Writers share their opinions on any local, CA community, or global events
You have likely already heard of some general advice regarding your new life here at Concord Academy, but this advice is specifically for those who are trans...
The ongoing West Campus construction will cause all sorts of headaches during the 2023-24 school year, and the biggest hassle of all will be the parking situation...
Concord Academy’s proximity to the town center of Concord is one of the many things that makes the CA experience unique. While each member of the community...
Navigating freshman year can be exciting, but it is also daunting at first glance. It may be overwhelming to think about the next four years and how you will...
In an era of Buzzfeed personality tests and "Would You Rather?" quizzes, it seems that everything we do or choose inevitably reveals an aspect of our personalities. Prefer fro-yo to ice cream? Then you must enjoy sul...
For the majority of my life, I have lived with allergies to eggs and tree nuts. My allergies began when I was around three years old, after grabbing a handful of eggs and promptly breaking out in hives. Then at age five, I wa...
In early April 2016, over 11 million documents were leaked from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm. Known as the Panama Papers, these documents implicated some of the world's most powerful and influential figures—from s...
Amid a rise of national scrutiny of the addictive and harmful qualities of social media, Instagram reels deserves a go under the microscope. Reels consists of short videos designed to trap people in an endless scroll to an un...
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Every year I lose perhaps one hundred hours of high-functioning time due to a certain mental p...
Recently, in the past year or so, a trend has formed which involves the act of comparing people to NPCs. “NPC,” or “non-player character,” is a common term used in video g...
Concord Academy is a place that prides itself on its academically rigorous environment, and though this philosophy of hard work deeply permeates student life, time to celebrate is appreciated every once in a while. Like many ...
“The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.” –George Orwell, “Why I Write”
Why do we sing when we are terrible at singing?...
The college culture at Concord Academy is quite the hot topic. What some call amazing and supportive, others call excessive and limiting.
In some ways, our school doe...
Annually, on the third Monday of January, countless schools, businesses, banks, and gov...
I think it comes as news to no one that holidays are massive commercial opportunities for businesses. Christmas, perhaps, is the most infamous example. Every big company jumps to decorate their store in the theme of the upcom...
Two years ago, The Daily Targum of Rutgers University published an article titled “Don't be fooled: Valentine’s Day is just another capitalistic money-making scheme.” Here, Meredith MacLean’s prose is fiery and force...
We are facing a quiet crisis of identity. The crisis penetrates through the shell of contemporary society, breaking, cracking, and scratching at our insides. It most visibly manifests itself when you answer the question “Who ...
ChatGPT. OpenAI’s newest language model and currently the most advanced publicly available chatbot in the world. ChatGPT’s ability to create content has far exceeded most people’s expectations, appearing to be more than the m...
Concord Academy has always held fast to its tenet of building a more sustainable future. As members of the community, we see this sentiment reflected all over campus. Compost bins, meatless Mondays, and automated lights are a...
REQUEST: when (or after) reading this article, please play “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie
Even at the best schools, most learning is done outside of the...
Perhaps you have seen the phrase ‘sad beige baby’ floating around in recent months. Perhaps you have no idea what I am talking about and are beginning to feel very concerned for the aforementioned sad baby. If you belong to t...
When one thinks of Lunar New Year, images of red lanterns plastered all throughout Chinatown, envelopes stuffed like content bellies with green leaves of money or the wafting smells of mirin, star anise, and oyster sauce may ...
Many people at Concord Academy feel that there is not enough time between sports seasons. As a member of girl’s soccer, my season ended on Wednesday, November 9, while cross-country and boys varsity soccer seasons extended th...
On November 24, the fourth Thursday of the month, millions of Americans will unite with their families to eat turkey, express gratitude, and watch football. Many will eat pie, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and m...
Veterans Day at Concord Academy has long been a topic of debate. Students and faculty alike discuss the question of whether or not we should take the day off. On one hand, it is a day to honor and respect veterans who have fo...
Any Concord Academy student will tell you that finals are exhausting. Classes are all ending simultaneously, and there are exams, papers, and projects all within the span of a few days. I talked to Director of Studies Alyse R...
Content warning: Mention of gun violence and pedophilia
In 1997, in West Paducah Kentucky, 14-year-old Micheal Corneal opened fire into a group of high sch...
Announcements have always been an essential part of Concord Academy culture. Whether it is a message from a leader of our school, a faculty member, or even a random one-off from a student, this time has rendered itself a valu...
Concord Academy houses multiple all-gender bathrooms as a way to be more inclusive to non-binary, gender-nonconforming, and transgender students. Even though students are allowed in the stalled, binary bathroom that best matc...
As a culture, we have come to believe that, as individuals, we do not hold any value within our society unless we are constantly contributing to its improvement. We idolize people who are always busy and ridicule those who ta...
It is beautiful to be real. To feel the not-quite-crunch of burnt smores across the roof of your mouth. To blink open your eyes against a swarm of water droplets settling across the sides of a waterfall. To speak a single wor...
Every year, Concord Academy 10th and 11th graders are required to take the PSAT. This time-consuming, expensive test seems like it conflicts with CA’s values, yet, as it does every fall, CA administered the PSAT on the mornin...
Here in Concord, we are lucky enough to have a multitude of cafés to choose from to get our caffeine fix, and this fall I set out on a mission to discover which Concord café produces the best PSL. At every store, I ordered th...
During break the other day, I heard some of my classmates talking about the release of Hocus Pocus 2. This got me thinking about how the Salem witch trials are displayed nowadays as entertainment, and they take away ...
There is a quietness that exists here that I do not get in Saigon.
I hear constantly the small hum of a quiet suburbia, a town riddled with stillness and quietness an...
I hate to be one of those people who goes on a semester away and then continues to talk about it for the next half of their time on Earth, but my time away has awakened me to a realization. It seems that the increasingly prev...
Have you ever felt that clubs at CA are a little too disorganized? I’ve often felt that there are too many clubs that are super disorganized or rarely meet. Clubs, especially the more serious ones, should use Schoology to inc...
The Queen is dead. She was the latest iteration of queenship: a ceremonial position that through existing should have helped her nation hold itself together by giving it a common identity. Now not only the Commonwealth nation...
On September 12, 2022, the free speech advocacy organization PEN America hosted a conference in New York City, a highlight of the group’s centenary celebrations. Featured speakers at the Words on Fire: Writing, Freedom, a...
The new schedule for the upcoming school year is virtually a copy of last year’s schedule, but with a few logical changes. This year, CA fixed some of the things that had been minor issues.
On June 24th, my phone screen lit up with notifications. The postdoc at the lab where I worked over the summer ran out of the sterile room, still dressed in her lab coat and goggles. My heart sank in my chest. Doctors and res...
The Formal Dance is an end-of-year event that everyone looks forward to. This year, the email containing the sign up sheet for Formal tickets shocked everyone: the price per ticket was one hundred dollars. Controversy of whet...
A walk through the lower SHAC will take you past dozens of images of old athletic teams from years ago. If you take a close look at these images you will notice a few golf teams of the past. Like myself, you may have thought,...
It is not uncommon to see Concord Academy welcome speakers. We host our own almost every morning. Speeches are hard. Long speeches are very hard. A good speech can change minds. So what made Ed Rafferty’s speech, delivered at...
Though it feels as if this school year just began, the end of Concord Academy’s 2021-2022 academic year is rapidly approaching. This time of year is often an exciting one, with new opportunities abound for our seniors a...
When I first saw Darley Boit’s ’21 Centipede article in the work-in-progress folders of last year’s May issue, I did not know what to ...
On March 8, Florida’s Senate passed the Parental Rights in Education Bill, more commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, a title that has caused an uproar of backlash from LGBTQ+ rights activists and allies.
Last semester, instead of beginning my junior year at Concord Academy, I drove three hours north to join the Chewonki Maine Coast Semester Program’s sixty-seventh semester. The Chewonki Foundation operates a variety of progra...
Last month, the Winter Olympics happened, and figure skating Twitter promptly exploded. Called by some a tragedy and by others an embarrassment, the story, too, died down in the weeks following, leaving behind a sour aftertas...
Most people know Presidents’ Day as a day off when students do not go to school and most of the professional world is shut down. Everyone enjoys a day of sleeping in and relaxation in the midst of their chaotic lives. But, th...
While we all know and love the food that the wonderful Stu-Fac provides for us here at Concord Academy, sometimes, you just want pizza. And in Concord, with several options, it is hard to choose where to get that pizza from. ...
What happens when you add a mix of a global pandemic, political tension, and a sprinkle of bad management to a capitalist economy that relies on the markets to subsist? You get a lot of politicians and economists biting their...
Recently, there has been a growing concern around the world of Russia’s aggressive plans to potentially invade Ukraine, a former Soviet republic. Russian officials argue that Ukraine had been rightfully theirs ever since the ...
When I close my eyes, darkness prevails. No matter how hard I try, I cannot see my mom’s face. I cannot even see a flash of color. I cannot visually replay any memory. I thought that all of this was completely normal until on...
This being my first year studying abroad, I am no stranger to homesickness or the constant reminder that I am 7,286 miles away from my hometown Shanghai. With much of my surroundings at Concord Academy still seeming a little ...
More than two months ago, US-based mega-corporation Meta Platforms Inc., formerly known as Facebook, announced its name change to Meta while announcing its intent to spearhead the creation of the “metaverse,” a network of vir...
Having talked to many of my peers about their fears relating to COVID, a response I have heard often is “I’m not really worried about getting COVID and feeling sick, I am more worried about getting someone else sick.” Maybe t...
Marvel studio’s Endgame is perhaps one of the most commercially successful films of all time. It was the ultimate battle, the gathering of all the fan-favorite characters in Marvel’s previous films. The computer-gene...
In recent years, the rise in the wellness industry’s metaphysical crystal market has caused many to raise concerns with these crystals’ ties to child labor and unethical production. Crystals, such as amethyst, rose quartz, an...
This election day marked another step forward for diversity in American politics. Abdullah Hammoud became the first Muslim mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, bringing long-awaited representation to the city’s middle-eastern constit...
The proposals of a new electrical bill in Mexico endangers the long-lasting relationship between Mexico and the United States. Both Joe Biden and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) have a long path ahead of them if maintainin...
The transition to virtual learning saw many changes, the biggest one being the use of the app Zoom to conduct classes. No matter where students and teachers were located, they could come together at a given time and have a cl...
Left in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, disruption to global supply chains caused delayed delivery of foreign-made goods. Over 114 million people worldwide lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Despite an increase in vaccin...
I have been a boarder at Concord Academy since my freshman year. Over half of my CA career, I have been subject to the room check. For those who are not familiar with this term, the room check is when house parents come aroun...
Thanksgiving has been a holiday tradition in the United States for over a century. Every year on the fourth Thursday of November, we gather with our families, enjoy a late-night feast, and watch football. Thanksgiving is ofte...
Fueled by the pandemic and scandals around college admissions, more and more colleges in the United States are now moving away from standardized tests by adapting either a temporary or permanent test-optional policy. This lea...
For the past few days, I’ve been chatting with my international friends about their plans for Thanksgiving. Everyone is certainly looking forward to a hard-earned break after almost three months of school work and various com...
Currently, Concord Academy’s policy is to wear masks indoors at all times except when actively eating, with masking being optional outdoors. These guidelines are similar to many other schools in the area, independent and publ...
R. Kelly, or Robert Sylvester Kelly, is a famous R&B artist with a long history of legal troubles and sexual assault allegations. While known as the “King of Pop-Soul,” Kelly’s long reign might come to an end in prison. T...
For most people, when the words “boarding school” come to mind, they almost immediately conjure up images of the dreaded dress code; boys donning crisp white shirts, patterned ties, and perfectly polished dress shoes, forced ...
I’ve always thought that autumn in Massachusetts is a singularly wonderful experience. Every year, around the end of September, people break out their Halloween decorations and Pumpkin Spice lattes, contributing to the atmosp...
“Kung flu, yeah. Kung flu” This was one of the many provocative, racially motivated phrases that former President Donald Trump used in his campaigns to describe the COVID-19 virus. Despite being condemned by Democrats and eve...
Quickly approaching the national debt ceiling, the United States government risks defaulting on its debt if the House of Representatives cannot make a bipartisan agreement to raise it. The debt ceiling is a statutory cap on h...
On September 1st 2021, the “Heartbeat Bill” was passed in Texas, outlawing abortions after about six weeks, which for many women, is before they even know they are pregant. Most notably, this abortion ban does not make any ex...
A few weeks ago, I found myself spending my entire weekend devoted to school work—completely defeating the point of a weekend and instead just experiencing a never-ending week. I found that any time I decided to take a break ...
Maneuvering my way through the crowd of hungry high school students, I enter the Stu-Fac through the swinging doors. I find my way to the end of the line, which wraps around half the room. As the line moves and I inch closer ...
The new academic year has brought Concord Academy many changes, one of them being another new schedule. The COVID-19 pandemic saw CA make many drastic changes to the schedule over an eighteen-month period in order to adapt to...
My first day at Concord Academy was both unforgettable and a complete blur. I do not have an “I remember it like it was yesterday” story. I remember being dropped off by my parents, the idea of Convocation, even if I do not r...
Concord Academy is known for its world-class faculty, passionate students, and nurturing community. Looking back on my CA experience as a senior, I feel that the respect I showed to my peers was reciprocated, and students and...
Located in the heart of Concord Center, CA’s extended campus privileges mean that students have a wide variety of places to eat. Especially for those unfamiliar with Concord, navigating where to eat on extended campus can be ...
Sporting their neon crew neck t-shirts and black Nike sneakers, I recall the upperclassmen herding groups of skittish freshmen into the Student Health and Athletics Center. There, we took our ID photos, memorabilia which we c...
Boarding life is something very near and dear to many Concord Academy students, myself included. From its literal objective for housing 40% of the school’s population, it has given rise to a niche community that many call hom...
As this academic year comes to an end, so does the STAC schedule. Concord Academy students have become very familiar with it over the past nine months, but they have never experienced it during the end of an academic year. Wi...
As a senior girl at Concord Academy, I have heard numerous friends’ stories of sexual harassment, groping, and unwanted physical contact, by peers both on and off of CA campus. At least every couple weeks, I hear different st...
The Western public largely accepts that writer’s block exists, that it exists for many people, and that it has existed and will continue existing for a very long time. Unfortunately, the reductive attitude Concord Ac...
While COVID-19 arguably changed every single aspect of our lives, one of the biggest upheavals that we experienced was the shift to virtual learning. Over the last year, we have gone from a fully online format, where we only ...
Since the removal of Congresswoman Liz Cheney from her spot as the number three House GOP representative, a much needed spotlight has been focused on the extreme radicalization of the GOP. For context, Cheney is a far right c...
This past year, Concord Academy implemented a new schedule in order to adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new schedule has allowed this academic year to function smoothly despite the state of the world. But, with vaccines b...
Prior to the pandemic, the chapel experience at Concord Academy was possibly one of the most important school traditions. Students would spend their entire CA careers looking forward to theirs and their friends, and would spe...
The in-person population at Concord Academy multiplied at the end of March break. A surge of students, statewide and nationwide, returned to campus for the first time in over a year. Currently, 336 students are attending clas...
With vaccinations across the state ramping up and the possible end of COVID times on the horizon, Concord Academy, as well as many businesses and schools, see this time as an opportunity to re-open. Now offering four days a w...
This winter, we have been treated to what seems to be an unusual amount of snow. In fact, it has snowed in Concord every week since January 21st. As a result of this, the snow has quickly accumulated to towering heights once ...
This school year is unlike any other as many social opportunities have been diminished by the pandemic. Consequently, maintaining the close-knit community of Concord Academy has been a constant struggle. Fortunately, CA holds...
Prior to taking office on January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden identified twenty-three nominees for his Cabinet, a group of senior federal officials who advise the president on the issues and activities of their respective a...
With spring break rapidly approaching and the threat of COVID-19 still looming over many people’s minds, it is crucial to take into consideration how this vacation will impact the Concord Academy population in addition to the...
AP exams are typically administered once in May and are two to three hours long. Due to the pandemic, these tests looked very different last spring. The exams were given digitally and were forty-five minutes long. Students ha...
On January 6th, 2021, a pack of domestic terrorists stormed the United States Capitol in an attempt to override the results of the 2020 Presidential Election which declared Joe Biden the successor to the incumbent, Donald Tru...
According to USA Today, on February 14th, the IRS announced that it completed the distribution of the second rounds of stimulus checks approved by the Trump administration. The government issues stimulus checks during times o...
As Concord Academy shifted back into hybrid learning and the weather was getting colder, it became harder for students to eat and socialize outdoors. As a result, eating tents were established by the CA administration. There ...
The week of January 11th, 2021, something truly extraordinary happened. The price of Gamestop stock (GME) jumped from an opening price of $19.94 to $35.50 in one week. The next week it jumped to $65, and then $325 the next. W...