her descent as beginning in season four, when she attends Yale (instead of her “dream school” Harvard.) Unfortunately, this is only the beginning for her. Eventually, Rory will go on to lose her virginity to a married ex-boyfriend and pursue a rich party-boy. But perhaps her greatest transgression is when, after receiving a harsh bit of criticism during a journalism internship, she steals a yacht, drops out of Yale, and moves into her grandparents house. Despite the fact that the original series ends with her back at Yale and getting a good job on the Obama campaign, at this point most audiences have already given up on her. And when the series picks back up for A Year in the Life a decade later, she is sleeping in her childhood bedroom, unable to find a good job, and having an affair with the man whose marriage proposal she rejected in the final season. The series canon now ends with Rory’s words “Mom, I’m pregnant.” And, for most fans, she is a complete betrayal of the nerdy, responsible, ambitious, doe-eyed teen they fell in love with. 

This is how she’s a character that simultaneously pops up in trending study motivation videos every autumn while being torn apart in the comment section of that same TikTok. “I only liked her in the beginning of the show.” “They ruined her character when she went to Yale.” “What happened to this Rory??” 

If you re-examine the character, however, there are clear signs even in the earliest season (even in the first episode) that Rory was going to end up the way she did. The pilot of Gilmore Girls includes Rory getting into a prestigious prep-school (Chilton) and almost turning it down because she had just met a boy that will turn into her first love interest, Dean. 

In the very first episode, Rory goes from being excited about her acceptance, something that will fast-track her into Harvard, to nearly throwing away all of her mother’s sacrifice because she’s developing a crush. Rory and her mother, Lorelai, fight over this, with Lorelai recognizing her daughter’s erratic behavior. A few episodes later, Rory lashes out at her class, yelling at the other students because she’s frazzled and late for a test. Is it portrayed as an understandable reaction? Sure. But everyone has to deal with shit sometimes, and we usually don’t react like that. 

Already, Rory is exhibiting selfishness, erratic behavior, and doesn’t seem to have quite the commitment to her dream that viewers think she does in hindsight. She regularly breaks down over feeling unprepared for her future, seeing it with a borderline dangerous absolution. She will go to Harvard and she will be a journalist. These traits are only further exacerbated when Jess, AKA love interest #2, comes into the picture. Her feelings for Jess lead her to cheat on Dean, another example of her characteristic selfishness and ego. But perhaps most telling is when Rory skips school and takes a bus to New York to see Jess (before they are even dating.) 

In doing so, she misses Lorelai’s graduation. Lorelai, who could never graduate college because she had Rory, is angry but ultimately forgives her pretty easily and the problem is forgotten. Not only does Rory skip out on her academic commitments, but she selfishly hurts someone she loves in the pursuit of a momentary ego boost. Is it really so hard to believe this person would continue a pattern of cheating in relationships, stealing a yacht, and giving up at the first sign of struggle? 

The final puzzle piece of Rory’s eventual downfall, however, is that her ego is constantly boosted by everyone around her, from minute one of the series. Lorelai, Luke, every boyfriend, and all the townspeople see her with rose-colored glasses. Ironically, this is also very similar to how viewers see her in the early seasons. 

Every infraction she participates in, her mother forgives her quite quickly, or defends it because “this isn’t like Rory.” Seems similar to what audiences say as the series progresses, doesn’t it? And of course Lorelai sees Rory on such a pedestal, Rory was her way out of a situation she hated. Rory meant autonomy, a goal, some over the first true connection Lorelai experienced. Her daughter, who wants to go to the Ivies and have a big fancy job, something Lorelai never got to do. And even beyond Lorelai, every townsperson sees some part of themselves in Rory, something worth defending with an almost Holden-Caulfield-esque passion. Protectors and supporters of her innocence and ambition. 

So of course Rory has a complex. Of course she crumbles the second things don’t go as expected or she faces a little bit of criticism. Of course she reacts erratically and selfishly. Of course she has unhealthy relationships with the men in her life, cheating on them often, when her own father was the only person who didn’t adore her enough to stick around. It makes complete sense that Rory Gilmore would spiral, with clues dropped the second that autumn-themed intro played for the first time. 

But why would a protagonist of a television show be written like this? It has to be a mistake, right? People are supposed to get better, not worse.

When taking a harder look at showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino’s life and motivations writing the series, however, it becomes clear that Rory’s downfall was intended from the start. Because here’s the kicker. Sherman-Palladino knew how she wanted to end the series from the second she wrote its pilot. 

“Mom, I’m pregnant.” 

Sherman-Palladino is on record saying this. It is a literal fact. And this is something she was planning on doing long before she could have any idea of knowing how long the show would last. It could’ve meant a teenage Rory becoming pregnant, just like her mother. Because Sherman-Palladino wasn’t just writing a show about a mother and daughter being best friends, like she pitched it. She was writing a story about doing everything you can to break a cycle, and failing. She was writing a critique of the upper class, and a critique of Ivy-League ambition. 

Because Amy Sherman-Palladino never went to college. 

Of course, this wasn’t necessarily because she was unprivileged. She was actually trained in ballet for much of her young life (adding an interesting spin on the ballerina-critique Rory writes in the later seasons.) So, of course, we get into speculation here. Maybe I’m completely wrong, maybe Sherman-Palladino was only trying to live vicariously through a character. Or, she got tired of people throwing around fancy-college degrees as if that meant they were more talented than those without them. Maybe, she was never really going to root for a character whose entire goal in life was to go to an Ivy League school. Maybe, she wanted to write someone with so much potential and so much opportunity who still falls prey to her own ego and selfishness. Maybe the lesson here is not a focus on competitive academics and careers, but on building yourself up with determination and human connection. (Maybe Rory wasn’t the hero, Lorelai was.) 

“But Brynn, why does the seventh season end with Rory succeeding? Striking out on her own path? Getting a great job with a future looking up, only to sabotage it all a decade later?” 

The seventh season was run mainly by David Rosenthal. The Palladinos (Amy and her husband) were ousted by the network for requesting more writers and resources. Sherman-Palladino had no say in the original end of her series, and she refused to ever watch the seventh season, even when writing A Year in the Life. 

So that is why AYITL doesn’t quite match the original ending. It was a completion of Sherman-Palladino’s vision, Rory’s arc ending in a removal from the journalism she always wanted with a renewed focus on family instead. Ending on the words Palladino had been sitting on for a decade and a half. 

Most people don’t understand how a character could get worse rather than better, so they chalk Rory up to bad writing. By doing this, they’re missing the main point of the show. Rory was never supposed to be a role model, she was supposed to be a critique. At the end of the day,Gilmore Girls is not about getting into the fanciest school or having the best job, it is about human connection, a silly town in Connecticut, and generational cycles. It is about the complex love that binds parent to child. And Rory did exactly what she was always going to do.

Written by Brynn Murawski

Edited by  Alima Shoranova and Elisabeth Kay

TW: needles and blood

Whenever I’m asked, “what’s your biggest phobia?” there’s one thing that instantly pops into my brain—needles. It was on file in my pediatrician’s office to have a certain nurse administer any shot I had to be given, and to take my blood pressure after all my shots as it would be abnormally high beforehand. They knew I’d try to sprint out of the room at any moment if there was a thin, sharp, shiny object being carried in on a plastic tray. And, though I’m now a nineteen-year-old girl, nothing makes me as anxious as a small needle.

So, when I find myself once again sitting in my pediatrician’s waiting room as a nineteen-and-a-half-year-old girl, my knee bounces up and down, though I’m just here for a physical. The little boy next to me, who can’t be more than eight years old, is talking his mom’s ear off about how Kanye made Taylor Swift famous, which I am live texting my friends about. Despite checking in five minutes after me, the little boy is taken back by a nurse in animal print scrubs, and his mom and little brother follow suit. 

Ten minutes later, a different nurse comes out and calls my name. She’s wearing blue scrubs, and as I sit on an examination table a bit too small for an adult, she berates me with mildly uncomfortable questions. As I answer them, partially honestly, my hands are subconsciously tearing at the paper covering the examination table. Finally, she assures me the doctor will be in shortly, and she shuffles out of the room. I try to scroll through my phone, but there’s no service in the beige examination room, so I’m forced to look at the posters on the wall. As I’m reading about the pros of receiving the Hepatitis vaccine, a light knock on the door snaps me out of it.

The doctor walks through the door and more of the usual ensues; she repeats some of the same mildly uncomfortable questions, listens to my heart, and makes me touch my toes. Then, a word no one with a phobia of needles wants to hear leaves her mouth– bloodwork. At nineteen-years-old, I had never gotten bloodwork done before; every time a doctor told me I should probably go to the clinic to get it done, I’d simply push it off to a point where the idea was out of my mom and I’s head until the next time I’d visit my pediatrician’s office, and she gave us another card for the clinic. My best friend Ella had told me a horror story of her lips going blue and passing out because the nurse couldn’t find her vein, my other friend Emma had passed out while she donated blood at her school, and my cousin had a file, similar to mine, so nurses knew she was a fainter if she had her bloodwork done. While I understood the importance of it, it was something I didn’t want to have to experience myself. So, I sat and waited for her to pull a card out of her pocket for the Dearborn bloodwork clinic, a few minutes away from my house, that I would most likely never step foot in.

Instead, she left the room, and returned with one of the plastic trays I had spent all my years hating. On it, laid a blue stretchy band, two glass vials, a sterilization wipe, and a long tube connected to a small, skinny needle. I couldn’t take my eyes off it and my heartbeat was increasing a considerable amount. She called in two more girls: one of them, the nurse who was with me earlier, and another wearing darker blue scrubs. They were both students from nearby colleges, and she was going to use me as an example of how to complete bloodwork on a patient—a girl already losing the pigment in her skin at just the mere sight of the needle on a tray.

TW: BLOOD DRAWING

As she tied the stretchy band tightly above my elbow on my right arm, I began to do breathing exercises under my mask. The nurses leaned in, watching attentively as she wiped my arm down and began prepping the needle, explaining the step-by-step process which, at this point, didn’t sound like English to me. I watched—I’ve always had to watch, to know exactly when I’m going to feel the needle in me– as she slid the needle under my skin and began to wiggle it around. I instantly thought of Ella; why couldn’t she find the vein right away? Was I turning purple? As if she could read my mind, she explained that finding the vein can sometimes be hard, and you must have the patient keep pumping their fist until you find the right one, as my shaky hand was managing to do. Finally, she settled down with the needle, and my eyes did not leave the punctured area of my arm—which, thinking back, I probably should’ve looked away during this part—as two vials of blood easily flowed out of my body.

“Stop pumping,” she ordered, sternly, after what felt like forever, and I happily obliged. Though my head felt a little dizzy, I was proud of myself; I had just given blood, and I wasn’t (externally) a baby about it! 

“Okay, now go do a urine sample,” she said, walking back into the room in the span of thirty seconds with a plastic cup in hand. As I nodded and hopped down from the examination table, I made eye contact with the nurse from earlier, who’s eyes were wide—either because I was four shades paler than when I’d entered the office or because she had naturally big eyes. My feet miraculously led me down the hallway full of bright grays and cool blues, my large water bottle in hand and the sterile lights beaming down on me as the room began to spin. I quickly shut the bathroom door, drank some water in attempts to stop the room from wiggling, and opened my texts to my mom, my shaky hands typing the words, “i just gave blood and it went so well!” to prove to her that her daughter who was going into her sophomore year of college was finally growing up.

Then I felt the right side of my face getting sore, pressed up against something cold. I couldn’t open my eyes, though—I was only half conscious, I couldn’t remember where I was and what was going on. I was being held up by my two arms, extended. The doctor’s voice sounded like it was coming from underwater as she assured a patient, probably no older than one, that a shot was only going to hurt a little bit, jogging my memory as to where I was—I’m in my pediatrician’s office, in the bathroom, to do a urine sample minutes after I’d just given two vials of my blood, and I had just passed out. My eyes slowly peeled open, and my phone was on the floor under me, my cheek pressed against the side of the toilet bowl, my body half-laying-half-standing in between the toilet and the wall. I must have caught myself as I was going down, as my right arm was extended around the front of the toilet and my left holding the metal bar attached to the wall. 

I adjusted so I was sitting on the floor, a little scared to stand up. I swiped out of the text conversation with my mom, the text still unsent, and texted my two best friends instead: “holy shit i just fainted in the bathroom.” I grabbed my pink water bottle and drank as much water as I could in one breath, used the walls to help myself back up and opened the bathroom door.

An empty hallway stared back at me, the only pop of color being the lollipops toddlers got for completing their appointment. The nurses were preoccupied with other patients, or doing paperwork in another room at the other end of the hallway. I slowly closed the door and turned back around, facing myself in the mirror; my lips were the same color as the rest of my face. I sat in that bathroom for what felt like forever; the fan was overly loud, the lights were overly bright, and it was not helping the drained state my body was trying to come back from.

Eventually, I covered my pale lips back up with my mask and exited the bathroom, dropping the test cup in the drop off basket next to the door. I walked back to my examination room, the pink door decorated with a large sticker of Rapunzel from Disney’s Tangled plastered onto it a little bit crooked, and if I hadn’t just fainted, I would’ve taken that as a good omen—Tangled has been my comfort movie since I was nine. On the other side of the door were the two nurses and a nurse I hadn’t seen yet today, all who had no idea I had just been on the floor of the bathroom. The new nurse assured me I was good to go in a tone that was overly sweet it was almost patronizing, as if I was my five-year-old self who had just finished getting a round of shots—except, this time, I wasn’t offered a lollipop.

But I did as she told me I could. I grabbed my bag, confirmed one more time there was nothing else I had to do, and left as fast as I could. I sat in my car, which was a little too warm but worked to wake my body back up, for about fifteen minutes in the parking lot, watching patients walk in and out. I didn’t end up texting my mom about giving blood until I was home, and after making sure I was okay, she laughed, pointing out that I was just like my cousin.Since, I’ve openly and passionately declared that I’ll never get my blood taken again; just simply recalling the events on paper in this essay has made me lightheaded. The six-year-old girl who had to be held back by her grandma as she tried to sprint out of the examination room still lives with me today, and I’ll always think of her anytime I see a sharp, tiny, pokey object. However, despite it making me nauseated, I’m able to sit here and write about this experience—it was one, small moment in my life. Though I’ll probably recall this story until I die, it didn’t kill me. I will forever have a phobia needles, but I’m able to realize they will only affect me for the tiniest portion of my life. It’s how I got my nose pierced; yes, I cried, and a grown man named Cheppy had to hand me a few tissues, but now I have a fun hoop in my nose. Maybe one day I’ll muster up enough courage to get one of the tattoo’s I have saved in my Pinterest board, because I know it won’t kill me. They’ll just scare me a little too much.

Written by Elisabeth Kay

Edited by Kate Castello

Childhood 

My mouth is stained with shades of red and blue. A dollar-store case of patriotic-themed popsicles are the culprit. My hair reeks from the chlorine of a poorly-maintained swimming pool. My beach towel is pink and has a stock photo of a sunset plastered across its surface. 

After we begrudgingly dry off, my cousin and I gather around Grandma’s bedside mirror; its rim is gold and engraved with a floral pattern. Wisterias, poinsettias, daisies — they are the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen. I do not pay any mind to the fingerprint-stained glass that they frame. 

Teen 

A body is less of a tool than it is a machine to poke and prod at until it finally does its minimum function. The media portrays teenage girls to be like the Eiffel Tower — effortlessly feminine, covered in people climbing and begging to take a picture, shimmering. The only thing that shimmers is the coat of anxiety-induced sweat that’s taken residency over my body. 

Me and my friends like to go to Panera and gossip. We talk about people we hate, and people we love; most people, including ourselves, fit into both categories. We share inside jokes and we laugh until our bellies ache. We pride ourselves by using every demeaning label under the sun — I’m such a cunt, I’m a girlfailure, I’m going to be a teenage girl far into my future, even after I hit 20. 

United in Defense 

I have my location shared with three of my close friends, and I text them individually every hour or so, under the guise of safety, but also for fun. I tell them that we’re going back to his place. I tell them that he’s making me a drink; but wait, don’t worry, I watched him make it. I tell them what kind of car he drives, and how we sorta have similar music tastes. I hope he likes me. 

“Woman” 

Grandma tells me that beauty and comfort are a careful balance. She is the portrait of a woman. When she was diagnosed with cancer for the third time, I didn’t see her cry. When she bought a wig, she picked out her natural hair color, at its usual length and texture. My hair has been every shade under the sun, besides blue, because it wouldn’t match my outfits. 

After my dad dies, Grandma tells me to stay strong for my mother. I realize that becoming a woman — reaching any idealization I have of being “put together” — will bring me no sense of comfort, security, or peace. We will always be brick walls for people to throw things at. And I only have an urge to be weak. 

My experience as a girl has not been incredibly unique or particularly challenging. But isolation and fear are a part of girlhood; just like cherry chapstick, cutting your off-brand American Girl Doll’s hair, crouching over a mirror to get ready for prom, and hiding your giggles behind the veiled pages of a hymnal.

Written by Wendy Moore

Edited by Teagan Chandler & Elisabeth Kay

In all honesty, I had a terrible summer. 

This was the summer of my first-ever heartbreak. It was heavy. It was painful. And most of all, it was my decision. 

Because of that, I felt like the entire world was expecting me to easily move past it—to pack my memories into boxes and leave them to dust in the attic. Quite unfortunately, however, I’ve never really been that great at change. I just found it so hard to justify moving on from things, especially when I honestly didn’t even really want to. 

I know that sounds hypocritical. I was the one who ended things, I was the catalyst of this turmoil: I should have no right to hold on so tightly to something I chose to leave. But after experiencing what it was like to be in love, I didn’t really know how to return back to a life without it. It felt like as soon as I released my final grasp on that relationship, it would cease to have ever been real. As if all those months, those memories, those emotions, would now only exist within my mind—like a dream that never actually happened. 

However, I have since grown to realize that moving forward does not necessarily mean you have to forget; and it shouldn’t. 

There is a common narrative that after a breakup, you should send every memory to the grave. Burn all the pictures and smash all the gifts, as if erasing every trace of this person will alleviate the sting. While this may work momentarily, the band-aid will need to be replaced within a matter of days. You can’t just ignore the pain, you need to mend it. 

And that certainly will not come from pretending as if that love never existed. Whatever feelings you had, love or not, were real. They were vulnerable and deep, and they may have held such a great weight that you could physically feel the happiness within your chest. That’s exactly why it hurts so bad, and you are well within your bounds to acknowledge that. To lay within that loss. 

The change, or rather the letting go, comes with releasing the resentment and frustration that's been building up inside of you from the heartbreak. I spent so much time forcing myself to be angry, convinced that if I focused on all the bad surrounding the circumstances of the breakup, all the good parts of the relationship would cease to have ever felt that great. How incredibly contradictory—you will never move forward by fueling anger into the past. You’re just going to spin in circles, spiraling over something that is completely out of your control. Soak in what happened, soak in how it made you feel, and most importantly, take that along with you as you move on. 

Instead of dwelling on a false sense of hatred, I started pouring all of that time and energy into the life around me. I called my dad more than I ever had before, I got coffee with old friends, and I slowly let myself come to peace with all the changes in my life. I found out how much genuine love exists in so many aspects beyond a romantic relationship. This was something I obviously already knew, but I was now making the conscious choice to bask in it. Truthfully, I still think about my ex a lot, more than I ever wanted to admit to myself. It’s so incredibly inevitable, and that’s okay. There are times when he’s the person I want to call, he’s the person I want to drink coffee with. Hours spent just wishing for one last meaningless conversation. It’s human. But as the seasons change and time continues to pass, those moments become more infrequent, they become less painful. Some days I’ll be in a lecture and grab a purple highlighter for my notes, and I’ll think about how it’s his favorite color. But as the scars fade, I no longer let them fill me with grief or anger. I no longer want to look back at the relationship in vain. Rather, there is an appreciation that I ever got to love someone so deeply. And that it will come again. I know that because I possessed that emotion, I possessed that power. 

I now like to think that love never really leaves you. 

It is always going to linger, in the doorways or the shadows, and sometimes even right at the center of your heart. By this, I don’t mean romantic love for an individual. What you’re left with instead, is the capacity to hold such a feeling, and the ability to express it. My relationship made me grow so much as a person. I felt emotions I never had before, which made me realize what I valued in both the care I receive, as well as what I can give to others. I’ve found that I can be so grateful, so lucky, to have had the experiences and relationship with the person I was with, without feeling like I necessarily need to keep clutching onto it so firmly. The love I hold now is not the same as the love I had. It’s different, and I’m different because of it. And isn’t that wonderful? 

No love, however brief or however deep, is ever wasted.

As kids, we would lay in bed sleeplessly as we felt the pains from the growing of our bones. Now, that familiar body ache may return in the form of old conversations, recounted over and over again in your head as you try to pinpoint exactly where everything went wrong. With all growth, there is always going to be adjustment and pain. Embrace it as it comes, all while knowing that at some point, you will have to get up again.

Written by Diya Aneja

Edited by Julia Maynard and Kate Castello

I see friends who hug, hold hands, and say “I love you.” Friends who tell each other their dreams and fears and put their heads on each other’s shoulders when they cry. Friends who exhibit a level of comfort that distinguishes a friend from a best friend. I long for this kind of closeness in my friendships. However, I have struggled to act this comfortable around even some of my closest friends for quite some time. I have incredible friends, and I want to form deep, lasting connections with them, but I almost feel as though I have forgotten how.

I’ve come to realize that I stopped treating and accepting treatment from, my friends in this way after going through a friendship breakup. I became friends with a girl during my sophomore year of high school who, almost instantly, became my best friend. I felt like I could tell her everything, even as I was going through a time when I didn’t feel super comfortable sharing my deeper thoughts and feelings with others. Every weekend was spent at her house. We’d watch cheesy movies, swim in her pool, and walk her adorable dogs. We’d sit in her hammock and tell each other secrets. 

We would say “I love you” when I left her house. 

As time went on, it became expected that I would spend almost all my free time with her. I couldn’t hang out with my other friends without receiving some kind of passive-aggressive comment or text. But I always still enjoyed spending time with her—she was my best friend after all.

The true toxicity of our friendship began to set in when I got my first boyfriend. My friend would try to invite herself on our dates; when I said I thought that would be a little weird, she told me I wasn’t prioritizing our friendship. Maybe she was right, the last thing I wanted to do was become the girl who lost all her friends because she only spent time with her boyfriend. But deep down I knew I was never that girl—I always made a conscious effort to balance the time I spent with my friends, family, and boyfriend. Yet, no amount of time I spent with my friend ever seemed to be enough. 

The more jealous she became when I would hang out with other people, the less I felt I could trust her. I began to realize she hadn’t kept many of the secrets I had told her. Her mother, brother, and other friends knew personal things about me and my life that I had simply never told them. Her advice began to hold a manipulative undertone, and it became difficult to believe her when she said “I love you.”

As the situation became worse, I knew I had to distance myself. This was not easy and resulted in a chain of long, angry texts. I initially felt guilty when my friend would tell me I wasn’t prioritizing our friendship. But as time went on, guilt turned into frustration, and I didn’t even really want to fix the damages to our relationship.

I think it was after that point that I stopped being completely comfortable around my friends. I no longer held their hands or told them I loved them. Looking back, I think I developed a subconscious fear that becoming best friends with someone could lead to a toxic friendship. I put up boundaries after my friendship breakup—but I think I built my walls too high. With some of my friends, I feel a sense of disconnect which I can only attribute to the fear of becoming “too close”. I resent this fear and want that kind of closeness, that sense of sisterhood, back in my friendships again. 

In my new friendships at college, and even in my old friendships at home, I am trying to reset my boundaries; trying to take down some of the walls I have built up around me. I tell my friends I love them, and I really do. I’m learning to rest my head on their shoulders without feeling so afraid.

Written by Johanna Ryder

Edited by Karima Ribeiro-Hassounah and Kate Castello 

I have always been more hung up over friendship break-ups than romantic ones.

I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s because I read too many romance books as a kid, where the couple would break up just as often as they would get together while the main character’s friends stayed by their side through thick and thin. Maybe it's because I didn’t consider that anyone I dated before college would be long-term while I traded ‘Best Friend Forever’ charm bracelets on the playground. Whatever the reason, I’ve always been able to walk off my romantic heartbreaks pretty easily. Friendship break-ups? Those are the ones that hurt like a bitch.

Sure, I've had peaceful friendship break-ups: the ones where you slowly drift away from someone until you only interact by liking their Instagram posts and awkwardly waving at their mother in your hometown’s supermarket. Unfortunately, though, I have a tendency for friendships that blow up in my face. (What can I say? I have a talent for ignoring red flags; they’re my favorite color, after all.) Those are the ones that have stuck with me months or even years later. I sit with the endings, friendship crumbling between my fingertips, wondering how things possibly could have ended the way they did. They haunt me– just a little bit.

With all those little ghosts, I wish I could say I am an expert in getting over friendships; I am definitely not. Every time I lose a friendship I find myself getting lost in my emotions. I stay up crying way too late. I see old photos and get so angry I want to throw my phone across the room. I lose myself in the possibilities of how things could have gone differently. I go days without feeling anything at all and then wake up so overwhelmed that I want to crawl back into bed. It’s hard, it’s awful, and god, it sucks. But I have learned a thing or two to ease the pain, to help myself move forward. The biggest thing I have learned? Never regret loving someone.

Of course, you’re going to regret some things in the aftermath of a ruined friendship. Maybe you’ll regret how the friendship ended, or maybe you regret not confronting a problem earlier. You can have a thousand little regrets about the ending, but I never want you to regret the friendship itself. I find that regretting loving someone puts the blame in the wrong place. Things didn't go wrong because you loved them, after all. If you blame the love for the hurt, it can make you think every friendship will destroy itself in the end. You’ll sit there and think, “Well, if I never get that close to someone again, then I’ll never be that hurt again.” Been there, done that, and I don't recommend it: it never helps. You’ll feel just as awful alone as you did after the friendship ended. 

And, well: you can never unlove someone. One of my favorite quotes is from the novel Nona the Ninth: “You cannot take loved away.” I read it months ago and it still sticks with me, because you can’t! After you end a friendship, you probably don't want any reminders of your ex-friend. You might delete pictures; you might block their number; you might turn the other way if you see them in public. But even if you try to ignore it, you can't make the old love you shared go away.

A few weeks ago, I was scrolling through Instagram and paused on the story of an ex-friend of mine. They were posting about songs they had listened to recently, and one of the songs was from a small artist I love. I sat there, staring at my phone and thinking to myself, “They probably got this from me. We haven't spoken in months. They have deleted every photo of me from their social media but they still haven't killed every remainder of me."

Those traces of love will always exist, no matter how hard you try to erase them. If you try to push them away, they're just going to rear their heads back up and bite you later. So, listen to the song that reminds you of them, or wear the bracelet they got you for your birthday. The reminders will hurt at first, but as with all wounds, they will eventually heal up. But only if you acknowledge it, take what is left behind, and make the most of it. 

Recently I have been trying to approach what has hurt me from a softer angle. I'm used to getting angry and depressed in the aftermath of a friendship, but honestly, I’m tired of that, and I’ve found that it never helps me in the end. Now, I am trying to take the broken bits old friends left behind and create something better out of them. I am not always good at this. Sometimes, I want to scream and cry all over again. But now that I am coming to terms with the fact that I did love each and every one of my ex-friends, I am learning to not regret that. 

I hope you can too, dear reader. I hope you can too.

Written by Emma Moran

Edited by Emma Krizmanich and Elisabeth Kay