The show’s writers also had a considerable challenge in the mass exodus of cast members after season three, with Simone Ashley (Olivia), Patricia Allison (Ola), and Tanya Reynolds (Lily) all departing, despite their characters having relatively large roles and being popular among fans. The absences of these main characters, along with Anwar, Erin, and Jakob, Ola’s father, are explained with varying levels of success. Perhaps the most easily justified, Anwar and Olivia are simply attending a different school following the shuttering of Moordale Secondary School at the end of the previous season. 

Conversely, the show doesn’t even attempt to explain the disappearance of Jakob, and by association, Ola — the only time viewers hear of it is in a passing comment from Otis to Jean about how they are now gone. This lack of an explanation demands an unreasonable suspension of disbelief from the viewer — it simply doesn’t make sense. Not enough time has elapsed between the end of season three and the beginning of season four to explain their sudden disappearance, even though the show does provide an explanation for why Jakob is no longer a part of our protagonists’ lives. 

Season four attempts to give every single character an in-depth plot, making it feel too heavy-handed. It seemed to me that every single character who had been introduced to viewers prior to this season received a full-fledged storyline, while newly introduced characters were relegated to side plots and supporting roles. 

Compared to season one, where main characters Jean, Otis, Eric, and Maeve were the focal point of the show, season four is a marked departure. This offers its benefits. First and foremost, it allowed for a significantly more diverse array of stories to be told and a much larger variety of issues to be discussed. However, in season four, there are three seasons’ worth of storylines that have been added over time. As a result, the entire season feels rushed, each storyline receiving only a few minutes per episode and each episode cramming in major plot points. 

Another issue I had with season four was with the new school our beloved characters attended. Simply put, it was incredibly unrealistic. I, an Oberlin student, found this liberal school to be unbelievable and, at times, even performative. I understand that it was likely meant to be a safe haven or utopia for several characters, but it was presented as such an idealized environment that it came across as sterile.

The school’s environment was so markedly different from that of Moordale that it almost felt like season four was a different show entirely. The whole premise of Sex Education was that sex was too taboo to talk about, resulting in problems in the characters’ lives. A school having a student sex therapist was shocking, but proved helpful by providing students with an important resource they were missing. How did the show change so much that suddenly its school has two sex therapists and almost every character has sex on screen? 

That said, I was quite happy when Maeve and Otis finally decided to date. For me, it has been clear since the very beginning that the two of them had to end up together in some way. As much as I enjoyed the brief moment of romantic bliss that they got to experience, I found their ending as a whole to be unfulfilling. It felt that the other characters got the ends of their stories tied neatly into bows — Jean’s resolution to come clean about her child’s father and be the best mother she can be, Eric’s incredibly brave decision to put what he wants over what his community wants, Aimee’s long path of finding herself. The question of what would happen with Maeve and Otis is left ambiguous.

For whatever reason, I found myself expecting a time jump to several years in the future at the end of the final episode. Something about the montage of resolutions that was presented made me certain that Otis and Maeve not being together would have to be addressed or resolved. I was crushed when it wasn’t. I’ve been watching this show since I was 16 and have always thought that they would end the show as a couple. 

There’s something very powerful about how watching the ending of season four made me feel like a high schooler again, desperately hoping for them to kiss. Sex Education was a crucial piece of media that made me feel safe as a teenager. That comfort never wavered, and over the past five years, I’ve derived incredible joy from curling up in bed to watch it — whether I was holding a mug of hot chocolate or a glass of wine.

This year also marks the debut of mail lockers as Oberlin’s primary method of mail delivery. Prior to the spring semester of 2023, all students were assigned an Oberlin College Mail Room number where they would receive letter mail or wait in line to pick up packages from the window in the mailroom. The mailboxes and the area where students waited have been eliminated to make space for new mechanical systems, according to an article published in the Review (“Mailroom Prepares to Implement Electronic Lockers,” The Oberlin Review, Nov. 18, 2022). 

A few months later, on Feb. 2, 2023, the Student Employment, Payroll, Finance, and Human Resources Office sent an email to student employees stating that the College had eliminated OCMR boxes, “effective immediately.” The new mail locker system had been announced several months earlier with a bulletin from the student mailroom posted on the College’s website Oct. 20, 2022.

The bulletin claims that the implementation of mail lockers would “improve the efficiency of processing more than 70,000 packages annually.” So far, the newly implemented locker system has completely failed to meet the needs of the mailroom and Oberlin’s student body, as has been demonstrated by the College’s announcement of a secondary package pickup location Sept. 11.  

The announcement, shared with students in the Campus Digest, stated that Stevenson Hall room 100 would temporarily serve as an Amazon package pickup location, likely to help the mailroom cope with the enormous number of packages that students order from Amazon at the beginning of the school year. This change in mail procedure, however, was not communicated to the student body in a clear and obvious way, nor was it clear exactly what packages were available to pick up at Stevenson and when packages had begun to be stored there.

I believe that this change should have been communicated via a separate email to students, rather than thrown into the daily roundup of student announcements. At the very least, mailroom changes should have been included in the subject line of the email. Had I not taken the time to scroll even just a bit, I would have been completely unaware of this change. 

The package that I was waiting for was shipped by a company owned by Amazon, which may have been why I was redirected to Stevenson from the mailroom when I went to pick up my package. However, this was not clearly communicated in the announcement in the Campus Digest. Nor was it communicated to students whether their packages that had been delivered prior to the announcement, like my package, would be at the mailroom in Wilder Hall or in Stevenson. 

As I waited in line, student after student in front of me was redirected to Stevenson to pick up their packages from Amazon. Clearer communication about this change would have certainly saved me some time, and I would not have had to wait in line as long. It would almost certainly save the mailroom staff time as well, as they would be able to help students whose packages were, in fact, available at the mailroom, rather than entering students’ information into the mailroom system then redirecting them. 

This lack of communication between the mailroom and the student body continued when I arrived at Stevenson and joined yet another line, made up largely of people whom I had just stood in line with at Wilder. While I was standing in line, we were informed that the Stevenson pickup location would be closing after we had been helped. While this didn’t affect me, I still found it frustrating that hours for the Stevenson pickup location were not communicated. When I encountered a package mixup and needed to return to Stevenson again, I had no idea when I would be able to do so.  

The addition of the lockers has also increased the amount of space that a single piece of mail takes up before it is picked up by its recipient. The smallest size of package locker is still around twice the size of the old mailboxes, but they only hold one piece of mail at a time, whereas OCMR boxes could hold multiple pieces of letter mail. This has the potential to make picking up mail less efficient for students, in direct contrast to what the goals of mail locker implementation were. 

All of that said, I want to be exceedingly clear that I do not blame the staff of the mailroom in the slightest for delays in students receiving mail. There is seemingly very little oversight about these changes and the impacts that they will have on Oberlin’s student body. In fact, the changes to the mail system are almost certainly significantly more detrimental to the mailroom staff than they are to the general student body. The elimination of the mailbox room and the renovations to Wilder have resulted in a drastic reduction of space for packages to be stored; before they are picked up. 

The decision to change the way that the mailroom operates was one made by the College, and what’s done is done. It is my hope that as the beginning-of-school package rush begins to subside, so will the long lines and wait times for mail. I wish that this implementation had been made in a less hasty manner and that there had been clearer pathways of communication. I also hope that, with election season just around the corner and many Oberlin students receiving absentee or mail-in ballots, these issues are resolved sooner rather than later. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you start working at the Review?

When I was applying to Oberlin, I first heard about The Grape and was looking for jobs there. On the class of 2023 Facebook page, I saw a posting there about a production editor job with the Review. I was like, “That looks cool — I don’t know anything about copy editing, I’m gonna apply to this.”

How has working at the Review changed your experience and perspective as an Oberlin student?

I was an Opinions Editor for a year, then I served as Editor- in-Chief for two years. If there’s been something bad to say about Oberlin, it has been said to me. Every day for the last four years, I’ve thought about the problems with this place. It can feel really hopeless. I was a tour guide, and one of the reasons I said I couldn’t do the job anymore was because when someone asked me a question about Oberlin, my job was to say, “Here’s the good stuff,” which is true, but my answers would always lean toward, “But also, Oberlin is not a diverse school, and in more than enough moments, you’re going to find yourself being alienated or feeling alone.” There’s also the side of things which have humanized the space for me, because as a reporter, I’ve had to talk to basically anyone and everyone who has ever had anything to do with this institution. I think that for all of my understanding of the ways in which I disagree with their decisions — and God knows I disagree with the various leadership of this institution — I understood where they were coming from.

What would you say are the biggest challenges you’ve faced working at the Review?

I’ll start this framing as a personal challenge. We don’t get paid very well, which means that not only is your day-to-day tougher, but also the amount of work that each of us are putting into this is significantly more than we are paid for. As Opinions Editor, I was working a 25-hour week; as EIC, I worked 40 hours every week for two years. I think that becomes really disheartening and makes it difficult to justify to myself why I am doing this job. I think my second challenge as Editor-In-Chief is trying to push my team and feeling anger when something isn’t the way that I wanted it to be, and having to come to terms with the fact that we are doing the best we can given that our circumstances are not ideal. I think it was simultaneously learning how to work better with my team, but also learning how to better work myself and reorient. It’s constantly been that back-and-forth in myself, of what I am setting as my expectations and how much I can commit to get to that point.

If you could change one thing at Oberlin, what would it be?

I would make it so that people ask themselves why they’re doing what they’re doing more often. For instance, when faculty were protesting not having sufficient pay in the spring of 2022, I was upset that students were in that space talking about student pay because while both need to be addressed, they’re tied to different issues. Student pay could definitely be better, it could always be better, but the reasons for our problems are not tied. So I was upset that people were like, “Hey, it’s all pay. Let’s take over this faculty protest and make it about students.” Yes, it’s important to ask that, but why are you asking that now? I would just make sure that every time someone was about to do something, a little voice in their head went, “Why am I doing this?”

What is your favorite Review memory?

In March of 2020, the Review didn’t know what was going to happen. We knew that we’d have to keep reporting, but we didnʼt know if we’d be able to keep producing a paper. Instead of having an end-of-spring-semester farewell for seniors, we had it in March. That night ended up being one of the last times that we, in my first year at the Review, were all together. We had a really great time in the office, and then we all went to Nathan [Carpenter, OC ’20]’s house and sat on his patio for several hours. Then we went to Catrina’s, the last time I went, since it’s shut down. We just goofed around. It was the last time I saw a lot of these people. It’s a bittersweet memory, but it’s also one of my favorite moments because I felt part of something, and that’s when I knew that I’d stick it out with the Review.

Who at Oberlin do you want to thank?

I want to start with former Production Manager Devyn Malouf, OC ’20, for hiring me at the Review and for being incredibly supportive and just a great friend. Nathan and Katherine [MacPhail, OC ’21] as my first two Editors-in-Chief. They’ve both been an incredible part of my life; they’re both very good friends and they continue to provide me with advice and counsel. Kate Fishman, OC ’21, who was Managing Editor and was a pretty big supporter of my time as Opinions Editor. I didn’t get to know Anisa [Curry Vietze, OC ’22] well enough until I started being EIC with her. We fought a lot early on, but we figured out how to communicate with each other, and working with her and becoming friends has been among my greatest privileges. My friendship with Former Managing Editor Gigi [Ewing, OC ’22], who joined production with me at the same time, and we ran the paper for a year together, has honestly been one of my favorite friendships of all time. Emma [Benardete] and Nikki [Keating] have been incredible co-editors this past year. I want to thank the staff that I worked with. I want to highlight the fourth-years who have been such an incredible part of the newspaper. It’s been an honor to work with you. I’ve saved the best for last: Ananya Gupta, OC ’20 and former Managing Editor. There has been no better mentor I could have asked for. There is no one person I’m more grateful for and grateful to than Ananya.

“There’s a longstanding history here of Oberlin people going to foreign lands or other parts of the country,” College Archivist Ken Grossi said. Oberlin-educated missionaries traveled to Minnesota as early as 1842 “to work among the Ojibwe Indians,” according to the College Archives. Oberlin’s missionary history in Asia began in the 1880s when a group of Oberlin-educated missionaries known as the “Oberlin Band” volunteered to serve as missionaries to China.

The Memorial Arch in Tappan Square is a physical remnant of Oberlin’s missionary history in China. Its dedication plaque reads that the memorial “was brought into being by friends of the Oberlin-connected missionaries who lost their lives in the Chinese Boxer Rebellion of 1900.” Large plaques on either side of the walkway through the arch list the names of those killed under- neath the word “massacred.” It was commissioned by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, an organization based in Boston, and serves as a memorial to all American missionaries who lost their lives in China in the Boxer Uprising, not just Oberlin-educated missionaries. However, Oberlin was chosen as a location because almost all of the missionaries killed had been educated at Oberlin.

The arch has been a source of controversy on campus for quite some time. Prior to 2009, Oberlin’s annual commencement path had graduating students walk underneath the arch. It was not uncommon for students to walk around the arch in protest of what the monument stands for.

“The arch used to intrude on people’s consciousness once a year when it was involved at commencement, and people had to decide how they felt about it,” Professor of Art History Erik Inglis, OC ’89, said.

According to Inglis, the tradition began as early as the 1950s and continued until commencement ceremonies were relocated to a different part of Tappan Square in 2009.

Oberlin’s missionary history does not only linger in physical monuments on campus. Inglis considers the College’s present-day emphasis on the individual — for instance, the motto of, “Think one person can change the world” — to be reminiscent of missionary rhetoric.

“I think the marketing motto ‘Think one person can change the world? So do we,’ resonates with a missionary ethos,” Inglis said. “That idea — missionaries go out to change the world, to convert people — Oberlin is encouraging people to think about changing the world, so those two resonate together for me.”

Grossi said that in the College Archives, these connections are embraced and sought out.

“We try to make connections with the early history,” Grossi said. “When you learn about our history and about those people that were going out and being activists in whatever cause they were devoted to, that kind of translates to what we might do now.”

There are also programs that are legacies of Oberlin’s missionary past. The Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association was founded in 1908 with the purpose of supporting education at the Ming Hsien School in Taigu, Shanxi Province, China. Its original constitution reads, “It shall be the purpose of this organization to perpetuate the memory of those who suffered martyrdom in 1900 in the Shansi field, by promoting in every feasible way… the educational work in connection with the Shansi Mission in the Province of Shansi, China.”

Shansi’s legacy has continued to this day. One of its main programs is the Shansi Fellowship, which, according to their website is “for recent Oberlin graduates to teach or engage in service projects at partner institutions in Asia.” While the program no lon-
ger includes religious teachings, it is still a legacy of Oberlin’s missionary history.

“I think even today, when our students go out as Shansi reps, for example, they go to China, they go to Japan, they go to other places around the world,” Grossi said. “They might be going there to teach English, but they’re also learning about the culture. They’re really carrying on that service that really is rooted in the history that goes back to the 19th century.”

Abhisri Nath, College fourth-year 

I feel that as a student, you can really find your niche in the Oberlin community and in college because you can develop that sort of relationship with the professionals here on campus — and with the professors, too. But having said that, I would also say that you should be wise and you should be cognizant of the fact that we are in Oberlin, which is a little away from the city life, hence networking and career trajectories can seem a little different in such a place.

Andreea Procopan, College fourth-year

Because it’s in Ohio, it definitely is a bubble that can sometimes isolate students from real-life issues, which kind of makes you question how the students are here. That same bubble can sometimes make it boring here. There are a lot of events, but if you’re into more urban or city activities or knowing different people, that might be difficult to come by here, since the student body population is also quite small. But for the professors, it’s definitely worth it. That’s what I will say. Favorite, favorite aspect is professors.

Ruby Spencer, College first-year

One thing I wish I’d known before coming here — this is so classic, but party-scene-wise, it’s very limited if you don’t know things. Parties end at like 12:30 a.m. It’s not all-night ragers. It makes sense for the environment, but be warned. It’s not super social at night. 

Katia Chapin, College first-year 

The main thing I would tell a prospective student is that everyone at Oberlin is very nerdy about one specific thing, and that’s already amazing. The added benefit is that they’re very excited to share with you, and they’re very excited to hear the thing that you’re nerdy about. That manifests itself in classes and the ExCo program, and everyone has a great time learning from each other. 

Mia Cooper, College second-year

I would say take Italian with [Senior Lecturer of Italian] Ivana Di Siena. She’s the best ever. 

Oona Shain, College second-year 

Obviously, I would say to come to Oberlin College Lanes. It’s the best place to be. Everyone who works there is awesome. Everyone who bowls is awesome.

Avi Moses, College first-year

I’d tell them that Oberlin is an average liberal arts college and a world-renowned conservatory. The two reasons to go here are co-ops and the culture that you get from being in a conservatory. And also, like, go here now, ’cause like, it’s getting worse. It’s still good, but like, I bet I wouldn’t recommend it in 10 years. So especially if you’re gonna be a double-degree, f***ing, go now. 

There have been over 100 mass shootings in the United States in 2023. It’s a staggering number, almost impossible to conceptualize and even harder when the loss of human life is considered. Yet this statistic has not graced the front pages of any newspapers, and this figure alone does not have the same impact on Americans that it may have had even ten years ago. Americans, and more specifically American legislators, have become accustomed to statistics of this kind. 

The coverage of this walkout brought us back to our own involvement in school walkouts in response to mass shootings, having both participated in the national walkouts organized by March for Our Lives in March 2018. Five years have passed since this event. We think of our siblings, now close to the ages that we were when March for Our Lives was founded in response to a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. How will they respond to these tragedies? Does the violence shock them as it shocked us at their age or has this type of gun violence become so commonplace that the anger has been lost, leaving only hopelessness? We are devastated by this thought. How can so little have changed since we marched? How can we still be in virtually the same place that we were before? Why do we let children continue to die from the same preventable cause?

This is not to discount the meaningful legislation that has resulted from these protests and the power of the collective action of student organizers that has propelled us forward. It is thanks to these efforts that we owe several pieces of effective legislation: In 2022, common sense gun legislation received a major victory with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which, among other things, enhanced background checks, supported state red flag laws, and invested in mental health services and access. But for every step forward, it seems as if the movement is set two steps back. Recently, the Florida state legislature approved legislation that would allow permitless open carry.

In writing this we would like to point to the undeniable fact that generation after generation of Americans continue to feel the impact of the gun violence epidemic plaguing this country. Every student in the United States has been touched by the impact of gun violence and, unless change happens, will continue to be. Most domestic students at Oberlin likely remember armed intruder drills happening at some point in their pre-college education. 

We remember these drills being first implemented around 2012, following a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. We continued to experience these drills throughout the remainder of our education, with yearly drills being implemented in our school districts following the Parkland shooting. Between and following these two shootings, there have been hundreds, if not thousands, more. We just don’t remember all of the names and places; there are simply too many. A quick Google search for “gun violence” or “mass shooting” will yield a myriad of results published in the past 24 hours, each seemingly about a different shooting within the past couple weeks. In just a short time, the news circuit will move on, publicizing and reporting on the next shooting and the next. 

This leaves little time to process the news, to truly understand it. More importantly, it gives those affected little time to grieve and truly make sense of their losses. How does a parent process the loss of their child at school, a place where children are supposed to be safe? How do these children process the loss of their classmates? How does anyone process the loss of their friends or family members to senseless violence? How do communities move past these tragedies and recover, despite the holes of missing people in the patchwork that makes the communities what they are? There simply aren’t words to describe the pain and trauma that a mass shooting brings to a community. Following a mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in October 2018 — four and a half years ago — remnants of the tragedy are still visible in the signs saying “no place for hate” around the neighborhood and the chain link fence that surrounds the synagogue, covered with banners displaying art made by children from the Pittsburgh and Orlando areas: two cities touched by the horrific reality of mass shootings in America.

The threat is ever present. Gun violence — in the form of mass shootings in particular — has become frighteningly normalized in the United States. This is not a fresh take; it is a disturbingly old one. That in and of itself should be horrifying. How do we keep repeating the same conversation? At what point does this epidemic end? When do we say, once and for all, that enough is enough? How many more kids need to die for something to happen? How many more people will die as a result of our politicians’ inaction? 

The prevalence of mass shootings in America has made it difficult to be shocked when these horrific events happen. A mass shooting is four deaths. Why should that be considered a small number? It horrifies us to think of our sisters growing up in this same reality, that soon they, their friends, and their peers will be exposed to the same traumas and stresses, if they have not already been. This cannot go another ten years. This cannot go another five. We, the people, are tired. What else can we do to make our voices heard?

The quotes from the former workers and the narrative created by the interviews paints a painful picture of the impact of a large layoff such as this one. I found this insight to be the most valuable part of the pamphlet. Layoffs are bad. They have huge impacts on the lives of those laid off because, in the United States, the loss of a job means that, in addition to the loss of a much-needed salary, workers also lose benefits crucial to survival, such as health insurance. A reader of the pamphlet distributed by SLAC knows this, but knowing all of this is very different from hearing how exactly these losses affected the individuals who were laid off. I have been angry at the College’s decision to lay off these workers in favor of hiring subcontractors who sacrifice worker protection and benefits to keep costs low, since it happened when I was a prospective student. Reading this pamphlet and hearing directly from workers who were affected has made me angry all over again. What I don’t know now, though, is what I am supposed to do with this renewed anger over the College’s horrendous mistreatment of these workers and its continued layoffs in the name of outsourcing to get cheaper labor. 

If the objective of this pamphlet is to simply raise awareness and educate the Oberlin student body, it certainly does an excellent job of doing that. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, if this was part of something bigger — and if so, then what? I felt that there was a glaring lack of any action items whatsoever, only barely teetering on providing anything that readers could do, but, in my opinion, ultimately falling short of doing so. While it does provide a list of upcoming expiring union contracts, it has no information on what steps students can take to support, and stand in solidarity with, workers as they, and their unions, renegotiate their contracts in the next few years. It simply says “[t]hese dates provide a guide to potential layoffs as well as the opportunity to fight them,” and that an informed community “is vastly more prepared to combat anti-labor decisions.” 

I understand that not every piece of writing needs a call to action and that, frequently, the role of organizational literature is to inform. That’s great, but what am I supposed to do with the information it contains? Effective organization not only provides an audience with information, but also tells the audience what they can do with said information without telling its readers what they should do, a crucial difference. After reading the SLAC pamphlet and digesting the information, I was somewhat at a loss for what I, as an individual, am supposed to do next. Was the purpose of this to get me mad at the College and its vague, amorphous administration? That ship sailed a while ago. And if the purpose was to convince me to take action, what am I supposed to do? Storming a meeting of the Board of Trustees has proven wildly ineffective, and unharnessed anger does nothing to help a movement. 

This lack of a call to action has overall led me to doubt the efficacy of this campaign and this strategy of organizing. Combined with the fact that the pamphlet was released several weeks ago, I would expect to have seen at least a     follow-up post on Instagram, but the organization has not posted anything about the pamphlet and its accompanying exhibit in Mary Church Terrell Main Library since they announced it in early March. If there is a long-term goal for this campaign, continued engagement is essential. At this moment, SLAC has an engaged audience. It can harness that audience and actually accomplish something if it organizes effectively in the following weeks and months. 

I have found it hard to want to engage further with this campaign when I can’t find a long-term goal or action item within it. On its own, the pamphlet serves the sole purpose of being informative, but overall fails to truly engage its audience. I would like to see more concrete organizing surrounding the issues in the future. There are clearly opportunities coming up, some just around the corner, as are outlined in the list of upcoming expiring union contracts at the end of the pamphlet. At the end of the day, words and information can only do so much and go so far. Action is what is really needed to make a difference.

Should I wear sunscreen even though it’s literally March? 

Emily: Yes, yes, yes, a million times, yes! If you need to ask yourself, the answer is yes. I get that you might want a tan, but there are so many self-tanners out there that can give you the same effect with none of the sun damage or risks associated with ultraviolet light. 

Hanna: According to the plethora of TikTokers on my “For You” page, I should be wearing it daily — carrying it around in my tote bag, along with chapstick, the latest Colleen Hoover novel, and a moleskine notebook. So, should I wear sunscreen? The answer is decidedly yes. Will I wear sunscreen? This is another question altogether. 

VERDICT: You should, but we can’t force you to. 

How can I make everyone else at this beach/subway car/cafe think I’m super cool and sexy and smart and mysterious? 

Emily: I think that there are a lot of different ways to do this. I’d recommend making sure that you’re carrying a tote bag that has a logo from a random, hyper-specific thing like the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association or WOBC-FM that obviously has a “the girls that get it, get it, the girls that don’t, don’t” kinda vibe. A water bottle covered with similarly obscure stickers would complete the set. Finally, you need to be reading something really, really cool, like the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, while looking bored out of your mind and nonchalant. 

Hanna: First off, I’m thinking sunglasses. You can’t go wrong with a pair of shades. Round, square, heart shaped, oblong — as long as your eyes are covered, you are guaranteed an air of mystery. Next, I would suggest a large coat. Whether you go with trench, jean, or puffer, it is vital that you have as many pockets as possible, so passersby know you have the capacity to hide an array of trinkets on your person. I agree with Emily that some sort of reading material is essential to this ensemble, though I am more inclined to go with the trusty newspaper. Hold it up in front of your face and lower it every so often to look around shiftily. Nothing says sexy and cool like dressing up as a spy. 

VERDICT: It’s all in the attitude.

When is an appropriate time to get out of bed during break?

Emily: I feel like time is sort of fake during breaks. Getting up at 6 a.m. to take a sunrise hike? Cool. Going to bed at 6 a.m. after watching all of Lena Dunham’s Girls on your parents’ Apple TV? Also fair. 

Hanna: Personally, I say don’t. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: Break is for beds. Part of being home is having the leisure to do absolutely nothing. Pretend you are an ailing 16th century monarch. Pull the blinds. Prop yourself up on as many pillows as possible. Have a devoted sibling bring you your meals. Say things like, “My poor nerves” or “Oh, the consumption.” Lean into your leisure time. Remember, all that awaits you after break is a twin XL dorm bed. 

VERDICT: We don’t know, tbh.

What are some of the most obnoxious Instagram captions you can use? 

Emily: I honestly think there are almost too many to list, but here are a few to get you started: “In paradise;” “Sun’s out, buns out;” “Already missing it;” any cliche thing like that. If you’re in New York, saying “Best city in the world” instantly adds you to the list of Worst People on Instagram. 

Hanna: Don’t post about your spring break on Instagram. No post. No captions. No problem. 

VERDICT: We’re judging you regardless. 

How many pictures of my pet is too many? 

Emily: The limit simply does not exist. 

Hanna: I have nothing more to add. 

VERDICT: Post all of them.

How can I make my hometown seem super cool and fun to my friends from New York?

Emily: I ask myself this every time I go home for a break. I’ve decided on going to the old Carnegie library in my city and parking myself in the original reading rooms and stacks for an afternoon and taking pictures there. I’m not really sure though. I’m going to New York City for spring break. 

Hanna: Show them what they’re missing. Take a picture of the gas station mozzarella sticks that you’re ordering on your Friday night out on the town. Pose with the first cow you pass on the country roads to the nearest drug store. Take a video throwing a rock into a river or pond or your closest body of water. Vlog your trip to the local diner. Can you find Grandma Sal’s Famous Biscuits and Gravy in New York? I didn’t think so. 

VERDICT: They’re from New York. They’re judging you regardless.

College second-year Sammy Singleton:  

I live and dine in Harkness [House]. I joined last spring, just dining only, and then I moved in this fall. When I started coming to Oberlin I didn’t know how to join my fall semester, and then I was like, “Oh, there’s a waitlist, let me do it.” And then I came and I really loved it and I met all my friends here and now it makes me so happy. 

College first-year Maeve Southard-Way:

I am in the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association. I’m in Harkness co-op and I joined OSCA because I wanted to be in a community that ensures that there’s high-quality food for vegan and vegetarian people, and it’s also nice to always have people to eat with and spend time with.

College third-year Kabir Sethi:

I dine in CDS partly because I simply have not had as much experience with OSCA as I would’ve liked to. I’ve been to a few co-op meals here and there, and I’ve loved the experience, but part of the reason why I haven’t joined is because I came in 2020 when all the co-ops were temporarily closed because of the pandemic. Unfortunately there was very limited exposure to co-op life, and I’m really grateful that now OSCA is taking more steps to do that. But I just have always dined in [Campus Dining] out of convenience, and it’s just more accessible to me in terms of the information that I was given.

College first-year Andy Roshal:

I dine in CDS. I did not know that OSCA was an option when I came here for the first time. I’m considering doing it at some point in the future. I feel like it’s a good sense of community and also the food might just be better. 

College third-year Helene Prince: 

I dine in OSCA because I have very specific dietary restrictions that make it really hard for me to process or digest a lot of CDS food. When I used to be on CDS my first year at Oberlin, I remember my stomach hurting a lot and the long walk to Clarity, which sometimes was really not worth it. I think the mistake that CDS often makes is it combines a lot of dietary restrictions into one dining hall, which makes the food options pretty minimal and makes it feel very restricting and kind of bland sometimes. I was tired of the hit and miss of Clarity. I decided that I wanted to eat food that was more healthy and that tasted better. I found myself applying to OSCA and was pleasantly surprised to learn that I could cook my own food. More importantly, I could cook fresh fruits and veggies and nutritious things that wouldn’t make my stomach hurt so that I could be a good, healthy student.

College second-year Daria Tamar:

I dine with AVI Foodsystems just because it was the default. I’ve thought about OSCA, but I’m a little bit lazy in terms of cooking and I can afford the meal plan. 

“I think we are in a weird period, the era of reboots and everything is getting brought back and we’re very much steeped in that weird nostalgia media of like, ‘Let’s bring back everything you liked as a child,’” College third-year Nora McIntyre said.

The reboots McIntyre is referencing are a dime a dozen. She specifically mentioned the Winx Club and Monster High reboots, but others have come out in recent years, like High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. There are even more made for media that millennials grew up with, like the recent reboots of Gossip Girl, That ’70s Show, and Sex and the City. This is not to say, of course, that Generation Z or millennials are the first generations to be obsessed with the media from their childhoods, nor are they the first generations to see reboots or additions to media they enjoyed — how many Star Wars movies and spin-offs are there? Younger generations simply have access to media in ways that older generations historically have not.

“It could be due to access and technology,” Assistant Professor of Psychology Clinton Merck said. “I think the media that we interact with in our youth kind of automatically inherently gets linked to our identity over time because as we’re growing, we’re developing an identity. And so as we associate different media with our values, our preferences, beliefs and attitudes, we kind of then associate them with who we are as an individual.”

There are also franchises that have been around for generations that have shifted and developed with the times, like Mattel’s Barbie franchise. This past fall, McIntyre taught an ExCo on Barbies, providing an overview of the franchise’s history, as well as using an adult’s lens to look at the doll. It’s not the only ExCo about children’s media — YipYipCo is an ExCo focused on Avatar: The Last Airbender.

“We focused on bodies, gender, [and] race,”McIntyre said. “One of the main takeaways is how society has shaped Barbie and how Barbie has shaped society in return.”

When asked about what she thinks attracted people to the class, she said that people enjoy childhood media because of its familiarity. “I think people are drawn into things that you already have kind of that nostalgia for,” McIntyre said. “Because people have that nostalgia for it, they wanna dig deeper and be like, ‘I didn’t know that much about this as a kid, I want to learn more about it.’”

College third-year Alejandro Jorge disagrees that nostalgia is a driving factor in bringing people back to the media they enjoyed as a kid. They find instead that they’re more drawn to the media they grew up with because looking at it again with an adult lens allows them to uncover new details.

“Nostalgia is kind of a nebulous concept for me,” Jorge said. “I don’t enjoy the works I used to like because I used to like them. I enjoy them because I like them now.”

For me, it’s a combination of nostalgia and exploring and seeing more. I’m not watching The Magic School Bus again with the hopes of and expanding my knowledge. I’m watching it both because I have fond memories of watching it and because it still holds up as decent entertainment to me, even as a 20-year-old.

Merck believes that the novelty of things we watch as children may contribute to why we continue to engage with such media.

“We tend to remember first experiences better than later repeated experiences of the same thing,” Merck said. “For instance, the first song or album you hear by an artist is often your favorite song or album … Initial experiences have a greater impact. They provide us with more lessons, more information.”

This may explain why we continue to return to them even as adults. According to Merck, the fact that we experience so much media for the first time when we are younger can contribute to why we remember it so well and hold it in such high regard.

“When we reflect on experiences with media from our youth, we tend to view the more distant past positively,” Merck said. “The tendency is to view childhood as a positive time, right? Like, when we’re innocent and happy, things are easier.”

It seems that childhood media can bring us a sense of comfort because of the memories we associate with it. So many of us seek comfort amidst the chaos of the world we live in and get away from the doom and gloom of the news. When I asked McIntyre about this, she agreed.

“Maybe there is something there that’s like, ‘Life sucks. I want to go back to being seven. I wanna play with Barbies,’” McIntyre said, laughing.