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Best Cities to Work and Live
By Nathan Cunningham, Ryan Ferland, and Freddy Masri, VI Form
Best Cities to Work and Live
Summary
We were tasked with creating a ranking function on a subject of our choice. We decided that our equation would rank US cities and would output an index indicating the best cities to work and live in. Our ranking is only intended for cities within the United States and does not include surrounding suburbs. The equation takes into account annual salary, annual cost of living, unemployment rate, and poverty rate giving an index anywhere from 0 up to several hundred. The higher the index, the better the city. (more…)
Defining Chaos
By Sean Kim, VI Form
Defining Chaos
Editors’ Note: As a part of a college dorm application, Sean wrote this essay with Mr. Lubick (English faculty). Sean attempted to answer what chaos might be after several sessions of intense discussion and joint writing/editing together with Mr. Lubick. {The prompt for the application appears after the essay.}
It’s interesting to consider whether chaos can be constructive or deleterious, however, the definition of chaos in the article is insufficient. The problem with defining “chaos” is that the very word represents what we don’t really understand. What appears to us as chaotic may in fact have pattern or cause or order beyond what we understand. Chaos is in the perception of the beholder. In terms of ideas, chaos is intellectual terra incognita. In other words, any positive or negative value that we impose upon the idea of chaos originates from our limited scope of understanding of the universe. (more…)
Engaging in 20% Time for Lifelong Learning
By Casey Pickett, English Faculty
Engaging in 20% Time for Lifelong Learning
From the time I was in kindergarten, I knew that I wanted to be a teacher. As a child, I spent 
countless hours in my basement forcing my four siblings to be my students while I taught them whatever lessons my teachers had taught me earlier in the day. So, as I entered my Masters in the Arts of Teaching (MAT) program at Northeastern in the Fall of 2013, I couldn’t have been more excited to FINALLY learn my craft. I showed up to my first class ready to write down the formula for becoming a good teacher. I was expecting my professor to tell me EXACTLY what I needed to do in order to teach my students everything there was to know about reading, writing, and analyzing literature. Throughout my 18 months in the MAT program, I never did get that formula. What I did get, however, was a constant reminder that my job as a teacher was to prepare my students to become lifelong learners. So, with lifelong learning in mind, I decided to have my students engage in a 20% Time project (based off of Google’s 20% Time policy). (more…)
A Novel of Reaction: Larsen’s Passing
By Charlotte Wood, V Form
A Novel of Reaction: Larsen’t Passing
W.E.B. Dubois wrote that “all Art is propaganda and ever must be…” He thought that artists and writers should try to make the world a better place through their work. Nella Larsen, the author of Passing, would not agree. Her novel centers on two light-skinned black women, Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield, and their respective decisions to pass as white or not. I believe she wrote this novel not to persuade the reader of something or to convince them to enact change, but rather to reflect the world how she sees it. The book is a reaction to society, not something for society to react to. Passing itself is portrayed as something that simply is, not wholly good or wholly bad. Both characters participate in it, and so the reader is not meant to side with one over the other. The relative passivity of its message is reflected in the passivity of its main character, Irene. Because she is not active, the intention of the novel is not active. Lastly, the ambiguity of the ending leaves the reader, like Irene, with more questions than answers. (more…)
Make Peace With the Day to Enjoy the Evening: Remains of the Day
By Gabriel Xu, V Form
Make Peace With the Day to Enjoy the Evening: Remains of the Day
There’s an old Chinese idiom that roughly translates to, “The person on the spot is baffled, the onlooker sees clearly”. Surely, this applies to the case of Mr. Stevens. As the aged butler in Remains of the Day travels farther away from the house he has been in service of for decades, he starts to see the truth of his former employer more clearly — a truth so dark and ugly that Stevens has tried very hard to escape. Although Mr. Stevens is forced to learn the tragic truth about his former lord and consequently his own small, yet undeniable contribution as butler to the evildoing his master was conducting, the meeting with Ms. Kenton, a former housekeeper, allows him to see value in his decades of service, to make peace with his past, and eventually to move forward into a hopeful future. (more…)
Math Modeling: Improved System for Ranking Colleges
By Steven Li & Gabriel Xu, V Form and Finn Reams & Thee Ngamsangrat, VI Form
Math Modeling: Improved System for Ranking Colleges
Summary
Our task was to rank undergraduate colleges based on major elements that were most important to us. To solve the problem at hand, we first came up with six general elements of a college that held significance and found specific variables that would quantify each element. After putting all the variables into a ranking function, we adjusted the weights put on each category in correspondence with the importance we believed they contributed. We applied our model to both normal and extreme cases for testing, and we drew a 3D graph that showed the relationship between the final result with two of the variables as well. (more…)
Unexpected Life Lessons in Haiti–Lock Picking Skill Learned from a Priest!
By Riya Shankar, IV Form
Unexpected Life Lessons in Haiti–Lock Picking Skill Learned from a Priest!
Desi and I stood outside the bedroom, laughing hysterically as we banged on the door. We had just been locked out of the room for the second time for a reason I could not remember, most likely Natalie and Amanda ganging up on us. Nothing was funnier to us than being stuck on the other side of the door, the four in the room giggling as they listened to us struggle. After about five minutes of the insanity, the priest, Père Reginald, walked out of his room and stared at our red, smiling faces. As he watched the scene carry on, we suddenly stopped, afraid that we had disturbed him. He signaled for us to carry on, smiling at how hard we were trying to get them to open the door. This time, instead of his usual wave or quiet “hello”, he approached Desi and me with the biggest grin on his face. He joined our pounding, this time adding his deep voice saying, “This is the priest. Open the door!” We laughed even harder as he continued trying to talk to them, knowing they wouldn’t listen. He joined our laughing, his jolly laugh filling the room. (more…)
GoPro Video Tour of Belize
By Mary Hoffman, IV Form
GoPro Video Tour of Belize
Click here for Video! (Only 2:02!)
I traveled to Belize during the first week of Spring Break with Mrs. Lohwater and 10 other of my peers (Jammil Telfort ’16, Katie Hartigan ’17, Blaine Duffy ’17, Jessica Adams ’17, Grace Barron ’17, Jenny Deveaux ’17, Caroline Bailey ’17, Amanda Christy ’17, Claire O’Brien ’18, and Frank Hua ’19). Our first destination was Blue Creek, which is located in the Toledo area of Belize. In Blue Creek we zip-lined, swam in the creek, went iguana seeking, swam through a cave, went to the Mayan ruins, learned about the culture, and talked with the children who lived there. In this part of Belize, the Mayan culture is still very prominent. For the next part of our trip, we traveled to South Water Caye, which was a 45 minute boat ride (more…)
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