September 2016

REPORTER SEPTEMBER 2016 reporter.rit.edu

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REPORTER EDITOR IN CHIEF Mandi Moon PRINT MANAGING EDITOR Bryanne McDonough ONLINE MANAGING EDITOR Liz Peterson COPY EDITOR Ramya Shankar NEWS EDITOR Taylor Derrisaw TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Ryan Black LEISURE EDITOR Claire Fleming FEATURES EDITOR Rozie Yeghiazarian SPORTS EDITOR Kristin Grant VIEWS EDITOR Jake Krajewski WRITERS Bryanne McDonough, Ryan Black, Jake Krajewski, Rozie Yeghiazarian, Kevin Zampieron, Kristen Grant, Alissa Roy, Mandi Moon

ART ART DIRECTOR Dennae Makel ONLINE ART DIRECTOR Madeleigh Place CONTRIBUTING DESIGNERS Lauren Mays, Dasha Buduchina, Paula Piedrahita, Caleb Payne, Dennae Makel, Kevin Zampieron, Emma Fleming

EDITOR’S NOTE We live in a culture full of technology that claims to unmask, disambiguate and demystify the obscure. We have Netflix to give us access to movies that would have otherwise been hidden to us and social media to connect us with people to whom we would never have otherwise had the chance to speak. We in the developed world have access to education, information and entertainment in unprecedented volumes.

We are pretty bad at taking advantage of the wealth of resources available to us.

We take for granted the ability we have to see, essentially, whatever we want to. It’s so easy to spend all our free time looking at videos of cats trying to sit in boxes that are too small for them and reading articles that endlessly confirm viewpoints we already have. This does nothing to unveil solutions to problems we face, as students, as a community, as a world.

I think it’s important that instead of remaining complacent, instead of being content to sit in the foggy swamp of information that is the internet, we try to clear some of that fog away so that we can see a little more of what’s really around us.

It doesn’t have to be a huge archaeological dig, either; it could just mean reading a well-argued viewpoint that differs from one we already hold, doing some research on world conflicts or social issues that we’ve heard of but don’t know much about or trying to understand what life is like for those whose backgrounds are different than ours.

If we start doing these things even once or twice a day, I think we would start seeing the world we live in with a little bit more clarity.

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS Alyssa Minko, Emily Diehl, Cassy Smithies, Caleb Payne, Unique Fair, Ray Miller

PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTO EDITOR Rob Rauchwerger ONLINE PHOTO EDITOR Joey Ressler CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Mandi Moon Editor in Chief

Rob Rauchwerger, Kristen McNicholas, Becks Ashley, Joseph Ressler

BUSINESS BUSINESS MANAGER Zachary Grzelka AD / PR MANAGER Alexis Montoya PRODUCTION MANAGER Mitchell Morgan ONLINE SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR Peter Willis WEB MANAGER Joe Jankowiak VIDEO EDITOR Francesco D’Amanda

Letters to the Editor should be sent to rpteic@rit.edu. No letters will be printed unless signed. All letters received become the property of REPORTER.

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Reporter Magazine is published monthly during the academic year by a staff comprised of students at Rochester Institute of Technology. Business, Editorial and Design facilities are located in Room A-730, in the lower level of the Campus Center. Our phone number is 1.585.475.2212. The Advertising Department can be reached at 1.585.475.2213. “I’m tired. I’m putting this together at 5 in the morning. And I don’t have a quote. Send help.” -D.M. The opinions expressed in Reporter do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute. Reporter is not responsible for materials presented in advertising areas. Reporter takes pride in its membership in the Associated Collegiate Press and American Civil Liberties Union. Copyright © 2014 Reporter Magazine. All rights reserved. No portion of this Magazine may be reproduced without prior written permission.

September 3

TA B L E O F cover and TOC illustration by Unique Fair

NEWS 7

TECH

ADS IN DISGUISE: NATIVE ADVERTISING Companies are disguising advertisements to look like content

8

POETRY AND LOCATIVE MEDIA: A WINDOW INTO THE DIGITAL HUMANITIES

LEISURE 10

An app that aims to change the way we read poetry

JOHN ROBERTSON: THE BEST COMEDIAN YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF A comedian that uses heckling and games for laughs

12

ART ON CAMPUS: FROM RESTROOM STALLS TO CAMPUS QUADS Art tells a unique story on campus even when it isn’t approved

14

@reportermag 4 September

AYL How obscure of an RIT student are you?

CONTENTS F E AT U R E S 16

18

20

THE ATTRACTION OF ANONYMITY The importance of accountability in the face of anonymity

A DIFFERENT KIND OF CLASS Exploring RIT’s unique class offerings

THE STUDENT STARTUP PROCESS AT RIT RIT’s student startup incubation process harbors some impressive business ventures

SPORTS 24

UNUSUAL ATHLETICS Three RIT students talk about their ventures into unusual sports

VIEWS 26

DO COOL SHIT: AN APPEAL TO THE NETFLIX GENERATION College is a time to experience new things, but so many spend their time in front of a TV screen

28

30

WORD ON THE STREET What weird hobby do you have?

RINGS Text or Call (585) 672-4840

reporter.rit.edu September 5

ADS IN DISGUISE:

NATIVE ADVERTISING

by Bryanne McDonough |illustration by Alyssa Minko | design by Lauren Mays

6 News

“10

$7.9 BILLION

Must-Own Shoes for the Fall,” professes an article on your favorite fashion website. When you click on the link, it brings you to a page that looks like an article. A closer look will reveal a small tag: “Sponsored Content”. As it turns out, all of these “must-own” shoes are from the same company that sponsored this article. This is called native advertising, and it is more common than you might think.

“Native advertising is a form of paid media where the ad experience follows the natural form and function of the user experience in which it is placed,” according to Sharethrough, which is a company that sells native advertising software. Barry Strauber, a lecturer in RIT’s School of Communication, puts this into layman’s terms, using magazines as an example:.

Insider reports that $7.9 billion will be spent “The idea is to make it so integrated into the on native advertising in 2016. That number is magazine’s look and feel that when you read it, expected to reach $21 billion in 2018. you think the magazine is doing it and not [the This growth is explained by the high advertiser],” he said. effectiveness of these types of advertisements.

Native advertising appears in magazines, According to Sharethrough, consumers look at newspapers and across the internet. Instead of native ads 53 percent more than traditional looking like a normal advertisement, the ad is banner-style ads. Native ads produced an 18 disguised as a piece of content from the source. percent lift in purchase intent over banner Facebook slips these ads into your Newsfeed ads. Their research also revealed that people in guise of a “suggested post.” Other websites, viewed native advertisements slightly more like Buzzfeed, label these advertisements as than actual editorial content. Note that these “sponsored content.” This is content written numbers come from research sponsored and posted by the company; the goal of the by an organization that profits from native content is to get you to buy something. advertisement.

This content does not immediately appear While this form of advertising is very to be a traditional advertisement. It does not effective, there are some ethical implications use bright colors and quick catchphrases to of disguising advertisements as content. get your attention. Instead, the native advertisement appears to be a part of the source in which it is published, leeching on the source’s credibility.

“It’s not really what it professes to be in its format, which is an honest, true article,” said Strauber. “[Advertisers] would rationalize that it’s just Websites, newspapers and magazines allow another way to get to you,” explained Strauber. this form of advertisement for the same reason “But in another sense, it’s not being transparent. businesses do anything: money. Business It’s being deceptive.”

will be spent on native advertising in 2016

It's not being transparent. It's being

DECEPTIVE.

This is not lost on some consumers, who have resorted to calling out the worst offenders on blogs and social media. However, native advertising is so effective and widespread that it would take major regulation to curb the use of the ads.

“They don’t have real, big regulation for native ads,” Strauber said. The Federal Trade Commission does require native ads to be clearly identifiable as advertisements, but the actual rules are vague: “Whether an ad is deceptive or not will be measured by its performance.” Strauber argues for stronger regulation of native ads, based on their deceptive nature. “[The ad] is not really true ... because there’s a motivation for that article, which is: someone’s paying for that article to be done,” he said.

Whether this practice continues or not will be determined by consumers and their responses to this form of advertisement. The internet has created a world where deceptive practices can be called out and companies are held accountable by many people.

“We live in an age where everyone has the great ability to write about the fact that there are companies doing bad things,” Strauber said. “And you can quickly turn back the tide.”

News 7

POETRY AND LOCATIVE MEDIA:

A WINDOW INTO THE DIGITAL HUMANITIES

by Ryan Black | photo by Robert Rauchwerger | design by Dasha Buduchina

8 Technology

“That’s the real value of the digital humanities,” Mohn said. “It gives us ways to use technology and media as a lens to look at the humanities, to ask new questions about what is our relationship to art? What is the relationship between technology and art?”

T

raditionally, storytelling has often been thought of as a very linear process.

Describing such narratives in that manner may unfairly make them seem trite, but many of us see it as default. There are ways of conveying a nonlinear narrative with traditional media — as many notable films and television shows have done — but nowadays there are far more forms that storytelling can take.

With the proliferation of less conventional storytelling mechanisms, like those of video games and even novels told within wikis and HTML coding, storytellers have found increasingly experimental ways of presenting a narrative. That is what Karl Mohn, a former RIT professor, believes and it has inspired him to develop an application that presents the work of 20th century poet Frank O’Hara in a way unlike any other.

Establishing O’Hara’s “New York” A proponent of the growing field of Digital Humanities, Mohn has been working on the prototype of an app that spatially reorganizes O’Hara’s work across all of Manhattan.

“Essentially, the way the app is going to be set up, it’s almost like you would open up Google Maps,” Mohn explained. “But instead of seeing the pins for the Corner Store, there’ll be pins or lines related to the different poems, spread out in space over all of Manhattan.” The idea is for users to read O’Hara’s works in proximity to many of the places that inspired or are featured in his poetry. M​any of O’Hara’s poems are about specific places in New York that he visited or would frequent during his life in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Describing his work as very “slice-of-life,” Mohn noted how O’Hara was often inspired just by walking around.

“That was a lot of his poetry, he was on his lunch break and he would walk around Times Square, walk around Midtown and just kind of write about what he saw,” said Mohn. For him, this is why O’Hara’s poetry in particular is such a good thematic fit for the app. Knowing that the Manhattan O’Hara would have written about was different than the city today, Mohn hopes to implement an augmented reality (AR) feature, to give users a better sense of “O’Hara’s New York.”

“The places that he was writing about — that was 50 years ago,” Mohn pointed out. “A lot of those places don’t exist anymore, either because [they are] businesses that have closed or in

some cases entire buildings that have been torn down.” To circumvent that as best as he can, Mohn’s aim for the finished app is to allow users to point their phone at where those places were, and see images of them in the state closest to when the respective poem was written.

Bridging the Gap Between Reader and Author

In part of his dissertation in English Literature, “Peripatetic Poetry: Locative Media, Queer Space, and Frank O’Hara’s New York,” Mohn admitted how non-traditional this project is. Within his dissertation will be an analysis of what the app is doing, discussing the meaning of the spatial reorganization of something that we would normally read in a linear fashion. One particular concept that Mohn is working with is “proprioception,” or one’s recognition of their own body in space, especially relative to other things and objects.

Arranging O’Hara’s poetry in a manner that is based on the user’s “embodied position in space,” Mohn is facilitating an entirely different way of engaging with material that is usually ordered alphabetically, by subject or chronologically.

“Instead of a poem being on page 82, we have ‘the poem over there,’ ‘the poem up the street.’ I think it engages a person’s body in relation to the poetry in a way that other delivery modes of poetry don’t,” said Mohn.

“Instead of a poem being on page 82 we have ‘the poem over there,’ ‘the poem up the street.’ I think it engages a person’s body in relation to the poetry in a way that other delivery modes of poetry don’t.”

With this manner of organization and the AR functionality, Mohn ultimately wants to bridge the gap between the reader and the author, “giving users a better understanding of O’Hara’s perspective, both spatially and temporally.” Mohn brought up how O’Hara was an openly gay man during the 1950s and early ‘60s, a time before Stonewall or the LGBTQIA+ Civil Rights movement. This was why O’Hara’s work in particular resonated with Mohn.

“That was a very contentious identity to have,” Mohn pointed out. “And I think there is

value for a contemporary audience to be able to — and forgive the cliché — walk a mile in his shoes.”

Growth of the Digital Humanities Mohn made note of how several universities in recent years have embraced the “Digital Humanities,” and RIT is no exception. An RIT major for undergraduate students entitled “Digital Humanities and Social Sciences” was announced last fall and is available for the first time this semester. It consists of classes from the College of Liberal Arts, B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences and the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences. RIT is entering a field it defines as “a dynamic and interdisciplinary field of research dedicated to furthering the possibilities of computing for humanities and social sciences subjects.”

RIT’s stated aim for DHSS students is for them to “learn to understand the historical and cultural contexts for and to think critically about new technologies,” noting how tools and techniques like that of geospatial technology, electronic literature and 3D design visualization can provide for new and greater understanding within several of the social sciences. Mohn feels the same; he pointed out how, through the development of a new technology or medium, we gain new ways to ask questions.

“That’s the real value of the Digital Humanities,” Mohn said. “It gives us ways to use technology and media as a lens to look at the humanities, to ask new questions about what is our relationship to art? What is the relationship between technology and art?”

Mohn hopes to finish his prototype for the app by the end of this summer, before starting his tenure at the University of Rochester. Given the proper funding, Mohn sees this project as one that students could help develop. Both he and RIT echo the same sentiment: team-based projects are staples of the Digital Humanities.

For Mohn’s app in particular, he believes that students on both the literary and technical side could benefit from working collectively on such an endeavor.

Technology 9

10 Leisure

John Robertson THE BEST COMEDIAN YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF

by Jake Krajewski | illustration by Emily Diehl | design by Paula Piedrahita

“C

omedy through fear” is the slogan of comedian John Robertson, and it fits his style perfectly. From his early days portraying a dangerous-looking Baptist priest, to his current formula that involves heckling his audience, Robertson has always had a penchant for getting laughs by being somewhat terrifying.

Though his name Isn’t particularly wellknown throughout the United States, he’s fairly popular in his home country of Australia and in the United Kingdom. He tours his stand-up shows and an interactive game based on old text adventure games that he calls “The Dark Room.” Currently, he’s also the co-host of the U.K. television show “Videogame Nation.”

His stand-up mixes rehearsed jokes, which are what make up most other comedians’ stand-up routines, along with what can best be described as improvised audience-heckling.

In an exclusive interview with Reporter, he explained that this style was developed over time, with varying degrees of success along the way. The first show he did was entirely improvised because Robertson believed that all stand-up comedy was improvised and that comics didn’t reuse jokes. His second show crashed and burned. After that, he started writing jokes and reusing them as most comedians do, but still improvised here and there in his stand-up. For example, Robertson developed a character he used during shows.

This character was a racist, southern Baptist priest that would attack any audience member that agreed with any of the terrible things he said. Once Robertson had a hold of the basics of stand-up, however, he started adding in more and more improvisation. He learned to read the people in the audience and heckle them.

While some might think that attacking your own audience isn’t the best idea, it gets big laughs. Robertson’s reasoning is that people like it when they can relate to the person on stage, or when the person on stage can relate

to them, and he spends a lot of his shows doing the latter. People like hearing about themselves. “Even if what you’re saying is ‘You are a worthless, loathsome scumbag,’ they’re like, ‘I am! Tell me again!’” said Robertson.

After 13 years of doing comedy, Robertson has learned how to look into people and tell them exactly what he thinks of them and find comedy in it. A lot of what he does is insulting people in such a way that they understand he’s not actually a bully, he’s just playing one. In his words, “[The jokes] are sitting there, they’re in the front row, they’re in every row. I’ll just go find them.”

Aside from his stand-up, Robertson has another comedy act that he tours. “The Dark Room” is an interactive show in which one audience member finds themselves trapped in

"[The jokes] are sitting there, they're in the front row, they're in every row. I'll just go find them." a dark room and must escape, in a style similar to a 1980’s text adventure. The game is huge, with tons of options and paths for participants to take, and laden with humor, insults and death. However, many of the paths lead to dead ends. More often than not, a participating audience member will end their run in The Dark Room hearing the words “Ya die! Ya die!

Ya die!” Should someone survive The Dark Room, however, a prize of £1,000 awaits them.

Even players that meet an untimely end are usually given a consolation prize, such as a pair of Robertson’s jeans from when he was 8 years old.

The Dark Room concept was first developed in the midst of one of Robertson’s stand-up shows at Australian anime convention Wai-

Con. The audience was getting a bit out of hand, and he managed to reel them in by making a joke about old text adventure games, then improvising the game. He had the stage crew kill the lights, and trapped the audience in The Dark Room for the very first time. By giving the audience something to do, he managed to calm the heckling and get them focused on one thing. The game got a lot of laughs from everyone who was involved. After seeing how well it went over, he developed a YouTube series based on the idea, which ended up going viral. It was featured on news shows and even garnered death threats from frustrated players. From there, The Dark Room became a touring live show (and was recently given a new, updated series on YouTube).

Although he isn’t well-known in the United States — in fact, the only show he’s done in this country was in a Mexican sandwich shop in Las Vegas — he’s expressed interest in coming to the States to perform. All he needs is for someone to cover the travel expenses, and he’d gladly make appearances. In fact, after hearing about it, he even expressed interest in making an appearance at RIT’s Tora-Con, stating, “Tora-Con book me, you pricks.”

Robertson has hosted a lot of anime and cosplay shows in the past, and is very much a part of what most people would consider “nerd culture.” He’s even had the chance to befriend some of the voice actors for shows like “Neon Genesis Evangelion.”

While he may be almost entirely unknown to Americans, most people can appreciate Robertson’s style of loud, audience-insulting humor. A number of recordings of his standup, as well as both the YouTube series of “The Dark Room” (and a few recordings of live “Dark Room” shows) can be found on his YouTube channel, Mr. John Robertson. More information about his tour dates and locations, The Dark Room and merchandise can be found at his website, thejohnrobertson.com.

Leisure 11

Art on Campus

FROM RESTROOM STALLS TO CAMPUS QUADS

by Rozie Yeghiazarian photography by Kristen McNicholas illustration by Cassy Smithies design by Dasha Buduchina

C

ollege campuses are canvases for artistic expression of a wide variety. As students come and go, the artistic vision evolves, changing the campus culture and looking to follow suit with the times.

RIT’s brutalist architecture, in its demeanor, presents ample opportunity for emerging approved and unapproved artistic practices.

The quirky population traversing RIT is full of opinions and quips that take a few different physical forms. Many of these pieces go unnoticed by students and faculty trudging about their daily routines.

Some of the art on campus flies under the radar, such as the spray-painted pineapples and blue gophers. On a larger scale, many have pondered the meaning behind The Sentinel and other statues that more blatantly adorn campus today.

The approved art pieces at RIT tend to be the the easiest to spot since they are properly archived and consciously marketed by the university. These pieces act as permanent fixtures and “focal points,” as Director of Finance and Administration at University Galleries Wendy Marks phrased it.

“There are some nice pieces that are historic and original to when the campus was first built,” said Marks. “But I like the fact that there’s a continuation of that aesthetic — bringing in public art to help humanize this campus.”

12 Leisure

There has been an emerging movement toward occupying any sort of availability for expression, and not just at RIT. “This is the age of the pop-up shop: space is available, and it’s yours for the taking,” explained one Core77 article on the topic of artists inhabiting empty spaces around them for miscellaneous creative projects.

“Continuing to introduce public art is important,” noted Marks. “Then, each generation gets to make their mark on campus.”

RIT has actually adapted the concrete path outside the Vignelli Center into an outdoor curated space to mimic the so-called curb appeal commonly associated with art schools.

Sculptures have been installed along one side of the building and will eventually be replaced by new pieces as part of a rotation.

Thriving on a similar sense of impermanence, street art is a common form of unabridged artistic expression. Provocative in subject matter, the pieces openly address current issues relevant to the local audience. Street artists bring to light what many others are afraid to say. These pieces can also be silly, enticing chuckles much in the same way that last year’s impromptu finals week installation in the Infinity Quad did. The week before exams, students bearing varying degrees of stress found mannequins strewn on the ground with

their notebooks and backpacks scattered beside their seemingly dead bodies.

“I think it’s a wonderful use of the space,” chuckled Marks. “It’s not altering or damaging the environment, and it’s a great way to express yourself.” The piece depicted how many students felt at the time in the way of relatable comic relief. “Everything happens inside of the buildings,” she added. “I think this external expression is very important, and also, it’s really healthy.”

One particular form of unapproved art can be found in just about every restroom stall on campus. The dingy stall walls represent a medium for conversation on a whole slew of topics. It’s a restroom and the artists had to be sitting on a toilet around the time they doodled their thoughts — shame isn’t about to hold them back.

A Salem State University study analyzed several university restroom stalls, comparing the social differences depicted by latrine artists of various sexes. While the subject matter in this particular setting is often tainted by the surrounding inspiration, this same type of open dialogue can be found as etched frustrations on library tables or scribbled on the pipes lining the tunnels. It is in these nooks around campus where people may find themselves wandering into the raw thoughts and feelings

“EACH GENERATION GETS TO MAKE THEIR MARK ON CAMPUS.”

anonymously shared by members of their local community, yet rarely exchanged in discourse.

Sydney University has actually extended its artistic awareness and support efforts by designating and preserving an open space for students’ street artwork. Projects like Rochester’s Wall Therapy initiative embrace this form of art in a similar way. Efforts like these are beginning to lift the negative connotations associated with street art.

Here at RIT, there are two distinct spraypainted artworks peppered about campus: a blue stenciled gopher and similar pineapple.

Spray paint is certainly a more permanent medium than chalk, but these pieces are primarily set on fairly innocuous surfaces.

Marks expressed strong reservations about defacing the brick in any way. “I think part of the beauty of the RIT campus is that it’s so well kept,” she remarked. “It’s very clean and pristine.”

RIT Archivist Becky Simmons noted that there are archived photographs of some graffiti from campus in the 1920s.

“It’s just very funny; it’s old,” she said. “One of them has got a little something written about one of the old faculty members, very light funny ... they just look in on what students were thinking in the 1920s.”

“Art is supposed to be out in the culture,” Simmons urged. “It doesn’t just have to exist on a wall in a gallery somewhere.” She has taken to pointing out this type of occasional “little guerrilla activity” to people on her campus tours. “You want something to humanize a space,” she said. “And even graffiti humanizes a space.”

“One of the things we say in the Archives,” Simmons added, “is we’re not just here to do an administrative history of who was president.s I want to know about student life, and it’s hard to document that because it’s sort of ephemeral.”

By combining the permanent campus art collection with these informal works, observers can gather a detailed perspective on the transient personalities inhabiting campus at any given point in time.

“It’s not meant to stay there forever,” ​ concluded Marks. “It impacts the environment for a prescribed period of time, and then it goes away. Maybe that’s more of the way of looking at it.”

The drawing of "Fat Pullman," an unamused stick figure brazenly labeled as having "lard," is accompanied by another big-eared fellow captioned "Turner and his bowlegged garters." Archived photographs of street art from the 1920s at RIT have forever preserved the impressions they left on some unconventionally outspoken students.

Like cave drawings etched onto unsuspecting surfaces, graffiti at RIT bears historical value. The decades-old vehicles parked beside the pieces remain a testament to the era in which they were created.

Photos from the RIT Archive.

Leisure 13

AYL

Are you extra-extroverted or are you more of a lone tiger? Maybe somewhere in between?

It’s a tough question to answer, but your Obscurity Level can in fact be determined by a single quiz, just like your GPA. Answer the questions honestly and add up your points.

You’re an RIT student. Give yourself a few points off the bat.

Thanks, I will

+ 20

I don’t even go here

+ 25

How many students are in your major?

+ 20

Fewer than 10

+ 30

Are you on the executive board of any RIT clubs? + 15

No, but I am on the blacklist for Bee Keeper’s Club + 20

How often do you walk home after dark?

Twice a week or more

More than once

+ 30

I don’t like to think about it

+ 20

It’s actually a more +5 convenient way to learn for each

Does it get noticeably colder every time you walk in the room?

Yes, of course!

+ 10

No, not usually

+ 15

Only the outline

+ 25

+ 20

No more than once a week

+ 10

Thrice daily

+ 30

Only a little

+ 10

It always gets at least 10 degrees colder

+ 25

No, it stays about the same

– 25

Do you get the headaches, too?

I thought I was the only one + 15

Where are you living this semester?

Off campus

+ 15

On campus

+ 10

Under campus

+ 20

How regularly do you read Reporter Magazine?

Once a month

+ 10

What’s Reporter Magazine?

Would your roommate(s) recognize you in a police lineup?

Yeah I think so

Every night before bed

+ 35

I’ve got good news. That gum you like is going to come back in style.

What’s your favorite payphone on campus?

What did you think of “September Song” by Bill Destler? + 10

Hauntingly good

When a professor calls your name while taking attendance, how many other students whisper, “Who is that?”

You’re right, that does happen a lot...

+5

+5

Lineups are not a reliable method due to the fallibility of human memory + 20

+ 15

between 11-199

Yes I am! It’s an honor.

+ 25

+ 10

I’m actually a teacher

More than 200

Just the one time

On an average day, can you see your reflection in a mirror?

by Caleb Payne

14 Leisure

Are you enrolled in any online classes?

How many times have you ridden in the Grace Watson Hall elevator?

+ 10 for each

When did you first notice the bald man with the notebook?

Only recently

+ 10

He’s always just been there

+ 25

Which one?

+ 35

Building 7A, first floor

+ 10

Eastman Lobby

+ 20

Decline to answer

+ 15

Now add up your points and divide the total by 105. Round to the nearest hundredth to determine your Obscurity Level.

0.01 – 1.00

You’re not very obscure at all. I bet you’re the most conspicuous kid in class.

1.01 – 3.00

You have an average level of obscurity. Probably one of those introverted extroverts.

3.01 – 4.00

You are very obscure indeed. But you already knew that. This quiz is meaningless to you.

THE

Attraction Anonymity

OF

by Mandi Moon | photography by Kristen McNicholas | illustration by Ray Miller | design by Dennae Makel

“I

can ask dumb questions and get answers with nobody judging me. I feel included in the social culture here. I feel reassured when other people feel and deal with the same shit as me,” said an anonymous Yik Yak user somewhere in the general vicinity of Midnight Oil on a Wednesday late last Spring semester.

This particular user is by no means alone in seeking recourse in the form of Yik Yak anonymity. Other individuals indicated that they used the controversial, anonymous app because it allowed them a platform to vent, a place to seek advice or the opportunity to confess feelings without judgment.

“Everyone here who is a student is in a particular position in this institutional hierarchy, and so they are vulnerable in some ways,” said Sabrina Weiss, who teaches in RIT’s College of Liberal Arts and specializes in Science, Technology and Society. “Anonymity is great because it helps to circumvent those power dynamics.”

According to Weiss, there are several reasons people — not just students — find themselves drawn to platforms that allow them to express themselves anonymously.

There are multiple factors that come into play when we are evaluating how we feel about someone with whom we are having a face-

16 Features

to-face conversation, including perceived gender, culture, class background, confidence and attractiveness. All of these things and more influence how we feel about what our conversation partner is saying, even if it doesn’t have any actual bearing on the content of their message. Anonymity, specifically on the internet, helps overcome these inherent biases.

“The ‘ideal way of communicating,’ face-toface in public, it has power dynamics, and it has assumptions about what is good, about who is able to succeed and all that, and it inevitably will exclude some people,” said Weiss. “By having some anonymity, by keeping us from fixating on some superficial silly characteristics or distracting characteristics, we are able to focus more on the true character of a person.”

In addition to allowing those who may not be given an equal platform to have their thoughts and opinions heard, anonymous spaces allow those who are in what Weiss called a “disempowered position” in society — for example, youth who identify as LGBTQIA+, people with severe social anxiety and those without access to adequate sex education — the ability to obtain support and information that could potentially save them from dangerous

situations, both physical and emotional. When they are able to ask questions anonymously online, they are able to get serious, thoughtful and respectful answers in return as opposed to possibly being shunned, dismissed or silenced by those in their physical space.

As with everything, however, there can be a dark side to anonymity. Although an anonymous platform can allow those at a disadvantage in physical space to find more equity and opportunity, it can also provide an outlet for those who are looking to avoid the consequences of their actions or have other malicious intentions. That is why if you ever try to use Yik Yak near a middle or high school, you’ll find the app has been blocked due to bullying concerns.

According to Weiss, the implementation of anonymity in a positive way is all about accountability. Not necessarily in the way we ordinarily think about accountability, but in a more abstract sense, like how Reddit keeps track of a particular user account’s interactions without actually revealing the user’s physical identity.

“Accountability is about your relationships, what people know about you, how you are presenting yourself, and the consistency and the history of your actions, the way that you

“I think that if people are reminded that people are on the other end, then we might rein ourselves in.” do things,” said Weiss. “As long as there’s a way to associate a particular behavior with some sort of identity, then eventually you get to have social norms playing out.” This accountability helps prevent mudslinging, ‘trolling’ and other negative behaviors in online communities.

Anonymity also comes into play in our dayto-day, offline lives. Recently, RIT’s Student Government released its OpenEvals program, which publishes the results of a few questions on students’ anonymous ratings of teacher effectiveness as long as the course has a survey response rate above 65 percent. There are sites like RateMyProfessors.com, where students can go to post anonymous reviews of their professors and courses. Weiss had conflicting thoughts about sites such as these.

“When you know that you’re not accountable to what you say, then you see a big polarization.

You tend not to see the moderates,” said Weiss. This can lead to confirmation bias as well; students who have read poor reviews about a professor tend to look for negative characteristics going into the class.

Transparency is definitely important, but it is also important to keep in mind the biases that brought those reviewers to those sites in the first place.

In addition, there tends to be an emotional disconnect when we are writing or typing about a person, rather than talking to them face-to-face. Weiss compared anonymous surveys and other forms of evaluation to road rage: you don’t see the person driving, you only see the car, so you have no problem yelling, swearing and flipping the car off.

The same reactions can sometimes occur in anonymous evaluations, causing them to

turn into gushing or griping rather than fair reflections of teachers’ effectiveness.

“I think that if people are reminded that people are on the other end, then we might rein ourselves in,” said Weiss.

Anonymous spaces are integral to the functioning of a free society. They allow for unbiased discourse, sharing of information, the discovery of support networks and human connection between people who may not have otherwise been able to make those connections.

They allow us to build communities that we never would have been able to otherwise.

However, we have to be careful of the ways in which we encourage these communities to develop, so that they emphasize the benefits of anonymity rather than the drawbacks.

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A Different Kind of Class

by Alissa Roy | illustration by Madeleigh Place | design by Emma Fleming

R

IT is weird. This fact has become established as part of our school’s reputation. We have eclectic students who span a wide variety of majors in the arts and sciences. Some of our programs, like Packaging Science, are so rare that there are few others like them in the country. We were ranked the Geekiest Campus in America by ThinkGeek in 2014. Weird is basically our norm.

But in all that is weird and wonderful at RIT, some things can go overlooked. How does one find unique classes to help fuel the weirdness in the vast sea of courses offered?

What do obscure classes look like?

At RIT, students are admitted, and placed directly into classes for their major. These majors are varied and odd in themselves — a conglomeration of humanities, technologies and arts. To get a reading on the unusual classes within your own major, it is

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recommended that you talk to your advisor, or even older students within your program.

If you look on a campus-wide level, however, there are general education, perspective and activity courses that students can take. These can even be paired up in a way to create a unique immersion or minor (for example, you can do your immersion in Social Inequalities).

Often, when you search for prospective classes on the Student Information System (SIS), you will receive a message that says “Your search will return over 50 classes, would you like to continue?” with a foreboding question mark to deter unsuspecting students. These are the types of classes that are not generally recommended by your major. They are not required; they may not even be regularly offered. These are the classes that you need to actively search for, while staying attuned to all of the weirdness that RIT offers.

Leah Bockhahn, a fourth year Environmental Sustainability,

Health, and Safety major, offered some words of wisdom on the subject: “I came across Intro to Wilderness Survival and jumped on the opportunity to participate. I’ve always loved the outdoors and thought it would be a great way to gain some valuable, interesting and unique skills.”

How do I find one of these classes?

A group of RIT students recently developed Tiger Center, which is intended to take the place of SIS. SIS is still available for students; it just comes down to personal preference on which site you choose to search for classes.

During her second year, Bockhahn took Introduction to Wilderness Survival with only about eight other students that had also discovered the class. She found the class after combing through SIS and then using the Computer Science House’s Schedule Maker to find that it fit with her schedule.

To find a strange class that can fulfill a perspective requirement, you can enter the perspective you are trying to fill into Tiger Center’s advanced search. Comb through the classes to find one that piques your interest. Congratulations, you’re now enrolled in Harmonica & the Blues.

Why should I take an obscure class?

While the general classes you take for your major are important, indulging in some of RIT’s uniqueness will make the college experience more interesting, and will help break up anything potentially mundane. “[Introduction to Wilderness Survival] gave me a break from the everyday,” Bockhahn said. “You get into this rhythm of class, work, homework, class and repeat. Having a unique course like Wilderness Survival kept me on my toes, and gave me something to really look forward to each week.”

Every field offers something useful, and expanding your horizons will help you see how to apply a variety of skills to what you truly want to do within your major. It offers the opportunity to be social with other people outside of your major, and get a greater view of how other people perceive different subjects. Applying what you learn within your major to other areas of concentration helps to build a greater understanding.

“I felt like I could apply skills from my past, as well as my academic work to the course,” Bockhahn reflected. “That course definitely made that semester rank as one of my favorites thus far.”

What kinds of classes should I take?

There is so much of the weird and wonderful at RIT, so discovering what may be the best fit for you will require some searching to learn more. Thinking about how it relates to classes that could apply to your major is also important. Bockhahn’s major has a strong focus on creating a more environmentally responsible world, so for her, Introduction to Wilderness Survival was very important.

“We were taught to respect the forest, about medicinal and edible plants, and different survival skills for different weather conditions,” she said.

For example, if you are a student in the College of Computing, taking a class such as Dangerous Texts would expand your knowledge of censorship and free speech, and you could apply those lessons learned to the digital age. Or, if you need to brush up on your handyman skills as an Engineering student, taking a class such as Welding and Fabrication could be extremely helpful. If you are new to the area and just want to learn more about Rochester, take The City in History (Rochester). Or maybe you are any student from any major just looking to live out a lifelong fantasy, and decide to take Ninja Training to help fulfill that dream.

Whatever you decide, there are a plethora of classes you can take in order to make your experience at RIT truly memorable.​

Features 19

THE STUDENT

STARTUP PROCESS AT RIT

by Rozie Yeghiazarian | photography by Rob Rauchwerger | design by Lauren Mays

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T

he thought of turning a mere idea into a product or concept can be daunting for many students. Few realize the sheer magnitude of resources available to them on campus at RIT, even when it comes to flighty personal projects that may have the potential of growing into legitimate startup companies.

One such resource is the Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

“We create a form for students and faculty from all colleges to work together,” said Dr. Richard DeMartino, director of the Simone Center. DeMartino began as a primary coach for students interested in pursuing their startup business ideas. Since then, he has come to dedicate the majority of his time to tending the innumerable responsibilities associated with maintaining the center along with its five full-time employees.

The 10-year-old establishment resembles a “playpen,” as DeMartino called it, for entrepreneurial endeavors. It is also wellintegrated in the local community with advantageous, real-world partnerships for students to gain exposure to. There are various opportunities for students who are interested in exploring product or service business ventures, constructing multidisciplinary teams, evaluating the market potential and ultimately financing to launch a startup.

In the beginning, the organization saw many projects ​focused on software and web. “It was the hottest thing out there,” DeMartino said.

Over time, however, the Simone Center and its efforts began receiving much more support from the different colleges and branches at RIT. They saw the idea of physicality begin to morph as a focus on health, access technology and tracking technology started to develop.

The program’s partnership with NTID brought about much success as students began addressing very real issues impacting their local community.

What’s the Big Idea?

Ideas come to people in different ways. For some, it may be a mid-shower epiphany or even a mealtime napkin sketch. Others find their most creative selves emerging in the midst of hearty debates among colleagues or friends. Students at RIT are fortunate enough to have accommodations for both types of thinkers interested in turning these ideas into business endeavors.

“The best first step for any student to take is to come over to Innovator’s Hour and just talk about your idea,” said Mark Brown, third year Industrial and Systems Engineering major at RIT. “It’s a great way to hear from other people

We create a form for students and faculty from all colleges to

WORK TOGETHER

in other fields whether or not it’s feasible, whether or not you need everything you need.”

Brown is presently pursuing his startup idea with the help of RIT’s many resources. He is also president of Innovator’s Hour, a club run through the Simone Center and comprised of a diverse, multidisciplinary group of thinkers.

“We have students from pretty much every college on campus,” Brown said. “Pretty much every major is represented, so if you have an idea, we can give you feedback on it and we can help you gain a few resources.” With weekly meetings and occasional speakers, the club is just one more way the Simone Center provides students with opportunities to bring their ideas to fruition.

One of the most prominent struggles students face has to do with forming a wellrounded team capable of taking on a project.

“Everybody’s looking for somebody, and nobody really knows about it,” said Brown.

Innovator’s Hour, held on Fridays at 4 p.m., is intended to help with that by connecting like-minded individuals who may be just as passionate about a particular idea a student has presented to the group.

“When you hit a problem and you try to solve it, you generally end up ‘pivoting’ to try to solve the problem. Then you just persevere with your idea and you keep on going,” said DeMartino. Strong and previously successful teams that DeMartino has seen come through the center have all shared that quality.

“A lot of students have skills, but they don’t have a problem to solve for people,” DeMartino said. He then discussed the IdeaLab event offered through the Simone Center as an opportunity to identify and explore solutions for real world issues. Through IdeaLab, RIT has developed a history of working with Rochester Regional Health as well as with various social service agencies. Students are able to then direct their projects toward attempting to address relevant and current concerns.

Developing a Growth Strategy From there, Brown recommended students take Applied Entrepreneurship, a class offered through the Simone Center. “That’s a great way to start doing market research,”

he explained. “It shows you how you can do market discovery, how you can organize your market so you can have a growth strategy and even know if your idea is sellable.” He went on to say that this is the step where students get to go from figuring out “if they could build the product” to “if they can sell the product.”

“The customer is right,” DeMartino said, and that distinction is crucial here in understanding the commercialization potential for the concepts being designed.

DeMartino also noted that, in addition to the numerous program offerings, the Simone Center also provides students with “supporting networks.” Students whose projects involve the construction of physical products are directed toward an underutilized yet highly valuable RIT Student Makerspace commonly referred to as The Construct. There, they may prototype and model concepts for testing and design evolution.

There are also a number of industry professionals, including several “experienced entrepreneurs or product developers,” according to DeMartino, who kindly volunteer time out of their busy schedules to assist in guiding student teams through the exciting stages of developing a startup. These coaches also help students ensure their project teams are well-rounded, with members adept in soft and hard (technical) skills. While these coaches are technically only responsible for working with the students for the 15 weeks of the program, many will remain in contact well past the closure of the program for future questions or simply for the sake of tracking the students’ progress.

From Incubation to Real World “We help create businesses,” DeMartino said.

“And we help create supporting infrastructure.”

The primary programs that run through the Simone Center include the Student Incubator Program, Saunders Summer Startup and the aforementioned IdeaLab. Each program is structured differently, making it more suitable to certain students depending on their circumstances, how far along their project already is and what the student hopes to take away from the experience. continued on next page

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The Student Incubator Program gives students access to coaches and other resources to aid in the development of their business venture. It is typically the target program for students nurturing fledgling ideas and looking to dedicate lots of time to their project. In this way, team members are able to to earn course credit while advancing their early stage concepts.

“Our Student Incubator is structured as a class,” DeMartino said. “The Simone Center enables students to integrate into their coursework, their entrepreneurial experiences.”

He further explained that a sample step in the program may involve the students going out and speaking with a number of potential customers, for instance, to gain clarity on exactly what it is they are trying to commercialize. Depending on the progress made through this program, some projects have the potential to move forward to the RIT Venture Creations Incubator program.

The Saunders Summer Startup is a full-time accelerator opportunity students may take advantage of in order to develop their business ideas. It is conducted in partnership with the Saunders College of Business, which funds the program while the Simone Center runs it.

“We take teams,” DeMartino elaborated, “and we give them seminars, we give them coaches that they meet with regularly, offices, a little investment fund...” The list goes on. Through this option, students are able to work full time, maintained through the stipends they are provided. Brown clarified that the program is targeted toward teams that believe they “could actually generate income” provided time and money to do so.

Brown is currently participating in the Saunders Summer Startup program with two other students on a project called Form Eyeware.

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“We are working on creating an algorithm for facial recognition that then can translate the dimensions gathered from that to create a pair of glasses that fits the face perfectly,” said Brown. “We want to target more customized eyewear. From there, we also want to look at allowing the user to generally reshape the glasses however they want to create a customized pair of glasses.”

As part of the program, their team receives assistance in the form of mentorship for 10 hours a week along with a proper space to work as a collective team. “[The coaches] work very close with you,” Brown said. “But it’s also very hands-off in that you’re managing everything from now on.”

Another team of RIT students, referred to as Hz, presents a particularly interesting case.

Their project is called Wavio, and it is meant to address real world issues that Deaf and hardof-hearing individuals face daily. Wavio will be able to act as a set of ears, listening to and identifying the various sounds in one’s home, for example. Wavio group members personally experienced incidents concerning some of the difficulties associated with being unable to hear the sounds in their homes, which sparked the initial motivation in developing this concept.

With Wavio, even if the user is a room on one end of their home, they will still be made aware of the sounds coming even from the complete opposite end of the home, so long as they have placed a device there. In this way, the team has explored an option for making simple home living more accessible.

A fourth element exists in addition to these services offered through the Simone Center in partnership with various colleges at RIT. This includes the speaker series, Tiger Tank, Business Model Competition and Access Technology

Contest. These events help promote a creative, entrepreneurial environment on campus.

Similarly, the Center also organizes workshops. These are fast-paced interactions that bring together a highly diverse group of individuals and task them with solving a particular problem. Some workshops are themed, like one held last Spring semester addressing issues in designing for diversity.

The workshops tend to span an evening or extend over a weekend. In that time, participants are expected to brainstorm ideas, refine them, rapidly prototype concepts and present to an eager audience or set of judges.

Brown suggested that one of the primary attractions of the events correlates with the opportunity to exercise the “critical thinking skills” common in RIT’s student body.

Some inspiring startups have emerged through the support of the individuals and resources made available by the Simone Center.

There are quite a few more similarly exciting projects expected to develop in the near future through RIT’s entrepreneurship programs.

The key is to ensure students understand what resources lie in the buildings they walk past every single day on their way to class. There are ambitious students walking treading this campus, and they’ve got ideas that RIT wants to help bring to light.

“The people that stay in the program and build their business are the people that want to,” concluded DeMartino. “They’re the motivator of their business. We don’t run things, we help.”

Features 23

24 Sports

S

occer, basketball, volleyball, football: these are the activities most of us were shepherded to in our youth. However, there are quite a few individuals on the RIT campus that have pursued some very fascinating, unconventional sports. RIT student fencer Molly Hill, curler Flannery Allison and polo player Emily Kimber all chose to engage in sports that are not only atypical in popularity, but also in their approaches to sportsmanship. Reporter sat down with these three athletes to discuss how they initially got into their sport, and how they have continued to follow their passion.

Molly Hill: Fencing Like many students at RIT, fourth year Film and Animation and Motion Picture Science double major Molly Hill has an undying love for all things science fiction. In fact, it was her fondness for adventure stories that led her to discover a new pursuit: fencing.

“Ten years ago, I was reading ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles,’ and Mallory, one of the characters, was a fencer,” she recalled. “I didn’t know anything about fencing, but it sounded so cool. So I found a club online, gave it a try and loved it.”

Fencing consists of two people going headto-head on a 2-by-14-meter strip, trying to gain touches off each other with rapier swords. It provided a fascinating activity for Hill; not only did it offer her an athletic outlet, but a mental one as well.

“Fencing is often referred to as physical chess,” she explained. “Sometimes, it’s just like a big game of chicken.”

After a decade of being invested in the sport, Hill has come to love the many different facets that make up fencing, especially “the community and the emphasis on sportsmanship.” Luckily for Hill, she has been able to find that community spirit very much alive in RIT’s Fencing Club.

“Those people are my family,” she said. As president of the club, Hill has worked hard to organize competitive opportunities for her

group and is looking forward to hosting some tournaments here on campus during the 20162017 school year.

Emily Kimber : equestrian Polo Fourth year Biomedical Engineering major Emily Kimber first began riding horses as a bonding activity with her grandfather.

“Every Wednesday, from kindergarten to eighth grade, he would pick me up from school, hand me a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and drive me to the stables,” she said. It was not until one sunny summer afternoon while she watching a polo match with her family that she even considered the sport.

“My mom turned to me and said, ‘You could do that, you ride horses,’ and I was like, ‘I totally can!’’’ she said, laughing. “So I showed up the next Sunday and have been playing it ever since.”

Polo is a four-person team sport that is often described as field hockey on horseback. In order to become a talented player, Kimber not only had to use her prior equestrian knowledge, but also needed to pick up some new skills.

“You really have to work well with the horses,” she explained. “You’re asking them to do something that they typically wouldn’t do, such as galloping at a wall at full speed.

So you have to be confident. You have this language barrier, and you need to find a way to communicate with your horse.”

Not only has Kimber enjoyed the opportunity to further her horseback riding talents with polo, but she has also fallen in love with its community. Much like Hill discovered with fencing, polo places a huge emphasis on sportsmanship.

“After every match, we have food or a cookout with the opposing team,” Kimber said.

“Doesn’t matter if we win or lose — there is always a real sense of camaraderie.”

Flannery Allison: Curling

inside gag between fifth year Photojournalism major Flannery Allison and her father.

“At every single college we visited, my father would jokingly ask, ‘Is there a curling club here?’” she recalled. “RIT was one of the few places that did. So once I got here I signed up, and now I am more hooked than he is.”

Curling, a four-person team sport that Allison described as “shuffleboard on ice,” involves players aiming stones for the button — the center of a target — at the end of a long lane of ice. The goal is to have more stones closer to the button than the opposing team.

In her five years as part of RIT’s Curling Club, Allison has not only witnessed a change in her own skills, but also in the dynamics of the team.

“It’s been a big transition period for the curling club,” she said. “When I started, there was only eight members. Since then we’ve grown to 37 members. It’s more of a community than it used to be.”

And just like Hill and Kimber, Allison finds the community aspect of her sport to be one of its most admirable qualities.

“Curling actually began as a drinking game,” she explained. “So after every game, you go and sit with the teams you played, and whatever team wins buys beers for the losing team, and you talk about the game and other things.”

These athletes emphasize the powerful connection between sports and community.

At their very core, athletes possess the ability to forge relationships and take pride in their skills. Sometimes that pride can exhibit itself in antagonistic and ugly ways, but when Hill, Kimber and Allison discuss the family and home they have found in their teammates as well as their opponents, it is clear that friendly rivalries are not actually oxymoronic. Sometimes, a shared love for the game is more than enough to build mutual respect and camaraderie.

At first, curling was nothing more than an

Sports 25

by Kevin Zampieron illustration by Unique Fair design by Kevin Zampieron

DOING THINGS IS EXHAUSTING. At any given moment, it’s pretty tempting to stay home and veg out to your favorite show or video game. But let’s be real: when you look back on your college days, I can guarantee that you won’t be fondly reminiscing about that one Saturday where you binge-watched season three of “Friends” in your bathrobe.

There’s no place like higher education when it comes to doing cool shit. College takes a bunch of willing and interesting people and

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gets them into the same dorm or class. Not taking advantage of this unique community isn’t just wasting an opportunity, it’s something that can profoundly harm you in the long run.

In a community as large and diverse as RIT, there’s a club or group for everyone. Do you like helping your community? There are many service fraternities and groups like Recover Rochester that you could take a look at. Is your faith important to you? There are clubs like Cru and Hillel that’ll keep you connected to your religious community. Are you a bearded HAM radio enthusiast who wants to keep the government out of his beekeeping business? There’s the Beard Enthusiast Club, the Amateur Radio Club, the RIT College Republicans and the Bee Keeper’s Club for your idiosyncratic enjoyment.

One of the best parts about finding a club or organization is finding like-minded people. In high school, you might have felt like the only person with a particular passion. When there’s only a couple hundred people in your class, there’s a lower chance of finding someone else you click with. But RIT has tens of thousands of students; there have to be some other people who are on your wavelength.

Finding people to connect with isn’t just a part of the college experience, it’s vital to a

well-balanced and healthy life. In a University of Chicago study, subjects who suffered from social isolation had higher levels of cortisol, a hormone that can increase your risk for depression, obesity and other chronic illnesses. A similar study found that social isolation is associated with a higher rate of mortality when compared to people with strong social relationships.

In this way, loneliness is damaging to your health in the same way binge-drinking or smoking is. By choosing to not get involved, you are choosing an unhealthy lifestyle.

I understand that everyone’s situation is different — be it for financial, academic or personal reasons, some students genuinely don’t find it easy to join clubs and meet people.

But the reality is that this stage of your life is probably your most free. If you can’t do the things you want to do now, then when are you going to do them? After you graduate?

When you’re working full-time on your career? When you’re bedridden and hooked up to a catheter?

All of this being said, don’t give yourself a stroke trying to be some kind of club-going social butterfly. Doing things in college is like investing in the stock market: if you don’t put much in, you’re not going to get much out of

it. Also like the stock market, you’ll want to jump out the window if you go overboard. In the end, it’s the quality of the relationships that matter, not the quantity; if you surround yourself with people you don’t connect with, you’ll ultimately still be lonely.

When it comes down to it, college is another step in a journey of self-discovery; it’s almost definitely the biggest step you’ve taken so far, and possibly one of the biggest steps you’ll ever take. You’re not going to grow as a person unless you expand your horizons. You’re not going to be remembered if you don’t make an impact. And nothing about you will ever change unless you take initiative.

So instead of succumbing to your bed and flipping open your laptop, have the conviction to defy your anxieties, do cool shit and access the wonderful community that RIT provides.

And becoming a more connected and wellrounded person isn’t just more fulfilling, it’s essential to your well-being.

After all, nobody fondly remembers the TV shows they watched, no matter how good they were. They remember the things they did and the people they did them with.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the students and do not reflect the views of Reporter Views 27

WOTS Sandra Malinowski Third year School of Independent Study (custom major) Singing and skipping through the school making people be my friends.

Levi Davis Third year Film and Animation Reading actual paper books.

Anita Balaji Second year Biomedical Sciences I participate in EMS — I volunteer for the Pittsford ambulance and RIT.

Rebecca Wolinksi Fourth year Graphic Design Binge watching “America’s Got Talent” audition videos.

What weird hobby do you have?

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photography by Becks Ashley | design by Emma Fleming

Lauren Peace Third year Journalism I go on coffee dates with strangers.

Manuel Hidalgo Fourth year Industrial Engineering I like anime and going out for a walk in the hottest part of the day.

Simran Makker Fourth year New Media Marketing Does Pinterest count? I also organize my clothes by color.

Martin Suarez Fourth year Computer Science I used to have a pet spider, but I set it free because I didn’t want to take care of it anymore. But it was warm [outside].

The opinions expressed are solely those of the students and do not reflect the views of Reporter Views 29

The opinions expressed are solely those of the students and do not reflect the views of Reporter

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