Given recent campus events, it is safe to say that mental health is of the utmost importance while at Tech and beyond.

However, it is not an easy thing to define, or talk about, or change. It means something different for everyone, and manifests itself in different ways.

It is important that mental health is understood within the context of one’s own life, as well as the community as a whole, so that good mental health can be practiced and discussed.

Mental health has been an important aspect of one’s whole health for quite some time, but recently a greater focus toward fostering good mental health has been taken.

“Our society and our campus communities are paying more attention to mental health issues than ever before,” said Dr. Janice Harewood, PhD.

Dr. Harewood is a licensed psychologist and the Assistant Director for Outreach and Wellness with the Georgia Tech Counselling Center.

“We understand that good mental health is essential to good health overall, and we think a lot more about how our minds and our bodies are connected and how we need to take care of both in order to be well,” she explained.

However, knowing that mental health is important and connected in key ways to one’s total well-being is not enough.

In order to have good mental health, and to facilitate discussion about it, one must recognize the factors that can influence it.

There is not any one trick or secret to good mental health. Rather it can be defined in many ways each effected by one’s life experiences and beliefs.

“A person’s view of good mental health will differ depending on their values, abilities, cultural identity or stage of development in life,” Dr. Harewood explained.

While these things change, there are several factors that influence mental health, beginning with understanding what it is.

“I like to think of good mental health as having the ability to respond to our environment with our emotions, thinking and behavior in ways that help us adapt,” Dr. Harewood said. “It’s about being flexible with our responses depending on the situations we are in, so that we can cope with challenges and function well.”

Being adaptable includes allowing positive feelings and negative feelings to be part of your emotions even though positive feelings are often the ones associated with good mental health.

“There are times when having negative emotions are a reflection of good mental health [and] feeling dissatisfied about something can lead us to take steps toward change,” Dr. Harewood said.

Ultimately, for many people this boils down to, “Feeling that one is a contributing member of society, having a sense of balance internally, having a sense of meaning in life and connection with others or having the ability to work towards one’s goals,” Dr. Harewood emphasized.

As many things help create good mental health, so too do many things cause it to deteriorate. Stressors from daily life, or from major life events can cause a deterioration when not addressed over a period of time or when they arise in conjunction with
other factors.

“Negative events and stressors are not enough to cause mental health problems by themselves, but if stress is overwhelming and not dealt with, this can result in problems with emotions, thinking and behaviors,” Dr. Harewood said.

Knowing the factors that can affect mental health is a necessary part of knowing to foster better mental health. Being proactive can be a large part of ensuring that you are armed with the tools necessary to have and maintain your mental health.

This can mean implementing stress management and problem solving skills, seeking support, either professionally or from the community, or developing a good understanding of self.

“Developing insight — understanding our experiences and being honest with ourselves about them — can help us know when there is a problem in our lives we might need to deal with. … Being willing to seek out support and help when it is needed, and being willing to take a step forward to begin to make changes are also essential,” Dr. Harewood said.

However, the buck does not stop with the individual. Everyone in a community plays a part in developing an environment where good mental health is fostered, and where issues can be discussed. This is especially important given the proximity and interconnectedness of those in the Tech community. There are several steps one can take:

“First, taking care of our own mental health puts us in a better position to help people who might need our support. Simply reaching out to others and saying ‘hi’ can help people feel more connected on campus and brighten someone’s day. Continuing to be aware of the mental health needs on campus is important, and learning how we can help others — whether by offering support directly or referring them for care — is important too,” Dr. Harewood said.

With a better understanding of mental health, students, faculty, staff are able to work to foster good health for themselves and also within the Tech  and larger community.

By taking steps to make this happen, the culture surrounding mental health will continue to change for the better.

Members of the Tech community packed into the Student Center Theater last Friday to voice concerns about police violence, mental health and the importance of community. Panels comprised of faculty members and outside community activists led the discussions in hopes of starting a campus-wide dialogue about changes that need to be made. The idea for the forum, a type of event typically called a teach-in, stemmed from a conversation between Tech’s own Dr. Anne Pollock and Dr. Sherie Randolph about student response to the fatal shooting of a student by a GTPD officer last week.

“When we heard about the events, and then saw the way the student protests were handled, we thought a good thing to do would be to create a forum for some help contextualizing these issues and to hear where students are coming from,” said Pollock, who is in her tenth year at Tech. “It felt important for us to do something right away because it was clear that the students were not feeling seen.”

The teach-in took place just six days after the incident and four days after a controversial protest culminated in chaos on the streets of Tech’s campus. Though the main provocateurs of Monday’s violence were unaffiliated with the Institute, the circumstances of Scout Schultz’s death left a large portion of campus angry, emotional and confused. Pollock and Randolph feared that lack of action by the faculty could potentially fuel discontent on the part of the students.

“I think it was hard for [the faculty] to hear how angry some of the students were,” Pollock said. “It’s important for students to feel like faculty care about them. This is a student-serving institution. It exists in order to foster education. We need to keep our eyes on that prize, and when we are falling short we need to address that.”

The event was faculty-led, but the organizers left plenty of time between panels for the students in attendance to ask questions and voice their concerns. Several times throughout the afternoon, students stood to deliver impassioned accounts of their experiences at Tech and the ways that administration have failed to meet their needs.

“We should all care about a campus of mutual respect, of human dignity and thinking about what keeps us safe as a campus and what gives us freedom,” Pollock said. “I’m not saying to drop everything to focus on this, but part of being a member of a community is to care about how that community is run. The purpose of campus police is to keep students safe, so how can we make sure that happens?”

Divided opinions on GTPD may be keeping students from healing, but the entire incident reopened one of Tech’s most glaring and persistent wounds: mental health problems on campus.

“Another thing to think about is how we care for students in distress,” Pollock said. “Maybe not in as dire a situation as Scout Schultz was in on that fateful night, but more broadly. How can we not drive students to that level of stress but also be there for them when they are? A rigorous education is not incompatible with an education that addresses human beings. It can be technically rigorous and still foster thriving on the part of the students. We aren’t just linear algebra machines.”

With mental health now at the forefront of campus conversation, entities of all kinds are coming together to put time and resources into improving the situation of everyone on campus. Thanks to events like last Friday’s teach-in, the Tech community is one step closer to finally recognizing and addressing the underlying issues facing both minority students and the student body as a whole.

In October 2014, Tech alumni Chris Doyle, MGT ‘07 MBA ‘11, and Jason Santamaria, MGT ‘06, opened Second Self, a brewery on the Westside of Atlanta. The name comes from how Doyle and Santamaria worked on the project in their spare time while still having full-time jobs.

It all started with Georgia law changing in 2004 to allow beer to be over 5.9% alcohol. This in turn opened the Georgia market for craft beers and especially IPAs (India Pale Ales) which are more hoppy and bitter than traditional beers.

Doyle and Santamaria, along with a couple of their Pi Kappa Phi fraternity brothers, decided to see if they could make it because, as Santamaria put it, “…we’re Tech kids; we want to make things.”

After graduating from Tech, they both got traditional day-jobs, Doyle with GTARC and Santamaria with Teradata (and later IBM). It wasn’t until 2009 that the pair started to seriously think about starting their own business — a brewery.

“In 2010 we went to the Brewers Association Conference, which is the largest group of brewers in the world, in Chicago. We went there and we were like alright we’re going to learn how to start a brewery, write a business plan and we’ll be open in like a year, two years max,” Santamaria said.

This timeline proved to be overly ambitious and the revised opening date became July 2014, four years later.

One of the first major challenges was fundraising.

“You have no experience, you have no reputation and you have to convince banks and people to give you money. It’s hard asking for it, something I wasn’t used to,” Santamaria said. “One of our first investors, I met at a Braves game and he sat next to me.”

The brewery also had issues with licensing and other bureaucratic red-tape, starting with the government shutdown in 2013.

“We sent our application in, got a hard copy, got it assigned to a person. And then the government shut down,” Doyle said. “So it sat there for a period of time and everything is contingent upon licensing.”

After getting through the government shutdown, there were further delays.

“[Our application] was assigned to someone. And then she went on maternity leave. Once it’s assigned to someone, it can’t be reassigned to anyone. So she was gone for eight weeks. Off the bat we had a 12 week delay,” Santamaria said.

The opening date was moved from July to October.

“Historically, one of the worst times to open a brewery,” Santamaria said.

Licensing and other problems pushed back the date, but the planned beers were still geared towards summer. In fall, beer sales tend to decline while liquor sales increase as the holidays approach.

“We didn’t know any of that. I mean we also just had to get open because we had promised everyone all this stuff,” Santamaria said.

Second Self opened with four beers, only one of which is still in production.

“There were definitely things that were completely out of our control that hit us hard,” Santamaria said.

On the flipside of that, there were many puzzle pieces that fell into place to make their dream a reality. “There have to be other side things going on near you that really help push your business up,” said Doyle.

Through the tumultuous years of planning, fundraising and building, Doyle and Santamaria have remained good friends and recognize their humble Tech beginnings.

Doyle started as a chemical engineer and Santamaria started as an industrial engineer.

They both later switched to business, albeit somewhat late in their college careers.

Santamaria got hands on experience with consulting in an industrial engineering co-op and found it too limiting.

“I realized that’s not what I can do the rest of my life, but I was really enjoying the management classes so I switched over,” Santamaria said.

Doyle found he enjoyed the engineering aspect but was not as fond of the chemistry.

“I wanted to apply myself to something that I was good at and I wanted to stay at Tech doing it. So I fooled around with IE again but I figured that major [business] would eventually get me to the right place,” Doyle said.

“Think about the end thing you want to be doing. If you want to create things, focus on creating things. If you want to manage people who create things, focus your energies on that,” Doyle said. “People switch around a lot but if you find the one style of life that you want: focus on that.”

The co-founders have taken away a lot from their time at Tech.

“Tech taught me how to solve problems,” Santamaria said. “A broader skill that I see with anyone that comes from Tech is knowing to look at five sides of the problem and then to ask for help if you need it.”

More specifically, Doyle is able to apply what he learned at Tech directly to their business.

“What I do day-to-day is operations planning projections. A lot of that is the baseline of strategy and operations at Tech and that’s what I focused on for my undergrad and my MBA,” Doyle said.

“For me this is the ultimate inspiration. So you know if I have to work 80-100 hours I have to work 80-100 hours. Also something I learned at Tech. Sometimes you just don’t sleep. And that’s just what happens,” Santamaria laughed. “It’s a lot more time but you know I don’t mind doing it because I know what I’m doing is creating something and I believe
in it.”

The pair stress that the key to success, and in turn happiness, is following your dreams.

“Our whole business is about living your dream. It’s about how we are living our dream. We worked hard to do it. And you know I encourage everyone to do that,” Santamaria said.

“In college I didn’t know. I knew I wanted to have my own thing at some point, but what it was I had no idea. If you told me it was going to be a brewery, I would have probably laughed,” Santamaria said.

Second Self currently has 8 full-time employees and 5 part-time employees.

“Collectively, amongst everyone, we have literally a decade of experience,” Doyle said.

Even with their limited experience, the altruistic pair make time to stay connected to their roots and give back.

“We still do alumni tailgates and stuff like that for the school. I’m doing a panel next month,” Santamaria said. “We try to be as involved as we can with Georgia Tech. The skillset that we learned and the people we met — I mean we met at Tech — we wouldn’t be here without that.”

In addition to just giving back to Tech, Second Self’s tasting room features local artists and hosts monthly comedy nights with Atlanta stand-up.

“And that’s kind of my policy,” Santamaria said. “I’m living my dream and I want to help others. So if people need any coaching, I’m happy to do it. I’ve talked to servers about having to help them live what they really want to do. So I’m always willing to help and happy to do it. I think it’s my goal as a business owner to help other people do that.”

Everything about Second Self is near and dear to its founder’s hearts, from the award-winning can designs to their special occasion beer, Champenoise Saison.

Second Self will be celebrating their three-year anniversary on Oct. 7. This event will feature their special occasion beer, along with food trucks like The Fry Guy and Crepe Masters.

“It’s a beer made like champagne,” Santamaria said. “So it’s taken 12 months to do. It’s been a labor of love for this beer.”

“Really this was our nights and weekends,” Santamaria said. “This was our passion project; this is what we really wanted to do. We wanted to have our own business, wanted to create our own mark on world and we wanted to do something that we loved.”

In 1999, Jon Stewart took over as the host of “The Daily Show,” kicking off a revolution in the nature and focus of late night television. Before then, shows in the genre focused on pop culture and interviews with celebrities, but Stewart developed a paradigm that centered on political satire.

Soon, the field expanded with the introduction of “The Colbert Report,” a spin off from and the fake political counterpart to “The Daily Show.” Stephen Colbert found success lampooning the conservative talk shows; his nine-year run as host of the show ended only when he left to take over as the host of “The Late Show.”

Since “The Colbert Report” ended in 2014, Comedy Central has lacked a “conservative” satire to counterbalance “The Daily Show.” On Sept. 25, that role was finally filled with the introduction of Jordan Klepper’s show “The Opposition.” While Klepper’s new show satirizes conservative commentary much like “The Colbert Report” did, “The Opposition” is not simply a rehashing of the old series. Since 2014, the political climate of the U.S. has changed drastically, and with it conservative media have undergone a dramatic transformation as well.

In recent years, Americans in the far right have begun turning off their televisions and finding new voices in extreme online podcasts and websites like Alex Jones’s InfoWars and Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News. Many of the most conservative Americans no longer get their news and opinions from Fox News, but rather from a host of fresh sources popping up all over the internet.

“The Opposition” reflects this shift in its format and tone. By claiming to be an independent truth-seeking organization looking out for the American people, the show satirizes these new media. Some diehard Colbert fans may have been hoping that this series would have the same feel as “The Colbert Report” did, but the differences in the two shows are adjustments that needed to be made for Comedy Central to keep up with the times.

As far as content goes, the first episode of “The Opposition” mostly lived up to expectations. The jokes were generally funny, and Klepper’s delivery throughout the night was solid though some lines felt over-practiced and artificial.

Several memorable underhanded shots at Alex Jones included a funny gag that mocked the InfoWars host’s recent custody battle, but overall the episode seemed a little thin and not noteworthy. Despite the slightly disappointing premiere, the show’s jokes will likely improve as the writers dive into more topical content in the coming days.

Perhaps the most promising aspect of the episode was the emphasis that the writers seemed to place on being more than just a satirical late night show. Beyond merely allowing its audience to laugh at political news, the unique strength of the “The Colbert Report” was that it exposed the absurdity in the way in which the news is reported. “The Opposition” seems to successfully carry on in the footsteps of Colbert.

Much like Fox News pundits Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, Stephen Colbert built a cult of personality around himself and his own ego. His audiences chanted his name during his entrances, and his opening sequence included images of him wielding an American flag. Through charisma and stylistic choices, Colbert highlighted the egotism and narcissism of those whom he was mocking.

The first episode of “The Opposition” indicated to its audience that it too will mock the way in which news is reported by sources on the right. Several times, Klepper mockingly complimented his audience for their intelligence, claiming much like Alex Jones and other right-wing pundits do that their decision to watch his show was evidence of their intelligence and political autonomy.

Klepper then turned around and insulted them in the next sentence, highlighting the way in which hard-right pundits compliment their followers while simultaneously feeding them ridiculous lies, which should offend their intelligence.

This unique focus on mocking news formats has become even more important than it was when “The Colbert Report” began, as political comedy has become more common on traditional late night shows with the introduction of Seth Myers’ version of “Late Night” and Colbert’s own iteration of “The Late Show.”

If the writers can continue to parody the format of underground conservative talk shows while focusing the content of the show on more current issues, “The Opposition” could turn out to be a worthy successor to “The Colbert Report.”

The pavement at Atlanta Motor Speedway lead to the stage at Imagine’s 2017 “Underwater” festival. The same track that racecars usually breeze through housed a collection of stages, food trucks, street shops and more.

Now completing its fourth year, Imagine fell into its stride as an authentic EDM festival by bringing a collection of accomplished artists and good quality production to the stage.

Imagine’s camping grounds are a newer addition to the festival and have helped to bridge Imagine to its iconic peers like TomorrowWorld and EDC (Electric Daisy Carnival). The number of festival attendees was overwhelming, and the camping grounds were decorated with the neon tops of camping tents.

Water refill stations were accessible at all areas of the speedway, and the range in stage sizes allowed fans to appreciate a more personal vibe with some of the smaller DJs. As for the large
stages, the number of speakers and the sound they produced was breathtaking.

Flames adorned one artist as the ceiling of the stage was lit on fire. All around the festival were shaded domes, seating areas and shops. The collection of vendors was large, and the ten to fifteen food trucks that attended the festival offered a wide variety of foods at acceptable prices.

Imagine was split into three days, each featuring more than a few noteworthy artists. Perhaps the biggest name on Friday was Tiesto. Known for heavy, industrial beats, he truly delivered his performance as a masterpiece on the Oceania stage. Friday also featured a crowd favorite, NGHTMRE. NGHTMRE looks to blend EDM with some trap elements. His set featured “Mask-off” and the classic favorite “Lamborghini Mercy.”

A unique addition to Imagine is the camping grounds’ silent disco. Although one must have a camping pass to attend, the silent disco is now a tradition of Imagine that begins at 3 a.m. on Friday night. Saturday’s set did not begin until around 6 p.m., so much of the festival kept its energy up throughout the night.

Saturday was the centerpiece of the entire festival. Most of the crowd arrived around sundown to attend some EDM big-hitter sets. Zomboy and Flux Pavilion are familiar names to a lot of listeners, so their sets brought out the largest crowds.

After 6 p.m., the quality of the artists became so consistent that migrating to other stages became unnecessary. Still, choosing between two acts on competing stages can be hard.

The closing set was Imagine’s most adored musician, Deadmau5. At the same time as Deadmau5’s performance, Pretty Lights performed on the Amazonia stage.

For a festival that features a lot of artists that bring new sounds and blends to the genre, Deadmau5’s blackout performance brought the audience back to where EDM came from. Heavily influenced by house music and the dubstep wave, Deadmau5 provided the authenticity of Imagine.

Pretty Lights brought a fresh, groovy feel to the stage with the use of live instruments. After a couple hours, all listeners seemed as if they were in a trance, content with the quality of the artists and their production.

In terms of production as a music festival, Imagine successfully executed its growing event. The festival now operates in a bigger league: with each successive year, Imagine increases in following. The venue switched from the Masquerade to the Speedway last year to accommodate larger crowds. With the newer site, Imagine management were on their toes to maintain safety.

At one performance Friday night, an excitable crowd rattled and broke down the barrier that separated them from the artist. After a night of a crowd gone slightly wild, the barriers were reinforced to take another beating on Saturday.

Water carriers stood on the sides of the stage and encouraged everyone to stay hydrated by providing water. The garages that usually house racecars overnight became homes of VIP suites, containing dancers on stilts and decorated by neon lighting.

In the middle of the area open to the public was a pool filled with floating orbs. Shirtless fans flopped belly first into the two-feet deep pool, and everyone attending was having the time of their lives.

The speedway at night was a different environment entirely. In accordance with the underwater theme, blue lights illuminated the grounds and stage. As the night progressed, crowds aggregated at the larger stages, and as the set list progressed, the volume from each stage increased with it. At the end of the night, the speedway became the loudest it has ever been as it dove once again into the silent disco — an ironic silence.

Sunday concluded the festival with the last performances at 8 p.m. featuring Seven Lions, Big Gigantic and Above and Beyond. As the campers collected their belongings and returned to reality, the speedway returned to normal. The tarmac is now a simple black instead of the blue of Imagine until next year.

The LEGO Movie franchise is an odd beast. Many pegged it to fail with “The LEGO Movie,” and others claimed that “The LEGO  Batman Movie” would surely bomb. After all, how could a movie series based on a toy be any more than a soulless cash grab?

Despite the pundits, both movies were wildly successful. “The LEGO Movie” is still one of the most original, imaginative and entertaining animated features to be produced in the last seven years, and “The LEGO Batman Movie,” released earlier this year, garnered praise as well.

The surprising success of the franchise lies in energetic, humorous animation that offers regular sight gags, poignant themes, wonderfully meta humor and a charmingly childish willingness to pursue any joke no matter how silly. In addition to appealing to the children in audiences, the LEGO movies seek to appeal to the dormant child in many adult viewers as well.

In some respects, “The LEGO Ninjago Movie” is no different. This debut feature by directors Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher and Bob Logan stars Dave Franco (“Neighbors”) as Lloyd Garmadon, the estranged teenage son of Lord Garmadon, a supervillain who regularly terrorizes the island city of Ninjago.

Lloyd struggles to fit in with the townspeople of Ninjago due to his lineage, but he finds purpose in fighting his father as a member of the secret ninja force. The secret ninja force echoes the Power Rangers, comprising of Lloyd as the Green Ninja and five other teens who all fight evil under the tutelage of Sensei Wu, played by Jackie Chan (“The Karate Kid”).

The film opens with the ninjas failing to stop Lord Garmadon, voiced enthusiastically by Justin Theroux (“The Leftovers”), from conquering Ninjago. In a desperate attempt to rid the city of his father, Lloyd uses a laser pointer to summon a live-action cat that completely destroys Ninjago.

The remainder of the film follows the ninja force and Lord Garmadon as they join forces to end the cat’s reign of terror. Along the way, the sextet learns about the importance of perspective, their own individuality and family as Lloyd and Garmadon attempt to repair their relationship.

While there is much to appreciate in this film, it is not quite as funny as the previous installments in the LEGO Movie franchise despite having similar humor. In a visually exciting style, the film manages to ridiculously subvert genre tropes in the same way that other LEGO Movies have.

It is truly wonderful to watch as six LEGO ninjas in six LEGO robotic beasts are slowly shot out of the sky by a meandering, innocuous live action cat to the screams of little LEGO people below. Tongue-in-cheek scenes like these that play on tropes like the “somber last stand” and the “grave apocalypse” are immensely fun to watch.

Sometimes it feels as if the screenwriters pursued jokes with childish glee, unrestrained by public perception to approach the truly absurd. Certain live-action cut scenes interspersed throughout the film are so extraordinarily silly that one cannot help but grin. While some jokes are too on-the-nose to work, the film is still consistently fun.

Unfortunately, the humor and visuals are the only strong point of the film. The plot meanders, adopting the guises of a Kung Fu satire, a coming-of-age film, a family drama, an epic, a disaster movie and many more. The film has its own identity crisis and never settles on which genre it wants to imitate.

Due to this uncertainty, the pacing is uneven and inconsistent. Further, the film is bookended by two cringeworthy live-action scenes that depict Jackie Chan as an aged trinket shop owner narrating the film’s events to a wide-eyed young boy. These scenes add little to the film and only obfuscate the film’s tone.

The only characters developed well are Lloyd and his father, but Lloyd’s character is too bland and plain to hold the audience’s attention. Dave Franco’s Lloyd regularly rattles off some tired lines about not fitting in and hating his father, but it ultimately amounts to little substance.

Theroux’s Garmadon, however, is an absolute joy to watch. Fickle, immature and completely oblivious to the impact his actions have on his son, Garmadon is a constant source of comedic relief and provides a clever subversion of the absentee father trope in many heroes’ journeys. Theroux’s performance ties together the disparate strands of the plot and camouflages many of the gaping holes in the narrative.

Unfortunately, none of the other characters, played by such renowned actors as Fred Armisen (“Portlandia”), Kumail Nanjiani (“Silicon Valley”) and Olivia Munn (“The Newsroom”), are given much space to breathe in the plot.

All of these faults would be forgivable if the film had something original to say. Unfortunately, the film tries to unify itself thematically around some truly dry and trite monologues by Lloyd and Garmadon about the importance of family and staying true
to oneself.

Where the past two LEGO Movies succeeded through their originality, “The LEGO Ninjago Movie” does not even try to reach the same bar. The disappointing finale reinforces how forgettable the film as a whole is.

While there are many individual scenes that are entertaining, the film overall simply fails to distinguish itself from the bulk of cliche, moralizing animated films that are produced every year.

As a kids film, “The LEGO Ninjago Movie” may pass as acceptable. However, this installment of the franchise does not live up to the precedent set by the first two LEGO movies. Future LEGO movies, planned to be released in 2018 and 2019, may extend the weakened franchise.    

Today, it is generally accepted that William Shakespeare wrote 37 plays, though some claim the oddball tragicomedy of 1634, “Two Noble Kinsmen,” as his 38th. None of these 37 or 38 plays, however, include “The Reign of King Edward the Third,” which was published anonymously in 1596.

It has since been speculated that this play was written, at least in part, by William Shakespeare while others attribute the history play to his contemporary,
Thomas Kyd.

Since there is no real way to know its origin for sure, Atlanta’s own Shakespeare’s Tavern Playhouse can be forgiven for introducing their current performance as “probably William Shakespeare’s ‘The Reign of King Edward the Third.’”

The play opens with the news that King Edward III of England is, by some accounts, the rightful successor to the French throne. When word comes from John II that he has become King of France and wishes acknowledgement from King Edward, Edward’s advisers and Edward himself are greatly incensed and opt to invade France.

All is not well at home, however, and before seeing to foreign affairs, King Edward must deal with a besieged castle in northern England. This background was set up in a rather lengthy and dull dialog at the opening of the play.

Once the audience has been introduced to the general state of affairs, however, the play has more freedom to be entertaining, leaving the history lesson and transforming into a love story of sorts.

When King Edward, played by Drew Reeves, arrives at the besieged castle, the attackers quickly flee at the sight of a formidable and well-organized army. The triumphant army is promptly invited into the castle by the Earl of Salisbury’s wife (Kati Grace Brown). Edward III is instantly smitten by the countess’s beauty and professes his love to her.

The countess reminds King Edward of his own wife and generally rebuffs his advances in every way. Brown does an admirable job of portraying a distraught woman.

Her character knows she cannot continuously reject her king without repercussions (most likely of the death penalty variety) but still ardently opposes his desires. While the countess does not have a terribly large role in the play overall, Brown makes her limited lines count.

The second half of the play focuses on the portion of the story that had fallen by the wayside during King Edward’s short-lived love story. England’s armies go to France where Edward (David Sterritt), Prince of Whales and son of King Edward III, is knighted and shows his courage and military prowess.

As there are many large battles portrayed in “The Reign of King Edward III,” observing how they have been shrunk to fit on stage is interesting. Several of the
conflicts are merely described by messengers or commoners who have witnessed the battles and then are reporting the events to their superiors.

Quite a few are intricately choreographed fight scenes wherein a multitude of actors brandishing swords rush out onstage, take a few swings and hurry off again to emulate the shifting tides of battle. The director Mary Ruth Ralston and the fight captain David Sterritt did a fantastic job of translating the script’s fighting into real actions onstage.

Performances of this little known, anonymously published play are few and far between in the realm of theatre, and this performance of “The Reign of King Edward III” will only be performed through Oct. 1, so anyone interested only has a limited window of opportunity.

Then the venue will switch to a play more credibly written by William Shakespeare and more fitting of the month of Halloween, “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” Shakespeare’s Tavern has performed this particular Shakespeare play many times in recent years, and it has yet to fail to garner audience approval.

In the years leading up to and after the turn of the twentieth century, musicians had been split on an issue within their business. Recordings had changed what it meant to be an artist.

Some saw it as an opportunity for their music to be spread to the far corners of the world; others who were used to making money from performances feared that the composition of music had been given a death sentence because it would make it impossible to earn enough money. John Philip Sousa,
a composer and noted doom-monger, wondered if kids would lose their souls to the phonograph.

While this crisis over the state of the arts sounds myopic in retrospect, it is not unlike the fears labels and artists have about streaming now. Though their anxieties are the opposite of their early twentieth century counterparts as they fear performing until their death, the complaint that “the old times were better” continues.

In the last couple years, a “solution” has gained popularity: make the music less available. Chance the Rapper made a short term exclusivity contract with Apple. Taylor Swift leveraged her celebrity to get what she wanted from Apple then stayed exclusively with them until she was suddenly and mysteriously appeased by Spotify.

But the boldest bet came from hip-hop’s unofficial CEO, JAY-Z, when he bought and rebranded his own streaming service. The supporting argument posits that while fans are put in a hard spot and must pay more to listen to everything they want, streaming exclusivity is actually a victory for everyone since increased patronage for artists leads to more and higher quality music. In the unrelated words of Joe Biden, this argument is “a bunch of malarkey.”

As a rule of thumb, it is unwise to argue with JAY-Z on the topic of business. The rapper’s intuition has been built on years of experience and experimentation to incredible success. However, the major music label Universal disagrees completely and instated a policy that the company will not sell exclusive streaming rights. The label fears that the up-front millions that come from the deal will not make up for the smaller audiences.

In the modern era, a new term has been born: “Pirate Platinum,” referring to when an album has been downloaded illegally over a million times. Notable examples include Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo” and JAY-Z’s “4:44,” which were Tidal exclusives at the time. The cool name hardly makes up for the money JAY-Z missed out on. Even if he does end up the winner in terms of financial gain, he is actively killing his own legacy as an artist.

Music fandom and music obsession have changed. What was once territory reserved for “super fans” of artists is now commonplace with the availability of entire catalogs in one convenient, digital place. As for those whose passion or even profession is music, the expected amount of knowledge is dizzying. A light skim of sites like “Pitchfork” and “Noisey” reveals enough jargon to be nearly on-par with that of lawyers’.

This changed environment is due precisely to the unbelievable convenience of streaming, not a newfound cultural mania. Just ask anyone under the age of 25 to name even three Aaliyah songs, and it quickly becomes clear why exclusivity can spell a death sentence for a body of work.

Aaliyah, for all her impact in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, has been forsaken by her uncle and the owner of the rights to her music, Barry Hankerson, to a slow march into oblivion. His refusal to allow her music to live anywhere online is an extreme case, but this situation fundamentally creates the same problem as exclusive streaming — limited availability.

While artists have been able to make up for the loss from royalty checks by touring, that option is not even available to many others in the business. Independent artists, label employees and background artists like producers and writers, whose bread and butter used to come from the percentages of songs and albums, have had to get creative. Some beatmakers for example have turned to sites like “The Drum Broker” to sell drum packs. Others have picked up DJing gigs. Yet unlike leading artists, the shifts in what it means to be a musician has not slowed down smaller players’ drive to continue creating.

Highly fragmented streaming is not unprecedented either: that is the current state of music’s sister industry, film. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and HBO all fight for viewers’ attention and money with little to no overlap in their content.

Cinephiles see streaming as a blessing for obvious reasons, but many also see it as a curse for the effect it has had on the actual culture. Netflix has less than 50 movies made before 1970 while Hulu has none.

Fans of classic cinema are forced to find boutique services like FilmStruck. It is easy to imagine a world where music streaming services are similarly split by genre, age, label or any almost arbitrary marker. While this reality may sound ridiculous, it may not be too far if exclusivity
practices continue.

Unsurprisingly considering its history, Spotify, the first and largest player in the space, has a strict no-exclusives policy. Co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek was the former CEO of µTorrent, a company that ran the peer-to-peer technology that fuels piracy and that fueled Spotify in its early days.

The pirate ethos stuck around, and the company remains philosophically opposed to the practice of exclusive streaming. The company views it as a step of regression — a cardinal sin in
technology.

However, Spotify has the privilege of being much larger than Apple and Tidal, who are forced to differentiate themselves. From these companies’ perspectives, exclusive streaming makes all too much sense.

Why enter a perfectly competitive market when there is an easier way to differentiate themselves and to entice users while also playing into artists’ fears of not making enough money? In the years to follow, however, the parallels between angry musicians of the previous century, and today’s unsatisfied pop stars will become all too clear.

I’ve raised my hand and asked a question in a computer engineering lecture only once. I asked if a bus (a wire) on a schematic was serial or parallel.

I don’t even remember what the answer was. But it was winter time, and I could hear my classmates’ jackets rubbing loudly against the fabric back of the lecture hall chairs as they turned, in unison, to look at me.

The way I speak is kind of like Laguna Beach meets Elle Woods. Honestly, most college girls I know speak this way.

But in computer engineering, my valley girl accent is shocking. I am automatically labeled as stupid the second I open my mouth. It might not be fair and you might not want to believe it, but you just can’t argue that the concepts of “valley girl” and “academia” fit together nicely.

Being stared at while asking a question sounds like a pretty stupid roadblock compared to other students’ problems.

But it’s indicative of a larger problem for me and my success at Georgia Tech. Because if I ask a stupid question, and everyone turns around to look, then now I’m the stupid girl asking the stupid question.

And because I’m probably one of the only very feminine girls in the class, I perpetuate the stereotype that girls don’t belong in computer engineering — that same stereotype that subtly pushes girls out of ECE in the first place.

I’m not going to give a suggestion on ways to push fewer girls out. I honestly don’t know.

My message actually isn’t to the university, it’s to employers. As I start the search for my full-time job, my experience with career recruitment has been very
numerical.

Career fairs sought to compare candidate by GPA, and I didn’t qualify for many interviews because mine isn’t great. I wouldn’t say I’m a poor student, but I wanted to get out as fast as possible, so I took as many classes that my body could physically handle each semester, and I ended up with mediocre grades.

I was surprised by employers quantifying me because, even though I’m an average student, I was a great intern. Being in CompE taught me how to be firm and, even though I had clearly just turned 20, I managed my projects like a full-time employee.

To me, my desirability to employers is reflected in my accomplishments from work: my completed projects, published writing, and the magnitude of the work my company trusted me to take on. Having my accomplishments, personality and drive ignored because of a number – my grade point average – doesn’t actually offend me as much as it baffles me.

That said, my message to employers is this: if you want to find a “trail blazer”, an “innovator”, a “disruptor”, someone with “drive”, then recruit a female engineer. GPA aside, there is no one more driven than the person who perseveres adversity to pursue their passion. No disruptor abides by the status quo. No one would blaze a trail unless they’re willing to stick out.

Ultimately, if you want to grab the world’s attention, start with the girl who causes the entire room to stare as soon as she opens her mouth.

On Friday, Sept. 22, a gathering was held in the area between the Ferst Center and Smithgall building to discuss topics related to the death of Scout Schultz.

It had been anticipated that the assembly would prove violent after the Antifa Atlanta group posted about it on its Facebook page. Smithgall itself was closed to all starting at noon Friday.

Yet, there no physical violence of the vein that was seen during the riots of Monday, Sept. 18. Instead, a number of speakers expressed their feelings and views on a range of issues, including Schultz’s passing, the response of the Tech community and GTPD.

One individual, initially using a megaphone to address the crowd, made his thoughts known.

“First, let’s all take a quick ten seconds of silence to remember Scout,” he said. “Nothing they will do, nothing they can say, nothing they can give us will ever bring back Scout again.”

“I’ve seen how, in this past week, I’ve had to deal with the loss of my friend,” the individual continued. “They silence us when people hang banners from the residence halls that say ‘Thank you GTPD for what you did.’ How can we read that and not see that [this] is thanking them for killing our friend?”

“F*** antifa for creating this division,” said a passerby.

“F*** you, sh*thead,” said another in the crowd in response.

Other individuals began to speak as well.

“I feel like you’re not being silenced … I’m sorry but GTPD is keeping us safe,” said one.

His words were met with a mix of applause, boos and jeers.

“Just kind of a question for the broader crowd, does this guy over here [referring to the first speaker] threaten you?” asked another individual, this time from within the inner crowd. “Because he doesn’t threaten me. All I see is a man grieving for a friend he’s lost, clearly trying to get his voice heard out here, and I feel like people are treating this as some kind of threat to student safety.”

Applause broke out from the crowd.

“So there’s this weird idea going on, that, if you love somebody, you don’t hold them accountable, right?” began another individual. “You can love GTPD, and you can think that they should have handled the situation differently … Stop with the ‘oh it’s either you loved Scout or you love GTPD,’ right? Because you can feel safe around your college police department and admit that they have work to do, right? Loving somebody does not mean not holding them accountable for what they do, and you need to stop with that, because it’s dishonest.”

After a few more individuals spoke on related topics, the inner segment of the crowd broke away, and walked towards Tech green.