Rice University’s Student Newspaper — Since 1916

Friday, April 04, 2025 — Houston, TX

Opinion



OPINION 9/19/18 3:53am

There’s more to life than career fairs and co-ops

Last week, three Rice alumni who work at General Electric wrote an opinion piece in which they called on freshmen and sophomores to quit making excuses, stop messing around with fruitless activities like college leadership or studying abroad and apply for professional internships as early as possible in their undergraduate careers. While I do not question that the authors were well intentioned, their piece makes sweeping assumptions that are ignorant, damaging and simply incorrect.




OPINION 9/12/18 1:12am

Democrats have a metrics problem

In Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District, Republicans dodged a bullet when Rep. Martha Roby beat back a far-right challenger in the Republican primary. The race’s competitiveness plunged. FiveThirtyEight, the gold standard in election modeling, now gives Roby just over a 98 percent chance of victory in the general election. Meanwhile, a shockingly close special election result in Ohio’s 12th District gave Democrats a great deal of hope for taking the seat in November. FiveThirtyEight's models show the race to be a coin flip. 


OPINION 9/12/18 1:09am

Freshmen and sophomores should pursue professional internships

I wish that, six years ago, one of my advisers had told me the impact that getting a “real” job, outside the hedges and in my chosen field, could have on my career.  The three authors on this piece, all Rice alumni working at General Electric, are passing along this advice: Don’t wait until junior year. Getting real-world, relevant, practical experience in a field is the best way to set your professional career up for success.








OPINION 8/22/18 12:21am

​There’s an election on Saturday. Vote to save Houston.

One year ago today, the remnants of a tropical storm were soaking the Yucatan Peninsula. Those remnants quickly reorganized over the warm Gulf of Mexico, and the storm strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane, making landfall outside of Rockport, Texas just three days later. Hurricane Harvey stalled over the Houston area, dumping an apocalyptic volume of rain.




OPINION 4/29/18 10:51pm

Response to Justin Onwenu: Truly partisan issues should not be framed as “questions of humanity”

In his opinion earlier this week, former Student Association President Justin Onwenu argued that Rice had a duty to "stand tall" and take positions on political issues such as immigration, gun control, and global warming, claiming that these issues defy partisan divides as they are "questions of humanity, not partisan politics." Scolding the naïveté of those who endorse “intentional silence,” and what he considers to be its unacceptable consequences, Onwenu proceeds to launch into an impassioned defense of those stances that he considers a matter of consensus, if not obligation, among Rice students (and seemingly all educated, decent people as well). I have always considered Onwenu to be a thoughtful and open-minded advocate for civil discourse on this campus.