Student Activism: A Guide to Student Protest Recently, students at our school joined a protest against ICE alongside other NYC high schools. Even in freezing weather, we marched toward the Civic Center because we believed the issue was worth showing up for. Moments like this highlight how politically engaged students have become, especially as social media and instant news make it easier to learn about events, share information, and mobilize quickly.  At the same time, knowing how to protest matters. Peaceful protest is a protected form of expression, but actions that cross into violence, threats, or unsafe behavior can lead to serious consequences. This article breaks down practical ways to exercise your right to protest safely and responsibly, specifically from the perspective of high school students and teens. Students in public schools have First Amendment rights, but schools can set limits if they can show a real risk of substantial disruption (major interference with learning...

Rewriting the American Dream As my mom and I become U.S. citizens, I revisit the myths I learned in Korea, the realities I encountered in New York, and the ways my parents’ hopes intersect with my own evolving ambitions. It is not a conclusion, but the beginning of a new definition. December 11th, 2025, my mom raised her right hand, repeated the oath, and became a U.S. citizen. And because I’m under 18, the status extended to me as well. Quite amusingly, it arrived at the same time I was rereading The Great Gatsby for AP Language and Composition, which meant I was already circling the question of what the American Dream actually means. The first time I read The Great Gatsby was in eighth grade. Alone, I was hurrying through each chapter with a sense of impatience. I understood almost nothing about its critique of aspiration, class, or illusion. I only registered the frustration of wanting to finish the book. Now, reading it again three years later, the narrative feels sharper. It is no...

Your Future Self Needs You to Be Cringe Right Now The pressure to avoid being “cringe”—to appear effortless and perpetually unbothered—trains teenagers to suppress initiative precisely during the one period of life when experimentation is low-stakes and developmentally crucial. To choose cringe is to choose growth; it is an investment your future self will depend on. There is an unspoken rule many young people absorb: care, but never too much. This quiet practice of restraint becomes a kind of adolescent survival strategy, where you must appear effortless, and above all, avoiding anything that might be called cringe . Yet adolescent is precisely the stage of life where that caution becomes counterproductive. It is the one period when the personal and economic stakes of experimentations are uniquely low, and the potential rewards are disproportionately high. To avoid embarrassment at fifteen may feel right, but in practice, it often delays the very growth we will need at twenty-five....

The New Frontier of Sexual Violence: Your Photo AI-generated sexual deepfakes among adolescents represent a new form of peer-to-peer violence that bypasses traditional notions of physical harm, signaling a global crisis: when powerful generative technologies become normalized without ethical preparation, entire populations, especially minors, are left structurally vulnerable. One day, you open your social media page, scrolling through the selfies you posted with your friends. Then a message arrives: a video of your own face, nude, performing acts you never did, never consented to, and never wanted anyone to imagine. This was the reality for countless women in South Korea in September 2024. In September 2024, the country discovered sprawling networks of chatrooms dedicated to producing and exchanging sexualized deepfakes of people. The term used in Korean was “지인능욕,” which translates into “acquaintance humiliation”, a system where users could upload a photo of anyone they knew, and the ...