Jennifer Peña/Assistant Opinion Director Imagine this: It’s 2 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon in summer of 2020. Your laptop is connected to the TV, and you take a seat on the sofa next to your sleeping dog. “What’s on TV today?” you think. “Oh, just my graduation.” You don the cap and gown that came […]
Jennifer Peña/Assistant Opinion Director With the virtual summer graduation just a week away, another round of FIU graduates will finish our degree programs and move forward. While preparing for the future, I’ve looked back at the past few months of remote learning and thought (again), that Panthers like myself are graduating while missing out on […]
Jennifer Peña/Assistant Opinion Director As summer A makes way for summer B, students are once again receiving email reminders about SPOT surveys. For me, this means it’s time to really think about the most memorable parts of the past semester. For summer A, what stands out is how my professors handled remote learning. As someone […]
Jennifer Peña/Assistant Opinion Director With all the uncertainty in the world today, quiet moments at home can be a rare source of comfort. As I continue to work and take classes at home, I sometimes think back to when I was a kid, playing with dolls and watching cartoons within the same walls. It goes […]
Jennifer Peña/Assistant Opinion Director When the pandemic set in over a month ago, it threw plans and patterns into the wind for many of us. In my case, I was fortunate to work at an on-campus job that was able to transition to an at-home job. However, this means that life, work and school all […]
Jennifer Peña / Staff Writer The afternoon of Wednesday, March 11 was business as usual for me as I left my on-campus job with two books I had just checked out from the BBC library. Not even three hours later, it was announced that FIU was transitioning to remote learning. Even though I was expecting […]
Jennifer Peña/Staff Writer If you spent some time on campus before the recent news about FIU’s transition to “remote learning,” you probably saw the new hand sanitizer dispensers at the MMC library entrance or the hygiene guidelines that were put up around BBC advising you to wash your hands and cough into your elbow. I’ve […]
Jennifer Peña/Staff Writer As my time as a Panther nears its end, I met with my advisor to plan out my future semesters. I did not expect to find out that several of my remaining graduation requirements will be available over the summer. A simple planning meeting ended up revealing that I may be able […]
Jennifer Peña/Staff Writer As Valentine’s Day approaches, many will no doubt use the special day to celebrate their loved ones. If that’s not your thing, you may choose to celebrate Galentine’s Day on Feb. 13 instead, showing appreciation for your “gals,” however you define them. Like Valentine’s, there’s no limit in showing people how much […]
Jennifer Peña/Staff Writer If you regularly access your FIU student Gmail account like I do, you’ve probably experienced regular streams of emails too overwhelming to dive into. Maybe you’ve gotten a promotional email (or several) from the bookstore almost every day over the past two weeks, like I have. Or maybe Canvas sends you notifications […]
Jennifer Peña/Contributing Writer Before I transferred to FIU, I was used to seeing groups of dogs near the common areas around campus during exam weeks. It was an experience that brought smiles to students’ faces, and we would tell our friends where the dogs were so they could play with them. Now that I’m at […]
Jennifer Peña/Contributing Writer As Winter Break approaches, promises of sitting around in sweatpants fill our tired, post-finals minds – and rightly so. Who wouldn’t want to take a hard-earned break after weeks of studying and writing papers? The question is, where do we draw the lines for ourselves when it comes to taking breaks? Does […]
