Maintaining a healthy relationship with food in college can feel like an uphill battle. Estranged from eating routines and support structures from back home, students are left to go into the panopticon that is the college dining hall and the freedom of unlimited food options becomes a source of anxiety. Sarah Russo PO ’28 explores how the transition to college dining can complicate our relationship with food, especially for those with a history of disordered eating.
Opinions
OPINION: Our duty to protest
Since January, Donald Trump has signed over 81 executive orders targeting DEI, immigration rights, transgender protections and more. Why aren’t we protesting? For many, the combination of hopelessness and fear has led to inaction. Alex Benach PO ’28 examines our lack of faith in protest, confronts our duties as college students and argues that silence isn’t an option. Benach lays out tangible steps we can take to resist authoritarianism and protect our communities.
OPINION: Social media is ruining our relationship with the gym
Being normal about going to the gym is becoming more and more challenging. What can easily be a culture of self improvement and health has become an exercise increasingly controlled by vanity and catalyzed by dangerous deprecating trends like “lookmaxxing.” Vir Patwardhan PZ ’28 argues that we cannot internalize these disordered pathways and must aspire to sustainable development.
OPINION: Wendy Williams, please save the internet!
I miss the reign of Wendy Williams. Once upon a time, there was an aristocratic order to hate. We, the plebeian masses, would all dogpile on something for a while and then chambers would call to order, and speak to the needs of the people. Bygone is the era of the queen hater. Celeste Cariker PZ ’28 argues that we have grown self-important and rather annoying in the absence of a Queen Hater, and would love to go back under her grand rule.
OPINION: Test scores don’t define us: Why test-optional must stay
After the faculty recommended a return to mandatory testing, Claremont McKenna College sits on the precipice of making an important decision: moving the admissions process to mandatory test submission after lifting the requirement due to national trends and worries of inequity sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this important moment, Daniel Choi PO ’28 asks the institution to continue making efforts for equity by remaining committed to holistic admissions.
OPINION: Whatever we think rap is, Ceechynaa is expanding it
Rapping “I’m peggin’ that man at the back of the bus,” UK drill rapper Ceechynaa flips the script on rap’s history of female objectification by placing men in the hypersexualized roles women have traditionally occupied in the genre, Zena Almeida-Warwin PO ’28 argues.
Male rappers have long objectified and degraded women in their lyrics without it defining their credibility or artistry. Yet, when a female artist like Ceechynaa mirrors that same energy, it’s met with outrage.
OPINION: Cashing paychecks or passions? The cost of fear at CMC
Are you at McKinsey or Deloitte this year? How are you preparing for the technicals? Is that return offer coming? These probably weren’t the questions that you thought you would be asking yourself when you came to a liberal arts college. Lisa Gorelik CM ’25 warns against the pressure you might feel to throw away that theater minor and enroll in an econometrics class or the fear of breaking out of the tried and true pathways to replicate wealth.
OPINION: You vape because the world is on fire
For Gen Z, the dust has never settled. Childhoods spent against the backdrop of the Iraq War, climate crisis on the horizon and record low rates of happiness have painted a bleak picture for the future of this generation. Alex Benach PO ’28 argues that a great resignation is taking place, a complacency in saying goodbye to the future emblematized by a simple device: the vape.
OPINION: The new cosmetic dystopia
The pursuit of an aesthetic ideal is driving many to alter themselves in irreversible ways. Zena Almeida-Warwin PO ’28 and Anna Yost PO ’28 examine the growing popularity of keratopigmentation, a procedure that permanently changes eye color. With most patients having naturally dark-brown eyes and a majority being Black or Hispanic, this trend reveals how deeply Western standards distort self-perception, turning cosmetic procedures into tools of self-erasure.
OPINION: Contemporary art must put individual before identity
As contemporary art shifts its focus from form to identity, does it still challenge the viewer, or has it become a closed loop of self-referential politics? Elias Diwan PO ’25 argues that contemporary art’s fixation on representation has turned inclusion into a substitute for communication, sidelining quality and meaningful engagement with the work itself.