In early 2015, Carson Ariagno was a high school senior in the midst of deciding where he would spend the next four years of his life. He visited Rice on what he described as a beautiful spring day. As his tour guide took his group through the South college grove, the air was suddenly filled with a beautiful croon from above.
One piece of Nicky Meaux’s teeth art sits on a table in the corner of Coffeehouse. Encased in a glass box is a mask with animal and human teeth jutting out of its surface.
The Thresher talks to Colin Howman about his tattoo in the first of a series about students at Rice with tattoos.
It’s hard to miss the bright red, orange and yellow seats that fill McMurtry’s commons. And McMurtry College freshman Dani Ennis hates them. If she had designed her college’s central space, she would have done it differently. While she likes the open space and the natural light, she’d prefer if the chairs were purple — still eye-catching, but they’d show off McMurtry’s color.
It’s said around the world that Friday the 13ths are unlucky — but they’re especially unlucky for any Rice student who decides to use the evening to get some peace and quiet. More likely than not, their tranquility will be disturbed by the thumps of rear-ends slamming walls, and their view will be obstructed by indecent drawings made in shaving cream. Lastly, their ears will be filled with an army’s rallying cry: “JOOOOOOOIN US!”
For Alex Kurkowski, what started off as a few stick figure drawings is now a full-fledged business. His company, Tellinga, offers something unique: customizable, illustrated narratives that are sent to friends, family or significant others in serial form.
Middle schoolers have handwritten notes, scrawled in the back of classrooms onto lined paper ripped from notebooks, slipped into lockers and eager hands. Rice students have Missed Encounters.
Having completed a year at Rice and having taken to heart Rice’s mantra of unconventional wisdom, I decided to spend my freshman summer a little differently than most. I decided to backpack through Europe in a journey that would span two months, 18 cities and 14 countries. Accompanying me on my first leg of the journey were fellow Owls Cole Derksen and Maxim Karoubi.
In the 2016 presidential election, 43 percent of eligible voters ages 18 to 24 cast ballots across the country. In Texas, only 27.3 percent of eligible voters in the same age group voted. And these turnout rates, which are much lower than turnout for older groups, are by no means outliers — historically, young people don’t vote. That is especially true for Texas.
Even though it’s only been five weeks, freshman violist Lauren Ross has made herself at home at Shepherd — she’s already taken many naps on the black couches in the lobby, which she claims is the best napping spot in all of Rice. It’s easy to see that she’s comfortable at Shepherd by the way she stakes out practice rooms, which have windows that overlook the Skyspace on one side. As she pushes through the glass doors that look more like windows to enter Shepherd’s courtyard, she looks so at home that it’s hard to imagine her anywhere else. But one year ago, Ross wasn’t even sure she would pursue music at all.
“It was like, surreal. Indescribable,” Ton said of the moment she heard the news. “It just felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. And the thing is, I didn’t even realize the weight was on my shoulders because it had become so normalized.”
Cesar Zapata never envisioned himself as a performer in a mariachi band. He associated mariachi music with his uncle, never himself, and throughout middle and high school only performed in choirs. But now he’s the president of Rice’s own Mariachi Luna Llena.
A year after Hurricane Harvey swept through Houston, we talk to students and professors about the storm that changed their lives and the city at large. Tram Nguyen McMurtry College Senior Tram Nguyen had just settled into temporary housing after her third home was damaged by a hurricane when the Thresher spoke to her last fall.
