Athlete Alienation
By Kaitlyn Wells | December 5Tufts athletes spend dozens of hours a week together. No wonder they travel in herds.
Kaitlyn Wells is a senior staff writer and the Daily’s social committee co-chair. She has previously served as managing editor and features exec. Kaitlyn is a senior studying international relations and biopsychology, and you can reach her at kaitlyn.wells@tufts.edu.
Tufts athletes spend dozens of hours a week together. No wonder they travel in herds.
For her daughter’s first birthday in 2019, Kylie Jenner hosted the inaugural edition of Stormiworld, a yearly celebration that featured theme park rides, gift shops, custom gilded cakes and celebrity guests. Call it an epic spectacle or an obnoxious display of wealth; it’s certainly quite different from how we approach birthdays here at Tufts.
It can take effort to pursue extracurriculars on top of a college workload and the other demands of life.SMFA student clubs based at the Boston campus provide opportunities to dive deeper into activities such as birdwatching, ceramics and sustainable crafts.
In Medford and Somerville, 29% of people five years and older speak a language other than English at home, in part due to both cities’ relatively large foreign-born populations.
Picture the trunk of a tree, and imagine that it is an academic department. Its branches are majors, and perhaps its leaves can be students. Majors are the primary way through which Tufts students consolidate their intellectual pursuits. Some of them exist outside of the spotlight, yet despite being younger or smaller in size, they are no less in value and profundity. The Daily spoke to faculty from four such departments to learn more.
“I learned that your relationship with someone lasts a lifetime. What you [learn] from them lasts a lifetime without having to be together for it all,” Becca Zajac said.
When tragedy strikes, there are no expectations on how we are supposed to proceed. Even in light of dark events, we sometimes find beautiful examples of unity, as has been displayed by the Tufts Students of Turkey.
This year, BlackOut — Tufts’ signature all-male step team — will be traveling to face off against a host of other universities from across the country in two of the most elite stepping competitions. The first is Upstaged, organized by the National Collegiate Performing Arts in the Lincoln Center of New York City, where BlackOut will be defending the All-American title they won the last time Upstaged occurred in 2020. This highly ranked team will then continue on to compete in the World of Dance finals this August in Anaheim, Calif.
On Dec. 3, 2022, the Tufts South Asian Political Action Committee hosted “Resistance,” an affinity fashion show open to all POC student organizations on campus. More than 10 identity-based clubs participated in this new SAPAC event, wherein each club prepared outfits to be modeled by their members on a makeshift runway in the Joyce Cummings Center Ballroom.
After a year of adjusting to life on the Hill, Tufts undergraduates return to campus as sophomores with a greater sense of familiarity — and obligations. As they settle into a new dorm, it’s not long before they are confronted with the task of planning where to live the following academic year.