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Opinion / Page 6
Podcast Recommendations
One of the good things lockdown brought to me was finally doing all I had wanted to try but never found the time to. I associated the podcasts with long, boring audios my dad used to play in the car, but I decided to give them a try back in April because, sadly, there is a […]
Stop Stalling – Try A New Society This Semester
Ready for a new term at St Andrews? Looking forward to new experiences and making new friends? There are so many different societies and clubs to get involved in. So many choices. Sometimes it can feel kind of overwhelming. However, there is something for everyone. Why not enrich your university experience with a new hobby […]
Freshers in a Pandemic
Freshers is one of the most hotly anticipated events of first year, the big thing to look forward to after the end of compulsory education. Obviously this year it looked quite different, and my experience as a fresher has been coloured with the shade of a pandemic hanging over our heads. Although the news gives a grim cast to […]
Artist of the Month: Vermeer
I’ve only been at St Andrews for a short while and September is already almost over. I feel a certain Scottish chill settle permanently into my bones that can only be attributed to me living in the coldest room of the building. The radiators being on full blast has not seemed to make much of a difference. Nevertheless, as […]
Tributes to Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court Justice and liberal feminist icon, there has been an outpouring of tributes to her legacy. The Record has received two such obituaries, which we are pleased to present below: Notorious RBG – Maddie McCall I remember sitting in the second row of my government class about […]
Becoming An Undergraduate At 27
After I left school in 2010 and didn’t head off to university like most of my peers, I was always under the impression that I’d missed my chance at going on to study for a degree at university. I didn’t succeed as much as I’d like at high school. My grades weren’t bad, but they […]
Why We Should All Read Poetry
I have always found poetry an unwelcoming art. It felt elitist and inaccessible, with no place in the life of an ordinary twenty-first century teen outside of an English classroom. I was reading Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider (for the Women in Work book club, please join in!), a collection of writing by the self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, […]
The Breaking Down of Gender Norms in Disney Films
Over the past ten years Disney has begun to integrate more progressive views into their films and thus are creating more forward-looking mindsets in younger generations. Disney has especially done this by breaking down outdated gender roles and storylines in a variety of different ways. This most notably started with Princess and the Frog in […]
St Andrews In The News
The summer before I came to St Andrews, our little town was in my newsfeed constantly. Not because anything exciting had actually happened, but because I was compulsively researching it. It made me feel a connection with a place I’d only been to once before, and the more I learned, the less nervous I felt […]
How Your White Tee Upholds White Supremacy
If fashion is a representative of who we are, what does wearing the product of exploitation say about us? The BlackLivesMatter movement that followed the murder of George Floyd was hailed as the biggest in history. Useful infographics and petitions, and less useful black squares, flooded social media feeds. Despite the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of people took […]
Hamilton’s True Villain Is Alexander Hamilton Himself
I want to give you a word of warning, this article contains spoilers for the musical Hamilton. Like millions of others during lockdown, I joined in the Disney+ fanfare and watched the musical Hamilton for the first time using their platform. I can’t pinpoint when I became obsessed but, long story short, my entire […]
The 93% Club – Inclusive or Divisive?
Whether you’re an incoming or current student at St Andrews, the elitist culture at the University is well-known. The stereotypical image of St Andrews students presents golf-playing, champagne-drinking Oxford rejects at their ‘royally’ expensive balls. The St Andrews experience is famous for its emphasis on tradition, but also its extremely hard-working student body; in which only 60.2% […]
We Need To Talk About Smartphones
Smartphones. They’re everywhere. As of this year, the number of smartphone users is estimated at 3.5 billion, which equals roughly half the global population. This number is set to increase to 3.8 billion by 2021, and just as the amount of smartphones continues to increase, so does our reliance on them. According to an Ofcom […]
Farm-tastic Summer
This atrociously long and depressing summer, I decided to work on a farm with my best friend from home, Elaina. From March to the end of June, my family had been spending quality Covid time together in Florida, dodging the young spring breakers and older anti-maskers. After much begging and pleading on my part, I […]
Love, Sex and Social Distancing
While many of us were separated from our loved ones during lockdown, the rise in popularity of dating apps shows that we as a people might value intimacy over public safety. During the pandemic YouGov reported that only 39% of 18 to 24 single year olds stopped dating, while a fifth of single Brits who […]
Confessions of a Former Unionist
The 2010s were a rollercoaster ride of a decade when it came to politics. It has been confusing, upsetting and, in some cases, terrifying seeing the path that countries around the world are taking. Looking back though, there’s one vote that I’ve grown to regret more and more as the years have gone by. I’m […]
The Truth About Generation Z
Okay, B**mer. I know your criticisms of Generation Z – we spend a lot of time on our phones, scrolling through TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram, taking part in a “pointless” virtual world. While older generations such as Baby Boomers, Generation X, and even older Millennials criticise Gen Z’s significant screen time, they fail to recognise […]
The Importance Of The Arts During A Global Pandemic
The arts and science are equally important, yet they have always been valued against each other. How many times have we been asked “are you a more science or humanities based?”. It’s all one or the other unless you’re an all-rounder. How many people do you know who are studying both maths and english? Science is incredibly […]