“I wasn’t doing as well as I could, and no matter how hard I was trying, I still couldn’t get things going the right way.” This freshman pre-medical student described his immense struggle to balance academic work and a social life upon entering Washington University—his intense feelings of inadequacy compounded by his parents’ inability to understand his struggles.

Recently, 22-year-old Ilya Zhitomirskiy died. He was a New York University dropout, and was one of four co-founders of the social network Diaspora*. His death sent minor reverberations around the Internet; it made the front pages of various tech blogs as well as Gawker and Yahoo.

It’s that time of the year when you start to question whether your only purpose in life is to peel yourself off of your chair in the library, slink downstairs, get coffee and repeat. However, this is not another article complaining about the drudgery of finals (even though I love complaining about the drudgery of finals).

The Daily Beast has recently released a ranking of the 50 most stressful universities in the country and has assigned Washington University a rank of lucky number 13.

I look like a tomato. Following several walks and a picnic last weekend, my skin is officially charred. See, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the sun in its current state and, as a result, I let my guard down (my guard being SPF 50 sunblock) and must deal with the pain until it fades.

So where are students planning to go and what are they going to do during these days?

Only a few days ’til the first exams, our nerves are stretched tight and we’re ready to bite anyone’s head off. Take a deep breath! Whatever happens, however it goes, it is over. We survived our first semester in college, and we only have a mildly bruised ego to show for it! Here are some [...]