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I Live for the Stage

May. 15, 2017—Akash Majumdar, ’19 Vanderbilt Performing Arts Community I live for the stage. Every time the curtains rise, I experience a surge of adrenaline combined with the desire to resonate with my audience. While preparing to make the journey from Kolkata, India to Vanderbilt, I rummaged through Vanderbilt’s 500+ student organizations, trying to gauge my potential...

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Beyond Brotherhood: Being in an NPHC Fraternity

May. 10, 2017—Gregory Rudd, ’18 Completing community service on early Saturday mornings; communicating with administration and faculty to program events; throwing parties and having to work the door the entire night; working with alumni to coordinate reunions; following the wishes of the Office of Greek Life even when they are less than agreeable. Being in a fraternity...

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Multicultural Leadership Council

May. 10, 2017—Jacob Pierce, ’19 Student VUceptor, College of Arts and Science I don’t do many class readings, but one in particular has always stuck with me: “diversity loses its force, however, if in the same space, different persons or activities are merely concentrated, buch each remains isolated…Differences have to interact.” I never expected my view of...

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Walking Fast and Slow. Learning to “Profiter”

May. 2, 2017—Elizabeth Winter, ’18 College of Arts and Science Student VUceptor It’s hard to escape a conversation in Aix-en-Provence, a small city in the south of France, without hearing the phrase “profiter de,” translating roughly to “make the most of” or “enjoy” two to three times. Whether it’s “profiter d’Aix” (enjoy Aix), or “profiter du soleil”...

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From D to Dean

May. 2, 2017—Vanessa Beasley, Ph.D. Dean of The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons When I remember it now, I can still hear the sound of my mother crying. In the 1980s, when I was a Vanderbilt undergraduate, your final semester grades were sent home via the mail.  There was no way for students to look up your final...

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Identity, Adversity, and the Weight of Conforming

May. 2, 2017—“…I thought he was gay…”—five words that haunted me for the first twenty years of my life. I heard them whispered through the halls of my middle school by the “popular kids” that I wanted so badly to impress. I felt their scornful and demoralizing intentions in the concerned words of my Sunday school teachers...

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Double-Majoring in Blair

May. 2, 2017—The start of my college experience was far from glamorous. I was enrolled in 16 hours but had class for twice that amount of time. Being a part of a campus that felt off the beaten path and practicing hours a day isolated me and skewed The Commons experience I hoped I would have. I...

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Losing a Loved One

Apr. 27, 2017—Haneesha Paruchuri, ’19 College of Arts and Sciences I woke up early one summer morning with a sense of unrest. Only a few hours previously, we had celebrated my friend’s twentieth birthday; yet, for some inexplicable reason, I felt lonely with a sense of longing for home. Having only been home for three weeks this...

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Get Connected: The Many Faces of Vanderbilt

Apr. 27, 2017—Henry Bristol, ’19 School of Engineering When I got to Vanderbilt my freshman year, I had no idea what to expect. Frankly, I had set foot on campus just once before, and made the decision to come here because I couldn’t convince myself out of it. I was hesitant. I still vividly remember that first day...

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Constant Conversations

Apr. 27, 2017—Audrey Glover, ’19 College of Arts and Sciences, Writing Studio Consultant I took every single paper I wrote freshman year to the writing studio. I loved having the space to talk about and improve my own work and have someone engage deeply with my ideas. It wasn’t until a consultant once encouraged me to apply...

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