By Marije Huging During the last week of a UCR semester, my head usually feels strangely detached from my body, like a little homunculus living in an empty shell. This is what exams, presentations, and what seems like an endless array of papers (that I actually wrote in two days) feel like. During this time,…
What I Have Learned About Belonging Together
By Dana Zoutman I turned off the light. Or -well, in all truth, I never really turned off the light- I waited and waited until the lamp’s last light had simmered out. It first occurred to me that I could have just turned it off about five months after it broke. Instead, I had just…
We Need to Talk about Mental Health
By Marco Segantini After writing about the value of cartoons and some of my favorite movies in my previous articles for Tabula Rasa, it seems strange to now sit and write about mental health. I almost wish I could be here writing about “The great friendship between Teddy and the dragon” (those that attended the Budget…
The Summer Break in ‘The New Normal’
By Junghyun Song The summer break this year was certainly nothing like the one we have had before. With all the uncertainties ushered in by the novel coronavirus, it has been very challenging to make our normal plans and execute them the way we used to. As such, I thought it was time to ask…
Longer Semesters: The Pro’s and Con’s
By Anja Hermann UCR’s summer holiday lasts around three months and the winter 6 weeks, making the semester a 15-week intensive period for both students and staff. Both groups have questioned whether the heavy workload and semester length is contributing to stress and anxiety. If the length of the semester were to change, it…
“Feeling Blue: The Performance Pressure & Mental Health of the 21st Century Student”
By Amélie Snijders and Mieke Pressley Acquiring a university degree has never been a simple task. It inevitably goes hand in hand with many hours of hard work and the occasional unhappiness about having to spend this time on studying, writing a paper or preparing for a presentation. Recently, however, there appears to be an…