Guillaume Kosmala: Students will bear the financial burden of Trump’s tax reforms

According to a recent report, the eight richest individuals in the world have as much combined wealth as the poorest 50 percent. In other words, at a small inconvenience to eight inordinately rich men, the living standard of half of the world’s people could be doubled. In fact, new research by economist Thomas Piketty shows […]

Jasmine Aquino: Students compelled to engage and act locally are hope for political change

College students have always been anxious about going out into “the real world.” But it’s especially scary now that President-elect Donald Trump will be leading a good amount of it. Trump is repealing environmental regulations, the Affordable Care Act, giving big, rich companies a huge tax cut and putting in place a cabinet that doesn’t […]

Chris Campbell: The Trump Cabinet’s hyper-conservatism should not be underestimated

Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States in just four days, and like a writer desperately searching for a political analogy to kickstart his column, Trump still doesn’t seem to have a clue. Since very little he’s said or done suggests he’s done his policy homework since being […]

Submission: Piterberg’s return exposes dangerous tolerance in administration

On the first day of winter quarter, professor Gabriel Piterberg’s two history classes were canceled due to student protests against the professor. Protesters were present inside the classroom, silent and bearing signs, during Wednesday’s classes as well. We at Bruins Against Sexual Harassment are aware that the people most directly affected by this protest are […]

Jacqueline Alvarez: Professors must work to engage students in large lectures

Hundreds of sleepy-looking Bruins slouch into their seats. The professor stands behind a podium, though it’s hard to determine whether he’s reading the lecture speech for the first or 50th time. An entire hour has passed since the audience was last prompted for questions, yet the room has collectively sent more than 50 Facebook messages […]

Aaron Julian: Californians must challenge ideological inconsistency shown in Prop. 66

California, a blue state that leads by example on most progressive policies, went red this past election cycle on an important issue. Somehow, the values of the Democratic Party and progressives alike proved baseless when the liberal populace of California voted not only to keep the death penalty via Proposition 66, but also chose to […]

Guillaume Kosmala: Easy-A classes perpetuate a broken, grade-centric educational system

Students are under a huge amount of pressure to find new ways to distinguish themselves in an increasingly oversaturated job market. As a result, they naturally gravitate toward any available shortcuts, such as easy-A general education classes. Unfortunately, this results in a world where students sacrifice intellectual exploration in favor of gaming a broken system […]