New Student Guide 2018 pt. 4

McGinness, pg. 65 population of college graduates makes the job search after school far more competitive — a degree will no longer suffice, as employers want a jam-packed resumé, too. So students ignore recreational clubs like fly fishing and animation in favor of part-time jobs and professional development organizations.

Coralys Barbosa, a rising junior (and member of The Pitt News’ photo booth team), felt this same pressure as she worked to differentiate herself from fellow natural science majors.

“I think in a college campus, there is always a pressure in today’s student climate to stand out,” she said. “We are forced to think how best we can stand out in the job force or grad schools, add anything to our resumé to make us stronger candidates.”

In the quest to rise above the competition, students can develop unhealthy working habits that leave them in a constant state of stress. According to a study published by UC Berkeley in 2014, chronic stress can result in side effects similar to those seen in people with PTSD and correlates with anxiety and mood disorders later in life.

Kirby Shramuk — 2018 business school graduate and former vice president of Pitt’s Salsa Club — managed to balance school work, leadership and fun by discovering her love for dance.

“I was stressed out of my mind my sophomore year due to a class I didn’t understand, and my TA for that class suggested I try salsa dancing as a stress reliever,” she said.

Students already have enough to worry about with their classes and academics. While it is important to add a couple of credentials to the resumé, it should not become an all-consuming task. There are enough days in the week and hours in a day to participate in a fellowship as well as enjoy free time by being outside — like with Pitt’s Outdoors Club.

Eric Bergdoll will start his senior year at Pitt in the fall, and is the president of Pitt’s Outdoors Club. The club spends weekends rock climbing, rafting and mountain biking around Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia.

“It’s great for mental health, at least for me, you get to de-stress and have a

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“We work so hard to secure a stable future for ourselves, but what’s the point of obtaining it if we can never enjoy the activities that make life fun?”

time to not think about classes,” Bergdoll said. “We like to escape from school every once in a while.”

The key is time management and discipline, both in more ambitious ventures to develop professionally and in leisure activities. Of course students should work toward their career goals, but they should be just as mindful of becoming overworked. Packed schedules are doomed to become time-management nightmares.

We work so hard to secure a stable future for ourselves, but what’s the point of obtaining it if we can never enjoy the

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activities that make life fun? Why sacrifice our free time and mental health for years to come if we forget how to enjoy it all in the end?

Students shouldn’t have to feel pressured to organize their lives around a single sheet of paper. No one can deny that thinking and preparing for the future is important, but recreational clubs help us remember that enjoying the present is just as important.

Get out of the library and have fun — and don’t feel guilty about it. After all, how else are we going to make these the best four years of our lives?

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STAINED GLASS SKY AnaĂŻs Foss

For The Pitt News i.

A lonely hill in Ohiopyle a low lying brick wall in Schenley Park a grass front yard in Batavia Illinois no matter where I am this land provides a platform to view the sky above it so I do not waste my time worshipping under steeples only as tall as donations can build when I could stand in a lavender field under cirrus verses on a hilltop eye to eye with cumulus prophecies

ii. the sky is not an angry god and while we all live beneath her she does not exist to remind us of the risks of our choices for while she speaks in sunsets she rises every morning despite the day before a constant reminder of another chance

iii. god is still speaking and this sermon is not silent it is preaching in muted lilacs and violets the scriptures are not small enough to fit into one book they are as enormous as the ocean and I read them as the last rays of the sunset turn the waves pink and golden

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iv. remember this is an audience with god no one else has seen my same collection of sunsets to know why this one is holy and although my confession booth is as wide as the horizon can open her legs this is intimate this is my moment to feel real and alive and surreal and minuscule and invincible and ethereal all at once

v. no sky is a false deity and while no two moments of a sunset ever look identical it is always the same sky it is always the same god and no matter where I go on this earth all I ever need to do to return to the light is look up and I will be welcomed home by the same sky that smiled on me when I was born in Aurora Illinois the same sky that I watched halfway around the world in Kyoto Japan the same sky that will be with me until the day I return back to the clouds

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THINGS FALL APART Anaïs Foss

For The Pitt News

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Sylvia Freeman | FOR THE PITT NEWS

things Fall apart irregularly but never at a slow burn when the storm hits it is not the anticipation that kills but the novice treatment of destruction which makes it unexpected in the same way a tsunami is always shocking even though we both stood at the shore and watched the water recede at our feet i guess sometimes we forget to look forward instead of down at everything we once had and by the time it all comes crashing back to us we are swept away by a mixture of baffled fish and uprooted seagrass and glittering seaglass that may have never found its way to a beach into the swirling turquoise with our life in bubbles all around us that is to say we are always naïve to handle the raw scope of life all at once and think the storm will come without sweeping us up too and you tell me to run inland before the next storm hits but I’d much rather feel terrified alive on this beach than safe unconscious in kansas so the next time i watch the ocean inch away from the place my toes are buried i lie down and feel every grain of sand on this beach just for a second i feel every grain of sand in the world against my skin and when the ocean arrives i too am swept up by the wave and crashed against the shore but i do not pick myself up again because i know that the largest tsunamis do not come all at once but little by little and each waves that takes me to the edge of

drowning always places me on a new part of the beach and i know by the end of the storm i will have seen the world in a million different beautiful ways

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PITT PROFESSOR HOSTS BOOK LAUNCH IN OAKLAND Dominic Campbell

Staff Writer In front of a crowd of about 50-60 people in the South Wing Reading Room of the Main Carnegie Library, Pitt theatre arts professor Kathleen George spoke to the audience as she held a release for her new book.

“The Blues Walked In,” is a fictional story based life of the real-life famous jazz singer, Lena Horne, set in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. The story revolves around Horne’s time in the Hill District and also her relationships with her two best friends, Marie David and Josiah Conner.

The talk began with how George became interested in Horne and why she decided to write about her. One of the biggest reasons she chose to write about Horne was because she was an angry

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woman who was able to gracefully manage that anger, which reminded her of her own mother.

“Some people just are angry people, you know,” George said. “So I kind of made a connection and I thought how exciting it would be to put somebody like my mother in a book with Lena Horne.”

In order to write the book, George read copies of the Pittsburgh Courier, the now-defunct African-American newspaper in the City of Pittsburgh, from the 1930s. The Courier was the nation’s second-largest African-American newspaper, second only to The Chicago Inquirer.

She also read Horne’s autobiography and two books from her daughter — and accepted some unexpected help from a woman she met at church.

See Book Launch on page 74

Kathleen George, a tenured theatre arts professor at Pitt, spoke at Carnegie Library for the launch of her latest historical fiction novel, “The Blues Walked In.” The story is based on Lena Horne’s connection to Pittsburgh through her father and their time spent together in the Hill District.

Anne Amundson| STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Book Launch, pg. 73 “I had a woman from my church and I said, ‘I heard that Lebanese and Syrian people lived in the Hill,’ and I asked her, ‘Do you know anybody that did?’ and she said ‘I did! Let’s go to lunch!’ Then we went to lunch and I asked her all kind of questions,” George said.

George also discussed how the Hill District was a mecca for jazz musicians when Horne was alive. She was exposed to musicians like Billy Eckstine and Billy Strayhorn when she lived in her father’s hotel, The Belmont. The hotel also hosted jazz greats, like Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

George also discussed the hardships Horne endured, like her contentious relationship with her father, racial discrimination and her own complicated racial identity as a light-skinned black woman.

“She had a hard time. Also, it was just not easy for her in so many ways that I didn’t even write about, like having to sit on crates and not being allowed to go into certain places that the white man ran because some places wouldn’t let her in,” she said.

Yu Yang, a transfer student majoring in computer science, was one of a few Pitt students in attendance. She decided to come after seeing the event posted online.

“The best part about tonight was when she read her book and let us listen to Lena Horne talk on her album, it gave me a lot of information on that,” Yang said. “I am new to this country. It’s just so informative about the history of the conflict of women in this nation.”

“The Blues Walked In,” is the 10th novel George has written while a professor at Pitt. She also served as the interim dean for the theatre arts department at the University in the fall of 2017. Ashley Martin, who also works in the theatre arts department with George, has always been impressed with how much George has been able to handle in her career.

“Just the sheer number of books she’s published, I had no idea it was that many,” Martin said. “And her capability to balance a wide range of skill sets that she has from being able to step in as the department chair … then to go and write novels and then to be able to work in theatre and write plays and keep people working in our field.”

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Complaints concerning coverage by The Pitt News, after first being brought to the

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PITT ALUMS AIM TO SIMPLIFY SUBLETTING

Christian Snyder|EDITOR IN CHIEF

Remy Samuels

Staff Writer For students searching for the perfect summer or fall apartment to sublet, scrolling through pages and pages of listings on Facebook or Craigslist can be an exhausting and difficult process. And for those looking for someone to sublet their place while they are away, their posts are often pushed to the bottom of the page, overwhelmed by everyone else’s desperate sublet inquiries.

Pitt alumni Asim Viqar and Shil Patel experienced these same difficulties when searching for places to stay on campus during the summer months, inspiring them to launch their own site, sublttr.com, this past March. Through this resource, students in the Pittsburgh or Philadelphia area can post listings or search for places that fit the criteria they are looking for.

“We realized the limitations of the various Facebook groups that are out there,” Viqar said. “To solve the problem we decided that a website dedicated to finding and posting sublets could really make this problem a lot easier for stu-

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dents around the country.”

Interested subletters can filter the listings by selecting the season they’d like to sublet in, their maximum price range, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as roommate preferences. Each listing also features a map of the surrounding area and an interactive street-view setting.

The summer after their junior year in 2016, Patel and Viqar — then roommates — both had internships at Penn Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and needed to find someone to sublet their apartment in Pittsburgh. They posted a listing on Facebook, but with exams coming up and plenty of people searching for subletters, it became difficult to find anyone. The two ended up stuck paying rent for two months in an apartment they weren’t living in.

Viqar said he thinks Sublttr is a safer alternative to something like Facebook or Craigslist because in order to create an account, the site requires people to sign up with a “.edu” email address.

“This allows us to ensure that the See Subletting on page 77

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Subletting, pg. 76 website is exclusive to students, whereas with Craiglist you don’t have a lot of assurance when you’re posting for an apartment,” Viqar said.

On Craigslist, Patel said he has seen a lot of landlords post cheap apartments near the Cathedral of Learning, but he said these are often scams.

“A lot of landlords will crop their pictures and do things that may be misleading,” Patel said. “With Sublttr, it’s all people who are associated with the University and are typically not trying to make money off of this, so you feel a little more comfortable with the people that you’re talking to and what you’re seeing is really depicted as what it is.”

To further ensure safety, Sublttr allows people interested in an apartment to contact the person who posted the listing in a small textbox, but the person’s email address is not visible.

Patel also said he and Viqar spent a lot of time discussing how to make the site easy for anyone to use and asking other students what they’re most interested in seeing when searching for an apartment. “[Viqar] and I went back and forth figuring out how to organize the data without overwhelming people,” Patel said. “The street-view option is really cool because you can see what the area looks like and you can see pictures inside and even outside the apartment.

Our goal for the next year is to see what else we can incorporate to the website and making changes based on feedback we receive.”

Viqar stressed the ability to filter search results with Sublttr as a major advantage over Facebook’s housing pages. “[If you] click the filter button, then it really narrows down your results and helps you find an apartment that matches your specific criteria,” Patel said.

“That’s one of the issues we saw with Facebook. There’s no way to narrow your search. If you go to a group that’s dedicated to Pitt students subletting, you are just presented with a continuous list of options.”

Current subletter Sean Tighe — a rising junior bioengineering major — completely avoided using any online resources to find the apartment he is

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subletting this summer. He said he considers himself lucky because he found his sublet by asking his landlord for next year if he knew of anything available — and fortunately, he did. But Tighe has had issues in the past with subletting.

“Last year when I moved in, I found out I would be living in the basement, which was alright because it was nice and cool down there,” Tighe said. “But it was also really sketchy and we ended up getting spiders and centipedes, and it was kind of gross. But it was just the summer so if you can tough it out, then it’s fine.”

But if Tighe got into a more desperate situation where he needed to either sublet his own apartment or find a sublet, he said he would use Sublttr. “[When] I was trying to sublet this apartment I’m in right now, I needed to fill space because there’s like four bedrooms,” Tighe said. “So if I needed that filled up, I would [have] definitely used [Sublttr] because it was getting close to the end of the spring semester, and I still needed one more person.”

Viqar and Patel plan to expand the site so it is accessible to students in other cities, not just Pittsburgh and Philadel-

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phia. They said the site has received a lot of positive feedback, and that they will continue to market it to local employers and internship programs. In particular, Viqar said one of his goals for Sublttr is that it serves as a central place where anyone from around the world can access it to find sublets.

“I think this problem exists in all schools across the country,” Viqar said.

“People come to schools from around the world, and knowing that there’s this central place called Sublttr for whatever city you’re going to [would be] really useful.”

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FUTURE ACC STUDIO OFFERS OPPORTUNITIES FOR PITT STUDENTS

Stephen Cuddy Staff Writer

After claiming two conference championships, hiring new basketball coaches and entering the 2018-19 season with a promising young quarterback, Pitt Athletics seem to be entering a period of success.

Further proof of that success is is the promise of a new media studio and the projected August 2019 launch of the ACC Network, a planned ESPN-collaborative TV channel — and Pitt students will have the opportunity to be a part of it.

The network is expected to be very similar to the Big Ten, PAC-12 and SEC networks, according to a July 2016 article by the Post-Gazette. The Post-Gazette reported that the revenue distribution will be similar to that of the Big Ten and SEC networks for the member schools.

See ACC on page 84

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Pitt’s Board of Trustees dedicated $13.75 million to renovations for the Petersen Events Center. The main use for this money will be the new media studio.

Anne Amundson| STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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STAFF PICKS: COFFEE CRAZINESS The Pitt News Staff For some, getting caffeinated is the most important part of mornings in college. But others prefer using the local coffee shops for an afternoon date, a study session or a meet-up with old friends. Whether you are a hard-core coffee addict and need all of the espresso shots you can get or just want a cup of hot chocolate to get you through Pittsburgh’s cold winter nights, Oakland and the surrounding neighborhoods have got you covered.

Biddle’s Escape // Kim Rooney, Copy Chief If you’re looking for a chance to get out of Oakland, Biddle’s Escape offers a colorful, comfortable spot near Regent Square. Tucked away among houses whose yards are full of flowers and art, the coffee shop offers the standard coffee- and espresso-based drinks, a wide variety of teas and snacks such as homemade hummus, bagels, and breakfast and lunch sandwiches.

Inside, masks and strings of beads line the walls downstairs, where long wooden tables provide room for larger groups to meet. Upstairs, a room with a view of the neighborhood offers a quieter place to enjoy a drink at one of the small tables.

You’ll find locals and students alike at Biddle’s, and while many go with friends to catch up over tea, plenty come with just laptops and notebooks.

While you’re there, make sure to cast a vote in the tip jars, where you can help decide some of today’s most pressing issues — chicken or egg, pterodactyl or velociraptor? Once you’ve made your purchase, the welcoming atmosphere and delicious drinks — I recommend the mango passionfruit white tea — make it easy to stay there for hours.

Tazza D’Oro // Victoria PfefferleGillot, For The Pitt News Italian for “cup of gold,” this local hidden gem at 1125 North Highland Avenue in Highland Park — just over 20 minutes

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from Oakland via the Port Authority 71B — opened in 1999. Tazza D’oro serves exclusive, rotational coffees, as well as fresh, local foods and freshly baked pastries and desserts.

If you’re not much of a coffee person, order one of the shop’s countless looseleaf teas. The aesthetic inside the cafe is charming and rustic, and it’s a great place to hang out on a weekend or go to meet with a friend. There’s both indoor and outdoor seating, so in the breaks from Pittsburgh’s annual freezing winters, you can enjoy the atmosphere of Highland Park.

Crazy Mocha // Sarah Connor, Culture Editor As a native of the Pittsburgh suburbs, I was introduced to Crazy Mocha — a local, goat-themed coffee shop chain — in high school when my best friend started working at the Sewickley location. Since then, I have been a regular visitor to whichever Crazy Mocha is closest to me.

The shop I currently frequent is on Oakland Avenue, just across from Fuel & Fuddle and Stack’d. This location features plenty of seating, some with outlets if you want to stick around and do some homework. In the warmer months, they have outdoor seating that makes the Oakland Crazy Mocha a great destination to relax and drink a mango smoothie or iced coffee in the sun.

My favorite drinks include their raspberry chai tea lattes, and of course, anything mocha — but white chocolate mocha is my absolute favorite.

Dunkin’ Donuts // Shahum Ajmal, Layout Editor “America Runs on Dunkin” is quite literally a slogan that guides me through life, and when I came to Pitt, it helped guide me through these urban streets.

Dunkin’ is known for serving its customers bold flavors with low prices — my usual medium iced coffee costs me less than $3 and is a simple way to start my See Coffee on page 94

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ACC, pg. 79 Every school in the ACC will receive an equal proportion of the ACC Network’s revenue, including Notre Dame, who is still under independent status for football but a member for all other sports. The contract with ESPN will run through the 2035-36 school year.

To prepare for the network’s launch, Pitt’s Board of Trustees approved a massive renovation project close to $44 million, dedicating $13.75 million to renovations for the Petersen Events Center.

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The new media studio will be in the main atrium, a high-traffic area where students will pass by frequently. Anne Amundson| STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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This money will be used for a host of projects at the Pete, but its main use will be for the new media studio. Once the studio is open, there will be an internship available through Pitt Panthers Television that will help students gain experience in producing live video broadcasts for nationally watched sports.

The brief description of the internship explains that students will be assigned a specific sport to cover. Through the guidance of an executive producer, the students will learn how to produce live broadcasts.

The studio will not help Pitt expand in relation to the network, but it will help grow the university. The network will not only bring in revenue, but opportunities both academically and professionally.

Learning opportunities will be abundant and students will be able to not only learn about the business of television and how sports media giant ESPN runs, but they will also learn about the technical side.

Opening the studio shows students and teachers exactly how material taught in the classroom translates to the real world, but also the inner workings of how things are done on a day-to-day basis.

Since Pitt is one of 15 schools hosting in-house studios, they will need to find a home for this new media hub — and as of now, the studio is rumored to be in the main atrium of the Petersen Events Center next to the escalators and team merchandise shop.

Placing the studio in the main atrium means students who pass through on their way between upper and lower campus — every time they travel to or from class — will see the studio. This will provide fans with an glimpse at the studio as they enter the arena, contributing to the game day atmosphere. Lyke is excited about the opportunity the high-traffic location presents.

“I think it’ll give the public and our fans and our students and our community an opportunity to see what goes into the production of the network,” Lyke said at the ACC’s annual football kickoff event last summer. “I don’t know that it’s going to be ‘The Today Show,’ but something similar — where people can feel connected and a part of it is going to be something that’s a unique feature of the new Petersen Center.”

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