By Hana Shamaa Watching the fields pass in a blur and rain drops slide down the spotted train window, realization dawns upon me. No longer will I have the freedom to spend time with friends at a cafe in downtown Cairo at any time of day, no longer will I be able to ask my…
The Brainless Soldier
By Amée Zoutberg Looking back on 2018, I feel that one of my greatest lessons learnt came about a month after receiving my UCR diploma. Which was great. Really. I painfully discovered that in three years of sacrifice and voluntary enslavement to the academic system (for that sweet, sweet 3.5 GPA), I had in no way…
The Courses We Take
By Sara Bartl We all know the feeling: we begin a course with over boarding enthusiasm, just to be disappointed in the end; either by the content or our own slacking motivation. Or we get kicked out of that one course we were so eager to take, and get placed elsewhere seemingly at random, just…
From Middy to Mokum
Jade Suzarte The decision to leave University College Roosevelt for another university was not easy. After one year living in the ever-lovely Middelburg, all other universities seemed slightly unwelcoming. However, I knew I had to move, since my track was no longer available at UCR. As a humanities student, I found what I was looking…
Let’s Talk About Fashion
By Gloria Borroni As I spend my days watching videos of New York’s fashion week, dreaming of owning one of those dresses, or, better yet, sitting in between the big names of the fashion industry, gazing at the models walking down the runway with my overcritical glasses on and my eyebrow raised, I wonder why…
Summerbreak Series #1 Digging for the truth: Waterloo Uncovered
Tabula RASA is kicking off the new semester with a short series of articles written by students that did something cool this summer. Volunteering, an internship, a cool job; there are so many ways in which people from UCR spend their long breaks! Do you have a story about your summer activities that you want…
Academia: A Tormenting Taboo
With this dissertation, we would like to raise our voices for a very common disorder on which rests an unspeakable taboo: Academia. This Intellectually Transmittable Disease (ITD) is relatively unknown, but affects many of us, as it is easily transmitted via prolonged contact with nerds. An open day might already be sufficient to contaminate the…
Students and Faculty Roast Own University for the Greater Good
3 reasons why you can’t miss out on the next Public Sphere Event Put the words ‘strategic agenda, deliberative conference and future prospects’ in one email and you will have me doing my best to keep my mouse from hovering over the ‘delete’ button in my inbox. All of us are writing enough official…
A Critical Review of the Dean’s Seven Questions
In anticipation of the upcoming event called “The Public Sphere” I have decided to finally write down the issues I have with UCR. I am not usually the person to speak up in public debates, as I realize my ideas are biased and my information limited. I will take back my words if it is…