by thecowl.opinion on May 4, 2017
Opinion
When Will Trump Learn?
This week Trump has taken another hit at women’s rights and efforts to alleviate global gender inequality. The administration has decided to discontinue “Let Girls Learn,” a signature girls’ initiative and educational program that has been especially championed since 2015 by former first lady, Michelle Obama.
This inter-governmental initiative run through the Peace Corps and the United States Agency for International Development was a testament to the importance of bipartisan multi-sectoral efforts in empowering marginalized women to reach their full potential through educational opportunities. Now it is just another reminder of the lack of support Trump continues to demonstrate towards women’s rights.
When will our president realize the importance of equality within our nation and throughout the world? Even within just his first 100 days, his lack of support for this initiative represents just one of the many instances where he has failed to support gender equality and women’s empowerment (from his global gag rule, legislation on federal funding toward Planned Parenthood, etc.)
And while his senior advisor and daughter, Ivanka Trump, has vocalized her intentions of prioritizing women and girls’ issues, the nation is still waiting to hear of any proposals she has to offer. How much longer can we stand to see this administration chip away at national and global efforts to promote equality? Only time will tell just how far the Trump Administration will let women’s rights fall by the wayside….
-Sarah Kelley ’18
Finals: An Unnecessary Evil
Why take finals? Most professors structure their classes to give two to three exams a semester. In addition, students are given consistent homework, projects, readings, and papers. In the course of one semester, students have numerous assignments are subject to be graded and said assignments are substantial enough to demonstrate that students’ knowledge of the subject.
Cumulative finals at the end of the semester are repetitive and stress-inducing. If a student does well throughout the course of the semester, then to assign a final exam worth a significant percentage of one’s grade is equivalent to setting students up for failure.
There is no sleeping during finals week, there is only studying and that in itself is detrimental to our grades. Many college students resort to taking different forms of drugs to stay up to study; others do not believe that it is physically possible to study the amount required and end up giving up on themselves.
If I have a good grade in a class, if I have done my fair share of work and have been a good student, then a final is nothing more than another opportunity to potentially bring my grade down in a class. It’s even more intense when more than one exam is on the same day.
Finals should be optional; they should be an opportunity for those who want to bring their grades up to do so. Those content with what they possess should not have to endure that week of stress, anxiety, and sleeplessness. One of the biggest issues on college campuses is that students are overwhelmingly anxious, and finals week only exacerbates a college student’s anxiety.
-Laura Arango ’20
Justice For Unpaid Interns
What is our time worth?
As the school year comes to a close, Providence College students scramble to finalize their plans for the summer. Some are returning to old summer jobs, a few students are traveling, and a large percentage of students are entering into the “world of interning.”
The internships that catch my eye are contrary to what one would think. You see, they are not the ones with the intriguing titles and detailed descriptions. Nor are they the ones that require the most work, such as research, portfolios, and final summer projects. They are the ones that pay.
Unpaid internships are a concept that I find slightly demeaning and unfair. College students can barely afford meals at the end of a semester, but we expect them to commit to an unpaid internship for the entire semester so that hopefully the experience makes them a prime candidate for the job.
In an unpaid internship a student is almost always doing exactly what a paid interns does. However, the company that decides the internship is unpaid, is making a claim that the work the student is doing is not even worthy of minimum wage. Students should feel respected for doing what they can to get their foot in the door of the working world, not discouraged.
Unpaid internships tell the student that the time he or she gives up in order to be in that learning environment, is worth nothing.
Unpaid is unfair. We may be students, but our time is worth something, not nothing.
-Kelsey Dass ’18