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Commentary, Opinion

Surround yourself with people who inspire you

by Julie Guichard on

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You’ve heard the same question a million times: “What’s your dream job?” Somehow, the answer is never, “Working as a summer intern for a relatively unknown brand!”

As a young adult, my answer to the question often mirrors ordinary expectations of success, in the hopes that one day, all of the hard work and money spent on my studies will ultimately mean that I get to update my CV with a position at a big brand.

However, the reality of working for an industry giant can be soured by the presence of a boring and uninspiring leader. The name of a company does not guarantee a young person will learn or thrive there—far from it. Having an inspiring leader–someone who enriches your life more than with just a line on your CV–is much more valuable.

A single internship under an inspirational leader can change your career goals. I say this as an intern whose perspective has been shifted by a single person: A person who radiates passion for what they do, and never stoops to employing fear to drive productivity. My boss’ accessible and personal approach to management has opened my eyes to the difference that a good leader makes. The simple act of knowing her employees’ names and the little things going on in their lives did not make her less intimidating or less effective as a boss–it made people respect her.

I often hear ‘my door is always open’ from management figures. However, I rarely believe it. The ‘open-door policy’ often seems like a futile attempt at appearing approachable. In this case, not only is my boss’ door physically open, but she is always present on the other side, attentive and eager to hear new ideas – no matter what level of the food chain the ideas come from. It’s not often you hear about the founder of a multi-million-dollar company coming to say hello to interns, taking time to chat with them in the corridor, and truly valuing their learning experiences.

However, what makes my boss truly inspiring is not her approachable management style, but how she has made this echo throughout her entire company. A founder who manages not only to create an empire but to nurture values of kindness and inclusivity without sacrificing her professionalism has inspired me.

In just three months, beyond learning countless lessons about working at a tech company, I have found that a boss who will inspire and challenge you is the single most important thing to advance in a career. Brand or paycheck are important, but they need to be accompanied by someone who makes you want to show up to work every day.

An inspiring boss not only makes a workplace more efficient, but promotes personal growth. A boss who promotes a culture of self-starting and self-empowerment has allowed me to grow. I have become more self-assured, and more devoted to my colleagues and the company I work for.

This lesson is applicable outside the professional field, too. Think about your favourite teacher or professor. It is likely you admired them because they shared their passion with you and made you love what they loved. These kind of classes make a student more mature, more informed, and more inspired to take on a otherwise boring assignment. Having that kind of relationship doesn’t have to end in university. Under a motivational leader, hard work goes towards more than a salary. Workers are inspired to impress their bosses, to one day be more like them, and to inspire others in turn.

My attitude as a desperate Arts student in search of a job—any job—has been replaced by a more focused, motivated mindset. I no longer just want a job and success for myself—I want more. I want to inspire someone myself one day, even if it’s just a confused intern with no idea what to do with her life.

We would all like to spend our summers traveling, catching up with friends and family. And yes, watching all your friends have fun without you while you are at work can be demotivating. But if you ever have the chance to learn from someone who truly inspires you, it will stay with you longer than a trip tanning on the beach.

Commentary, Opinion

OAP: A chronicle of a day at the happiest place on Earth

by Isaac Berman on

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The scene is set: The year is 2017, the location not Three Bares Park because the McGill construction bug has fled from McTavish to infiltrate the rest of campus, and Open Air Pub (OAP) is in full swing. You are wearing your best attempt at a summer outfit. If you are male this means a button up shirt with some sort of pattern on it (think little flamingos or beach balls, maybe gorillas holding bananas, or even sailboats if you are from a coastal New England suburb), along with a ‘dad’ hat. If you are female you are wearing an Urban Outfitters sundress.

Aside: If you are not aware what I’m referring to, please google image search, “Urban Outfitters sundress.”

A conversation begins with a couple of people you were friends with in “rez.” The first tells you about how they spent the summer travelling because they “just needed a break.” This includes a few weekends in Dubai, maybe some time in France, but enough weeks in New York to sufficiently appreciate patio season and all the Instagrams of comically large cocktail glasses (see: fishbowls) that one newsfeed can handle. Resentment builds inside of you, but instead of verbally berating them out of jealousy you sip your Smirnoff sangria and smile politely.

Aside: Smirnoff sangria is gender neutral because f*ck gender roles, we’re at McGill.

The other guy in your small gathering spent his summer tree-planting in B.C.. This included enough solo hikes (or as he likes to call them, “adventures”) to change his perspective on sustainability, as well as give him a chance to embark on his mission of “self-love.” The sun in B.C. must have also impaired his vision, because he has started wearing horn-rimmed glasses.

Now that your sangria is polished off, you need access to more alcohol. Unfortunately, the beer line looks worse than the line to get into Leacock 132 for 10:30 a.m. CHEM110 on September 5. There is only one solution to this dilemma: Sneak into the middle of the line under a flimsy rope (if it can be called that). For a sober human, this task is quite straight-forward. When intoxicated at 3:30 p.m., however, it is Mission Impossible. Like a drunk Tom Cruise, you succeed with elegance and style, the only downside being a few icy glares thrown your way. However, these glares do not phase you; the beer line is a dog-eat-dog world, and those dogs just got eaten.  

Aside: Those were the only dogs eaten that day, as evidenced by the BBQ staff’s failed efforts to hawk uneaten hotdogs all day.

After you have succeeded in your beer mission, you lock eyes with another acquaintance. This time it is your roommate’s ex-girlfriend. The last time you saw her, it was 8 a.m. and you had just finished taking your morning bathroom visit in only your underwear. This image plays in your head as the conversation commences.

“Hey, long time no see,” she says unironically, despite the fact that this phrase is usually reserved for ironic use when you see someone the morning after a party. You comment on how tanned she looks. Precisely four more lines of pleasantries are exchanged before it seems socially acceptable for the conversation to end. As you turn to leave, you mention, “we should definitely hang out more this year.”

Aside: You’ll never hang out more this year.

Once you retire from that draining conversation, you move to a patch of grass that has a sufficient amount of dirt to completely cover your butt when you sit down on it, ruining the intended chill-yet-quirky appeal of your tiny lobster-print shorts. This is disappointing, considering the dirt has already made your off-white low-top Converse virtually unwearable for the rest of the semester.

Now that you are settled and balancing your plastic Gerts (‘till it hurts) cup in a ground divot big enough to hold it, you are free to relax and enjoy all that OAP has to offer.

As the sun begins to set, you lounge around talking with your friends about where you’re going to head after [see: Boustan or Gerts (‘till it hurts)]. You begin to realize that no matter how long the line for a porta-potty is, or how disappointing your burnt hockey puck of a hamburger was, this is the happiest you’re going to be for the next four months, so you better f*cking enjoy it.

Science & Technology

McGill researchers identify possible treatment for autism-like disorder

by Sam Min on

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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), commonly known simply as Autism, comprises a range of neurodevelopmental disorders, with varying degrees of symptoms such as repetitive behaviors, impaired communications, and poor social engagement. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in every 68 children across the globe, or 70 million people, have some form of ASD.

Genes and environment have been found to jointly cause ASD. Researchers have tried to lay out the disorder’s molecular mechanisms, but much remains to be resolved. Today, medical, educational, and behavioral treatments have been developed to better integrate ASD patients into society. Each individual displays a different degree of need for the available treatments due to the heterogeneous nature of possible symptoms. In May 2017, Professor Nahum Sonenberg of the McGill Department of Biochemistry and his research associate, Ilse Gantois, co-authored a paper in Nature Medicine discussing the possibility of future treatments for the symptoms of ASD. The study shows that metformin, a drug commonly used to treat diabetes, could help symptoms of an autism-like disorder—Fragile X Syndrome.

“Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) is a genetic disease caused by defects in the Fragile X Mental Retardation 1 gene (FMR1), which triggers excess production of protein in the brain, as well as dysregulated connections between neurons and changes in behaviour,” A McGill Newsroom article explains. “The condition leads to impairments in speech and language, behaviour, and social interaction. It affects about 1 in 5,000 boys and 1 in 6,000 girls and is often co-diagnosed with autism, anxiety disorders and seizures.”

Mice used in the study were bred to show similar behaviors to those of Autism patients, such as impaired social interaction and repetitive activities. The researchers used the mice because are a reliable model to emulate ASD in a laboratory setting. Gantois said the Fragile X mice were administered with metformin for 10 days. The injections eventually reduced “excessive grooming and impaired social interaction,” symptoms which are equivalent to repetitive behaviour and impaired social functioning in humans with ASD.

“Our data show that metformin, the most widely used FDA-approved antidiabetic drug, corrects most phenotypic [or observable characteristics as a result of an individual’s genes] deficits in the adult FXS mouse model,” said Gantois, the primary author of the paper. “[Metformin] could be repurposed for the treatment of FXS in the clinic.”

Furthermore, nerve cells are misshaped in FXS mice. Metformin also “reversed the defects in dendritic spines and in synaptic transmission”—meaning that it repaired the nerve damage. Therefore, metformin is a potential treatment for Fragile X and for Autism as it reduces their defects.

Metformin has amazed scientists for its capacity to relieve a mosaic of disparate diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases and age-related neurological diseases.

“We want to study if metformin is also able to reverse a variety of behavioural and morphological deficits in other mouse models of ASD,” said Gantois, laying out future routes for ASD research. “These findings may lead to beneficial effects of metformin for other types of autism.”

According to Gantois, the lab’s next investigative goal is “to further study the mechanism of how metformin exactly works in the brain, what molecules metformin interacts with and what cellular functions are affected.”

Science & Technology

McGill professors receive $3 million grant to study emissions from agriculture

by Audrey Carleton on

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Many of the cutting-edge researchers at McGill’s Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the Macdonald Campus hope that their work will change the course of global warming. Professor Chandra Madramootoo and Associate Professor Grant Clark in the Department of Bioresource Engineering are no exception. The professors received a combined sum of approximately $3 million from the Canadian Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food for their respective research projects, which investigate how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of the agricultural sector, while offering affordable new growing techniques and tools to farmers. On June 12, Madramootoo and Clark were recognized for receiving the award in a ceremony at the MacDonald campus.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture industry currently contribute approximately 13 per cent of global emissions. The Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food’s Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Program funds agricultural research related to water use efficiency, crop systems, livestock systems, and agroforestry to try to reduce that percentage.

Madramootoo’s research strives to uncover water management strategies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to Madramootoo, using effective drainage and irrigation systems on farms is essential not only for maintaining adequate soil moisture around crop roots for optimal growth, but also for reducing a farm’s total output of greenhouse gases.

“Crop production in eastern Canada is dependent on having adequate levels of soil moisture in the root zone,” Madramootoo said in an email to The McGill Tribune. “There are various types of irrigation systems used in eastern Canada, [namely] sprinkler systems or drip systems [….] We are therefore trying to see how we can best design and operate our irrigation and drainage systems in a way that they might help to reduce emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and methane (CH4) from intensive crop production systems in eastern Canada.”

Madramootoo and his research team also hope to learn more about the microbial processes in soil that determine levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Madramootoo plans to use his findings to develop a mathematical model of these emissions over a broad regional landscape. He hopes to uncover solutions that will not only mitigate global warming, but will also be affordable for farmers.

“We hope that our findings will lead to a more environmentally sustainable agri-food sector while at the same time permitting farmers to be more economically competitive,” Madramootoo said. “[We are working toward] conservation and wise use of water resources, [and] a more resilient agri-food system that is capable of adapting to climate change with environmentally sustainable water management practices.”

Clark aims to improve agricultural sustainability employing different means. In collaboration with researchers at Dalhousie University and the University of Alberta, Clark and his research team hope to identify a system for converting biosolids—solid residue from wastewater treatment plants—into crop fertilizers. This tactic would not only replace traditional synthetic fertilizers, which are typically made using non-renewable resources, but it would also cut down on the greenhouse gas emission levels associated with their production.

“Instead of landfilling or burning, or otherwise disposing of the biosolids, like maybe cities do now, what we would like to do is promote the use of the biosolids as fertilizers,” Clark said. “That means we have to spend less energy creating synthetic nitrogen fertilizer or mining phosphorus or potassium […] and instead we can use the organic nutrients that are already contained in the biosolids to replace those mineral fertilizers.”  

Clark’s goal is to design a self-sustaining agricultural system which keeps the flow of nutrients in one repeating cycle—from farms, to tables, to toilets, and back again—rather than using non-renewable resources that cannot be reused or recycled.

“What we would really like to see is a more sustainable society,” Clark said. “And agriculture being the underpinning of our modern society […] we’re after sustainable agricultural practices. In order for agriculture to be sustainable, just like every other industry, we have to reduce the use of non-renewable inputs.”

 

This article was updated to correct the name of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Off the Board, Opinion

Stand-up comedy has a sensitivity problem—here’s what you can do about it

by Audrey Carleton on

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“Be sure to check any and all political correctness at the door!” read the press release for one two-week running show at Montreal’s 35th annual Just For Laughs comedy festival. As though the industry has developed a reflex against audience members they perceive to be overly sensitive, it’s not uncommon to hear phrases at the beginning of comedy shows warning people against feeling offended by jokes that are frequently sexist, racist, or homophobic. Comedy has a problem with sensitivity, and rather than admitting it, many comics shift the blame onto viewers for being too delicate or attempting to stifle free speech.

This approach is wrongheaded. By turning the audience into the enemy, comics gloss over the fact that there is a wide range of people who are, at best, underrepresented on the stage, and at worst, mocked in jokes by members of dominant groups. Audiences have tremendous power to challenge this by choosing wisely which comics and material they support.

One clear reason that some stand-up comedians regularly use material that is offensive or off-colour is its shock value. While many comics pat themselves on the back for having the guts to blurt out what they perceive everyone to already be thinking, getting laughs at the expense of minority groups is a low stoop. Jimmy Carr’s holocaust jokes, Steve Byrne’s sarcastic praise of ‘fat white girls,’ and Angelah Johnson’s impressions of her asian manicurist are all examples of bits that can make a portion of the audience feel unwelcome at a show. Ignoring political correctness or basic sensitivity when writing and telling jokes perpetuates a vicious cycle that keeps marginalized folks excluded from the world of stand-up—both as audience members and performers.

The question of who stand-up comedy serves—the audience or the comic—is relevant to any debate over what’s appropriate material for the stage. Claiming that potentially triggering content is universally unacceptable to joke about is difficult because limits on acceptable speech are fuzzy. In some circumstances—if one has experienced trauma or injustice, for example—joking about the experience can provide a sense of release. For Emma Cooper and Heather Jordan Ross, sexual assault survivors and co-producers of Rape is Real and Everywhere: A Comedy Show, making jokes about their experiences is cathartic. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, the comics discussed the thought they put into framing the sensitive content of their jokes so as to tackle the issue of sexual violence—not its survivors. Cooper and Jordan Ross recognize that regardless of intent, they never know who is attending their show that might feel hurt by what they say, so sensitivity is key.

What’s more, limiting subject matter can serve to push comedians creatively. Ryan Hamilton, for example, is a mormon comedian known for keeping his sets completely clean, opting to joke about his personal experiences with hot air balloon rides and growing up in Idaho rather than taking jabs at others. The number of topics that a comic can mention during a set that won’t alienate any viewers is far greater than the number of topics that will. Choosing boundaries is a good exercise in resourcefulness and forces the comic to delve more deeply and strategically into materials that they can use, rather than resorting to lazy stereotypes or offensive accents.

Much of the responsibility of challenging the status quo falls in the hands of audiences. Recognizing when it is and is not one’s place to laugh at a joke is valuable for any audience member. So is taking to task performers that don’t demonstrate that same sensitivity. The most simple solution is to boycott the performances—live or televised—of comedians whose material alienates subsects of viewers, and instead support comics whose work is more inclusive.

Another step audiences can take is to be mindful of how laughter at a live show reinforces what’s considered acceptable and what’s not. Comics typically pay attention to the volume of laughter they receive for each bit in their set, and may edit their jokes accordingly after a poorly-received performance. Choosing explicitly not to laugh at jokes that feel queasy and inappropriate, while laughing harder than normal at jokes that are inclusive and funny is an effective strategy for giving the performer feedback and maybe even changing their set.

For as many comedians who use the microphone to mock or criticize underprivileged groups, there are just as many comics who prioritize being inclusive and making audiences feel decidedly good at the end of a show. As comedy consumers continue to question what is acceptable for the stage, the industry must move towards being an inclusive space for all people.

 
Off the Board, Opinion

Responding to hate: The danger of condemning without conversing

by Emma Avery on

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On Aug. 12, a peaceful protester named Heather Heyer lost her life and many others were injured by the senseless rage of a 20-year-old white male at a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia. Following the abhorrent scene, on Aug. 13, GoDaddy, the web hosting company of an American neo-nazi website called “The Daily Stormer” announced that it had 24 hours to move the domain to another provider due to having violated its terms of service. Shortly after the website attempted to relocate to Google Domains, Google announced that it would not accommodate the website either.

Increasingly since Donald Trump’s election, companies that once sought neutrality have begun displaying their disapproval of systematic discrimination, violence, and hatred. During Trump’s campaign, HuffPost added an editor’s note to all coverage of him calling him a racist, misogynist liar, among other things. Last month, CEOs stepped down from Trump’s manufacturing council for his failure to condemn the violence of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. Spotify is in the process of removing racist “hate bands.”

I too, in each of their shoes, would probably have made the same decision. Unfounded hate speech is particularly dangerous on the internet, where it goes unchecked and can more easily incite violence. But shutting down a platform for hatred doesn’t make that hatred disappear. The sad fact remains that with or without the internet, there are people who believe these awful sentiments and will continue for the foreseeable future to spread them through any means possible. Google and GoDaddy’s decisions are commendable, but it’s a mistake to think that revoking website domains will solve the problem entirely. Most importantly, when we encounter people with opposing—and even hurtful—views to our own in our everyday lives, we cannot shut these people out and pretend as if they should not exist. We need to attempt—however trying it may be—to engage with them and find common ground somewhere, even if only on the most minute level.

Furthermore, if a company as powerful as Google shuts its door on alt-right groups, it will only feed their fear that as whites they are becoming irrelevant. It validates their belief that they are being ostracized, neglected, and cornered into a hole in which they cannot exercise their right to “free speech.”

As an aptly titled Vox article tells us, “Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them.” Although we must denounce these acts and call them what they are, what is additionally needed is some level of empathy and communication between individuals.

 

Companies with the power to do so must continue to denounce racism, but severing ties with bigoted groups and individuals is not enough to uproot the ingrained, societal attitudes that give rise to their rhetoric.

By empathy, I don’t mean sympathy—only enough empathy to understand that even racist people are still people, whose attitudes stem from the ways in which they learn to view the world. However misguided their perceptions are, they will not change without positive interaction with those with whom they disagree. Companies with the power to do so must continue to denounce racism, but severing ties with bigoted groups and individuals is not enough to uproot the ingrained, societal attitudes that give rise to their rhetoric.

The Vox article cites a joint Stanford and UC Berkeley study on attitudes towards transgender rights legislation, in which a male participant who openly opposes the proposed bathroom law converses with a gay woman. He tells her he doesn’t like “fags.” She, unflinching, responds that she’s gay. After coming to a consensus on how they both care deeply for their respective partners, he comes to the conclusion that perhaps her love is not so different from his own.

Of course, this engagement is extremely difficult to achieve. When tensions reach the point of those in Charlottesville, one cannot simply go up to an opposing protester and ask to have civil conversation. Furthermore, the unfair reality is that this burden often falls on those who are the victims of hate speech themselves. However, starting by engaging with friends or family when they say something derogatory is a first step, even though the temptation in my own experience has often been to shut down and change the subject. It’s a practice that must shape our interactions at McGill, too. Like any university campus, McGill is not composed of perfectly equal and agreeable members. But to be effective, conversation cannot start from hostility or confrontation. It must begin with empathy and a genuine attempt to listen.

In December 2016, a white man phoned in to a televised C-Span segment with Heather McGhee, acknowledging his fear of black people and asking how he could change his prejudice. In October 2016, The Washington Post published a story about Derek Black, son of Don Black, the founder of the white nationalist website Stormfront. After enrolling at a liberal college and actively hiding his life as white nationalist poster boy from his friends, he is ousted one day anonymously online, receiving death threats and hate mail from fellow students. Finally, it took his weekly attendance of Shabbat dinners—upon invitation from a college acquaintance who understood that ostracizing Derek was not going to solve anything—to make Derek slowly realize that he no longer saw himself in the movement he had been surrounded by from birth.

These stories give hope that it’s possible for people to change their perceptions of what sharing common ground looks like. But, the critical element is a willingness to engage by both the discriminatory and the discriminated against.

 

Science & Technology

Can Bill Nye really save the world? A review of the Netflix original series

by Sam Min on

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Bill Nye returns to pop culture through his new show, Bill Nye Saves the World— a Netflix original series released on April 21. The show aims to introduce current scientific issues to the public in an accessible way.

Although he studied mechanical engineering, Nye is known for his appearances as a science communicator. Starting in 2003, he hosted an educational show, Bill Nye the Science Guy, which introduced countless students to basic, but abstract, scientific concepts—including waves and electromagnetism. His demonstrations of scientific experiments captivated his audience.

Despite Nye’s renowned prowess in delivering scientific knowledge, his new show disappoints. The series is politically assertive and sparsely scientific. Rather than presenting and explaining the existing evidence behind many of his shows’ topics, Nye tends to make assertions without backing them up or considering contradictory claims, necessities in properly-conducted science.

The show sticks to a specific formula. To start off an episode, Nye quickly introduces the selected topic. Then, a short documentary of field studies—featuring scientists and experts who discuss their field experience and knowledge of said topic—is presented. Finally, he interviews a panel of three carefully-chosen experts. His attempts at humor often sound forced. However, the audience always cheers, further exacerbating the awkward ambience from his forceful jokes.

In some episodes, he expresses his scientific and political stances. During the first episode, he implicitly blames President Donald Trump for the U.S.’s lack of action to limit climate change. Moreover, Nye says that climate change is real without presenting supporting facts, failing to address and debunk alternate opinions and theories.  

The field-study documentary lasts too briefly to properly inform the audience of the issues at hand, even for a scientifically sound audience. The young reporters are knowledgeable and eager, yet Bill Nye acts silly and lighthearted. His immature fist bumps and awkward humor undermine the reporters’ professional attitudes during their field-studies debriefs. Unfortunately, this awkward tone persists throughout the series.

Furthermore, the recruited panel of experts seem to share Nye’s opinions in many episodes, resulting in a lack of diversity of thought. In the ninth episode, about sexuality and gender, the panel unanimously agrees that gender exists on a spectrum, a view that Nye supports. He criticises conservatives by labelling both himself and the members of his panels as “enlightened and forward-thinking.” Moreover, he spends only two minutes out of the episode’s 30 minutes describing the fundamental scientific data behind the gender spectrum, such as genetic determinism—the notion that genes control humans, although their surrounding environment can influence development as well.

In addition, he features actress Rachel Bloom, who performs her song “My Sex Junk” to support his viewpoint for gender spectrum–a notion that gender could be non-binary in between the two extremes of male and female. There are more than 50 different terms to choose from to decide one’s gender identity on Facebook.

Nye applauds Bloom’s dance performance, commenting “that’s exactly the right message." However, while watching the show I got confused with which part of the lyrics was “exactly the right message.” Nye decides to spend some valuable time of the show on featuring Bloom’s ribald performance rather than to explain the science of gender identity. He could’ve extracted some scientific literature about gender identity and present some data. However, Nye seems to be confused between the weight of scientific data and a song to support a scientific claim.

To illustrate “lots of flavors to sexuality,” Nye draws an ice cream analogy to despise the gender binary of male and female. The analogy shows a vanilla ice cream, which represents an acceptable gender, attempting to convert other flavored ice creams, which symbolize less prominent gender, into the vanilla-flavored one. His metaphorical argument is weak because, instead of describing science that illustrates gender spectrum, Nye chooses to assert its existence repeatedly as if the viewing audience is blind and naive.

However, the song and analogy lack scientific backing; they are assertions. Nye seems to rely on his veneer of “the science guy” from his previous show to present his opinions as irrefutable scientific facts. And yet, despite the lack of scientific evidence presented, he concludes the episode by saying “the science says we’re all on a spectrum.”

Watching the rest of the series, after finishing the first episode, did not turn out to be enlightening. The contents are too superficial. Reading two or three articles from Popular Science magazine about the individual topics would give a more holistic analysis of the issues addressed. Every scientist accepts that accurate science can withstand the test of time as we gather increasing amounts of data. However, Bill Nye, the “science guy,” demonstrates that science comes from reiterating statements. This disappointing and uninformative show could strip Nye of his eminent reputation as a science communicator from millennials.

Student Life

The bad news blues: Tackling news anxiety

by Julia Métraux on

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In today’s political climate, it seems important new stories break every day. It is also without much surprise that people are now more worried than ever by the frequent reports. As noted by story editor Nitsuh Abebe in April in The New York Times, the past year has seen the growth of a collective sense of political anxiety among Americans who were concerned by the outcome of the United States’ 2016 presidential election.

“As the campaign entered its alarming final weeks, therapists reported widespread ‘election anxiety,’” Abebe wrote. “After its conclusion, just ‘Trump anxiety.’”

Considering the number of American students at McGill, 11.3 per cent of the entering class of 2016 alone, residual anxiety from the U.S. election has kept the campus on edge since last November. McGill also faced no shortage of its own controversial news stories, from reports of sexual violence among members of the SSMU leadership, to the resignation of Andrew Potter.

For U2 Arts student Shereen Elaidi, all of the negative news has pessimistically shifted her worldview, to the point where she claims to be less affected by reports of cataclysmic events than she once was.

“I think the news has impacted my life in a negative way,” Elaidi said. “It makes me angry to see the world full of hate and ignorance, and while I think I’ve gotten numb to [negative stories] because such awful news is so frequent, [before 2016] it would cause me to get upset.”

According to a 1997 study published by Dr. Graham C. L. Davey in Psychology Today, a person’s underlying worries and anxieties can be exacerbated by watching negative reports. With the aid of social media, negative stories pertaining to McGill and the world seem to spread faster than ever.

“We asked each participant to tell us what their main worry was at the time, and we then asked them to think about this worry during a structured interview,” Dr. Davey wrote. “We found that those people who had watched the negative news bulletin spent more time thinking and talking about their worry and were more likely to catastrophize their worry than other people.”

While acknowledging the impact anxiety has on a person, U1 Arts student Damian Arteca believes paying attention to reports is nevertheless important, even if most of them are negative.

“It could become problematic if the state censored media [that it] deemed anxiety-causing, which [would result] in misinformed citizens,” Arteca said. “Possible solutions may include trigger warnings, but I believe the end result should be overcoming anxiety.”

Although it might seem impossible for some to not worry about alarming news events, there are solutions to the problem of news-related anxiety, too. First and foremost, both Dr. Davey and Arteca cite the importance of seeking medical help for anxiety and related disorders, if it affects one’s mood at all times, or impedes one’s ability to function on a daily basis. At McGill, students can seek help regarding anxiety and related conditions through McGill’s Counselling and Mental Health Service.

Additionally, there are ways to limit time spent on potentially stress-causing websites, while still allowing oneself to stay informed. One tool to facilitate  this digital escape is StayFocusd, a Google Chrome extension that enables its users to allocate the amount of time allowed on specific websites each day. This can help significantly cut down on mindless scrolling through news and social media sites, thus lowering users’ levels of anxiety.

Looking for good news is also an option. If one wants to read about the highs rather than the lows, there are many resources on the internet that can help. For example, GoodNewsNetwork, which provides positive news stories, and Facebook groups like ‘protect this wholesome content’ can give students a break from negative news stories.

The past year has brought major world changes, and a new presidential era has threatened many people’s outlook on the world, so it is understandable that people are more affected by breaking news. Nevertheless, there are a variety of avenues that media consumers can take to avoid letting news anxiety negatively affect their lives for the next four years and beyond; they can follow different avenues to not let it get the best of them.

 

McGill, News

McGill Scholarships and Student Aid now offering a Youth in Care Bursary

by Patrick White on

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McGill Scholarships and Student Aid will offer the Youth in Care Bursary to applicants for the 2017 Fall term. The new bursary program is designed specifically for students who grew up in the foster care system, intending to lessen the financial load they incur from a lack of parental support. The bursary will award a minimum of $5,000 per academic year for those enrolled full-time in an undergraduate program.

According to a SSMU report, only 13 per cent of Canadian foster youth apply to post-secondary institutions, and less than 2 per cent of former foster care students obtain a bachelor’s degree. The Youth in Care Bursary strives to change these statistics by making McGill more financially accessible.

Cara Piperni, director of McGill Scholarships and Student Aid, was responsible for drafting the program’s eligibility requirements and fitting it to McGill’s student aid resources.

“[With this new program] we’re identifying a candidate and guaranteeing [them] a minimum amount,” Piperni said. “Then, based on their [province, program, and year of study] we’ll match them to the bursary funds that we have.”

The bursary program was initially suggested at Cafe Collab’s March 21 focus group, “Doing it on Your Own.” Cafe Collab, a project within the Student Equity and Diversity of Education (SEDE) Office, hosts a series of focus groups that bring together students from the McGill community to discuss their experiences accessing student services and to share their ideas about how these services can better suit their needs. The aptly named “Doing it on Your Own” workshop focused on reducing barriers to access for students who had grown up in the foster care system.

"One of the themes of the discussion in the Cafe Collab [Doing it on Your Own] workshop was the idea that former youth in care often lack the kind of familial support that many students take for granted,” Parker Finlay, SEDE’s Cafe Collab project coordinator, said. “This is one of the reasons that many former youth in care have to rely on their own means to attend a post-secondary institution.”

Former Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) funding commissioner Arisha Khan’s report “Fostering Post-Secondary Success: Support Programming for Students From Foster Care,” inspired the “Doing it on Your Own” session. Now SSMU VP Finance, Khan is a former foster youth who attended the Café Collab session.

Khan did not receive financial assistance from provincial government bursary programs and similar support programs provided by provincially subsidized academic institutions because she never obtained crown wardship status, meaning a provincial government never made her its legal responsibility.

“I had a file since I was six, and I was in and out of homes until I was 18, but I never became a crown ward [of Ontario….] and because I was never classified as a crown ward, I wasn’t allowed to receive those grants,” Khan said. “That is why I struggled financially in school.”

The McGill bursary is different from government-subsidized programs because it does not require wardship for the eligibility of prospective foster care students.

“The McGill bursary […] recognizes that the government may have let you slip through the cracks, but since you’re coming out of the system with this history you’re still eligible for support,” Khan said. “It looks at the issue holistically and not if you fit into one checkbox.”

Melanie Doucet, who also attended the workshop, is a former New Brunswick foster youth, and is a PhD candidate in McGill’s School of Social Work, whose research involves students aging out of care. She thinks the program is a great start toward making McGill a more equitable institution, but that it could go much further.

“$5,000 per year is not going to go very far for a former youth in care, who doesn’t have the typical family support that a non-former youth in care would have,” Doucet said. “And someone who is enrolled [in class] full-time is not going to have a whole lot of time to work part-time on the side to make ends meet […] It’s definitely a good start, but it can definitely go further.”

Student Life

The digital detox: Taking a break from the online world

by Marie Labrosse on

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Emails, Facebook, Snapchat, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter, and repeat. Digital content is never more than a swipe or click away; it has a pervasive presence casting a shadow on users’ everyday lives—and at times, the online world can prove difficult to escape.

While technology can help to foster creativity and aid with time management, it also quickly becomes a distraction from the same work it is supposed to facilitate. Students especially are all too familiar with its compulsive influence: One minute they’re doing an academic reading, the next they’ve unwittingly spent an hour scrolling through their Twitter and Facebook feeds.

While educated millennials remain the most avid consumers, tech’s influence extends to far broader demographics. These days, a large majority of developed countries’ general population owns at least one technological device. As of November 2016, nearly eight in 10 Americans owned a desktop or laptop computer. The same report indicates that 95 per cent of Americans own a cell phone of some kind. Of that 95 per cent, over three-fourths of Americans possess a smartphone.

Such widespread ownership can lead to unfettered, if not often excessive, exposure to technology for many. In 2016 a study found that adults in the United States consume around 10 hours and 39 minutes of media on average every day.

This behaviour has led researchers to investigate its psychological and neurological consequences on users. Chiungjung Huang of the National Changhua University of Education in China recognized similarities between internet and technology addiction and other compulsive behaviours such as substance abuse. The human brain finds itself trapped in comparable cycles of dependence between the two; with both technology use and substance abuse, the mind pathologically pursues a reward, sometimes regardless of cost, which can be reflective of addiction. Models used to measure the extensiveness of technological addiction—such as the Chinese Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS)—assess the main consequences of an individual’s compulsive behaviour. These symptoms include obsessive use, withdrawal anxiety, the development of tolerance to screen time, interpersonal and health-related issues, and time management problems.

Laura Wiebe, U4 Arts, identifies similar patterns in her own media consumption behaviour.

“Always keeping up with what is happening to my friends and what is going on right at this second sometimes becomes a little too much for me, and I lose focus on what I am doing and what actually matters,” Wiebe said. “When you are always […] assuming that someone is doing something more productive than what you are doing, it can lead to negative thoughts.”

One solution to help alleviate the negative effects of digital dependency is a detox. The digital detox simply requires that obsessive tech users refrain from interaction with electronic devices for a designated period of time. The flexibility of the duration—a detox can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days—makes it an easy habit to incorporate into one’s daily life.

Wiebe likes to accommodate digital detoxes into her busy academic schedule. She frequently spends the day on campus without her phone, which she leaves at home, or shuts off her laptop for a few hours at a time.

“I usually do some sort of digital detox, even just for a few hours, each month, and then during the summer I will [restrict myself to] weeks, sometimes months of limited screen time,” Wiebe explained.

Rebecca Jacobson, a recent graduate from the Schulich School of Music in Violin Performance, takes a different stance on the digital detox: She prefers to engage in short digital detoxes while she works out.

“Running is sort of my designated time away from my phone so I don’t feel obligated to respond to texts, and since I often run on the mountain or in parks, I can listen to what’s around me and pay more attention to my surroundings,” Jacobson said. “It’s a nice way of slowing my life down.”

By spending time away from their electronic devices, digital detoxers reap essential mental health benefits. They are able to better focus on their needs, rather than that of others constantly clamouring for attention on the other side of their screen.

“Sometimes it’s overwhelming to be constantly connected and expected to respond to people about plans,” Jacobson remarked. “So I think this meditative alone time, combined with physical exercise, has been really good for my mental health.”  

In order to successfully engage in digital detoxing, mindfulness is key. Setting a purposeful intention for the detox, such as reducing anxiety or concentrating on developing more meaningful face-to-face relationships, can help with the motivation to respect one’s time away from technology. Furthermore, easing into the process by setting oneself reasonable time limits will guarantee a better chance of success.

“I would recommend starting with shorter periods of time and actually doing something in the time you’ve set for yourself,” Jacobson said. “Read a book, or exercise, or spend time with friends, so that you’re naturally distracted

With a little preparation and effort, a digital detox can help reduce the anxiety associated with overindulgent screen exposure, promote the development of real-time relationships, and also offer the hindsight necessary to navigate the technological world more consciously.

“You will think it is so hard for the first few times,” Wiebe said. “But then you will start to realize that you really don’t care what is happening on Instagram at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday.”

 

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