[TW: Eating disorders, starvation] For me, it was a comment from my dad that planted the seed. My friends watered it. Social media gave it light. I nurtured it myself at times, until it broke through the one thing I swore I would protect: my curiosity, my joy, my desire to learn.
The firing of the Fleming Cannon is a tradition that is supposed to bring pride and joy to the hearts of students every year and mark the progression of time from the end of rotation to the end of every term. However, for many students, the sound of the Fleming Cannon carries a heavy burden, evoking memories of a past they had hoped to leave behind when they came to Caltech.
On January 21, the Caltech graduate student body received an email entitled “Campus Poll to Protect Wildlife”. The email, for those unfamiliar, provided a link to a poll where students could report concentrations of Fox squirrels on campus so that “yield to wildlife” road signs could be put up in strategic squirrel locations.
The Caltech experience for women and non-binary folks is undeniably influenced by the fact that the majority of people at this school are men. Only in the past few decades has the undergraduate gender ratio at Caltech approached some semblance of balance. Enrollment statistics for Fall 2022 show that 55% of undergraduates are male. Not too shabby for an all-STEM institution.
As a Caltech student, I do tend to eat at least some of my meals on-campus. And, like any other living person, I have likes and dislikes. Being the chair of the Food Committee, I feel the urge to give some shout-outs to the best food on campus served recently, so I thought I’d write an article for the Tech doing so.
This issue contains a review of several so called “tasty” food options on campus. While I cannot speak to most of them as my pallet tends towards the cautious and new things frighten and scare me, one item mentioned made me extremely opinionated.
It’s a beautiful day outside… the birds are singing, flowers are blooming… and it’s cloudy??? That’s right people, it’s cloudy here in beautiful Southern California. Where is the “almost 365 days of sunshine” I was promised by the Admissions Office in my acceptance letter a year ago?