About a month ago I applied for an American tourist visa at the US embassy in Skopje because I plan on visiting my boyfriend there during fall break. Admittedly, I felt a little resentful of the process. Security guards with guns they weren’t going to use led us into the waiting room
TagElena Gagovska
“The best thing journalists can do today is listen more” – Alumna Aya Ibrahim on BCB, Deutsche Welle, Journalism and More
I had met Aya Ibrahim (2015 BA alumna) before but was only properly introduced to her work earlier this year when she sat down with a group of current students to talk about transitioning from our liberal arts Pankow campus to the sometimes turbulent world of broadcast journalism. Confident, well articulated and clear-headed, she sat
When Some of Your Closest Friends Graduate
As I chose between two outfits with vaguely Mediterranean patterns that I had worn to previous BCB Commencement ceremonies, I slowly prepared myself to see my friends graduate. I picked the long dress that I had worn to last year’s ceremony, which I didn’t get to show many people because I had to leave early
With A Little Help From the Writing Center
Despite the occasional visits from Student Life Team Member Tina’s fluffy and mostly friendly cat, Sheba, the Writing Center is not as full as one might expect during the school semester, perhaps because some people think that getting help would somehow reflect badly on them or render them less capable than their peers. Still, this
“We did Not Feel We Belonged to the Same Europe as Them”
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine and I were at a café pretending to do work when he read me the following passage from Annie Ernaux’s “The Years” [*1], a memoir that aims to capture collective experiences, that I have not been able to get out of my head since:
#MeToo: A Conversation We Must Not Stop Having
The first time someone touched me without my consent, I was in middle school. I think it was in the 7th grade and I was turned to my friends who were sitting at the desk behind me, when a boy grabbed my left breast out of nowhere. I was wearing a purple sweater and a
“Champ of the Camp”: A Documentary about Migration and Exploitation
Mahmoud Kaabour’s film Champ of the Camp (2014) opens up with the song of a South Asian man set against the backdrop of a modernistic building covered in glass windows. The song is called “Long Separation” and the setting is the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This sort of juxtaposition becomes thematic of the movie: the
I Have a Confession: I’ve Read “Submission”
Huge bookstores have always made me feel as excited as a little kid in a toy store. The possibilities of what you can find there – good or bad – gives me the sense of going on a Sunday afternoon adventure. So when I went to Dussmann a few weeks ago, looking for no book