This is an article that I have been both dreading and itching to write. Mulling over each sentence, figuring out how to follow it up, ensuring each word is perfect. It has become not only a habit for me over the last three years but also a necessity.

However, instead of waxing poetic (as I am prone to do), I’ll give it straight: This is my last article for The Triangle as a Drexel University student.

That’s right. I’m leaving. This is my last article as a student at Drexel, but not my last for The Triangle. Not by a longshot.

My run began over three years ago with my first article on Oct. 7, 2016, published under the supervision of Opinion Editor Maggie Fedorocsko and Editor-in-Chief Alexandra Jones. I end it now, on Mar. 13, 2020, as my own editor under the direction of our current chief Nick Camarata. This road has had the ups and downs of a roller coaster. However, unlike a roller coaster, there has been a plethora of emotions.

Aside from these emotions, there have been lessons, laughs, tears, fights and everything you can think of. In each, I have interacted with some of the best people I’ve ever met, working together on bringing this great publication to you, the Drexel University family.

When I first came to the paper, I had no journalism experience. Seriously, I had none. My middle and high school didn’t have a publication, and journalism wasn’t a teaching option — more like a one- or two-month unit in English class. I didn’t even know I wanted to be a member of the media. All I knew was one thing: I wanted to write and open myself up to new experiences.

After the first few weeks here, I knew that I had found my calling. More importantly, I had found my home. I went from being undeclared to a communication major halfway through my first quarter, and I haven’t looked back since.

The more I learned in my studies from all my professors, the more I succeeded, the more I failed — I was able to put it all into practice at The Triangle. There were lessons that became highly valuable to me. I learned how to better myself and better the relationships I make, knowing that we are all on the same team.

I’m proud to say I’ve become a stronger leader by not only learning to follow but also teaching myself to create my path, even if it conflicted with the one everyone else wanted to take.

Even when I knew that people weren’t reading The Triangle (which, believe me, was very frustrating), it was the staff at The Triangle who taught me not to take it personally. They made me realize the point was not to appease people or give them what they wanted, but rather, tell them the truth, no matter how ugly it would be.

I’ve revealed about myself a lot in the last three years, opening up on my dealings with autism, how journalism wasn’t progressing the way it should, my personal and ever-evolving feelings on politics — the list can go on and on.

However, the one thing that I was determined to explain, as best I could, is that decency is something that has no political status. It comes from how we treat others, treat the world and treat ourselves.

If anything, the biggest lesson I hope that you learned from me is that you can not only dream, but also put the work in to make the dream come true. However, once it’s been accomplished, take that dream and put it to good use so it can benefit as many people as it can.

Before this article concludes, I want to thank everyone who got me to this point.

To my family, my mother Azita in particular, for always believing in me. Dooset daram.

To Anne Haftl, the former head of personnel for The Triangle, thank you for taking the time to email me back in 2016 and bring me in. I’ll be forever grateful.

To Alexandra Jones, Billy Bauer, Gina Vitale, Mike Avena and Nick Camarata: Thank you for being the leaders who pushed me to be the best. Even a simple “no” without explanation was enough to motivate me to become stronger. I would not be here without you.

To Maggie Fedorocsko, Alex Nagy, Matt Brooks and Michaela Graf: Opinion was, and has always been, my home. Thank you for everything you have taught and given me, even if I annoyed you. You guys are truly tough and made of something else for dealing with my trying ways these last few years.

To every editor and staff member I have worked with, particularly Matt Coakley, Tash Hajo, Walker Alexander, Calvin Kiniale, Kim Post, Virginia Tanner, Jason Sobieski, Tosh Farrell, Michael Duffin, Ethan Hermann, Ben Ahrens, Mikayla Butz-Weidner, Maeve Hennessey, Sanju Ramanathan, Mark Budd, Jahnavi Kalyan, Ryan Bosch, Gina Fitzpatrick, Emma Dietz, Sarah Miller, Virginia Wardell, Zoe Sucato, Utkarsh Panchal, Alex Pachkowski and Stefan Kusmirek: you guys are a major part of the reason I am here, and even if you knew this already, I deeply appreciate everything you have taught me. I’m sure it’ll take me far.

To the Triangle writers — not just in Opinion, but in every section I have written in — you are all too numerous to name, but you each have an extraordinary place in my heart. I will miss you all deeply.

I hope that, from these, you’ve learned a lot about me. I know that I’ve learned a lot from you.

Armon out.

Autonomous shuttles could make transportation around campus easier for students

It’s no secret that parking seems to be a pain point for college students on several campuses across the United States. According to the New York Times, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has one parking space to every five people, and approximately 65,000 students. The campus plans to add an additional 2,200 parking spaces over the next 20 to 40 years, which seems like a long time for a campus and student body that is continuously growing. In fact, the application rate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison increased by 20 percent between 2017 to 2018.

Transportation and parking remain an ongoing issue for campuses everywhere. A college student at Florida Atlantic University recently highlighted her frustrations with campus parking. “I was rushing to class for a Monday morning lecture that began at 8 a.m. At 7:59, I was nowhere near the building for my course because I had to park so far away. I awkwardly walked in at 8:17 and interrupted the professor’s lecture. On top of that, I needed to arrive early to put finishing touches on a paper that was due at the beginning of class. If I had access to better, more reliable modes of transportation, I would take it.”

Of the many public state universities, most are thousands of acres wide. The University of Florida, for example, sprawls over 2,000 acres of land. With bus systems unable to service the demand and a shortage of parking space for students, students need an alternate transportation solution that is timely and efficient.

Autonomous vehicles have become a de facto mode of transportation for the future. While we’re still in the early stages of this technology’s evolution, fixed-course autonomous shuttle vehicles could be a true transportation solution for college campuses. The use of controlled-speed timed shuttles that would allow students to travel between campus destinations will be revolutionary for universities that experience crowding or issues with parking.

Autonomous shuttles can be a more efficient and eco-friendly method of transportation for students while providing a more relaxing mobility environment. Rather than students parking their vehicles and then traveling by foot to class, they can relax and work on schoolwork while the shuttle takes them to their destination. In fact, autonomous shuttle technology has already been introduced to several universities. The University of Michigan and California State University have both recently incorporated autonomous shuttles (also known as “people-movers”) onto their campuses.

Furthermore, autonomous shuttles will help students with physical disabilities, for whom walking large distances — sometimes up to a mile — to get from one class to another is difficult. While most universities have disability services available, very few of them include efficient, timely transportation. Providing an easier way to get around campus will greatly improve the overall college experience for disabled students and faculty.

Another benefit of autonomous shuttles is safety. Autonomous Vehicle technologies are advancing and improving every day. As of today, an AV cannot see and interpret its surroundings exactly as a human would and therefore lacks a certain level of intuition. On the other hand, autonomous vehicles react to motion and events two to three times faster than a human can, and the use of artificial intelligence will continually improve the need for interpretive logic, which will ultimately create a much safer transportation mode than human-driven vehicles.

Most importantly, autonomous vehicles don’t get distracted by their surroundings or mobile devices like students and other drivers can. According to the 2016 Fatal Motor Vehicle Crashes report by NHTSA, human error and poor judgement are the leading causes of traffic accidents and deaths on our roadways. Federal and local governments, insurance companies, the medical community and other groups are pushing for the introduction of autonomous vehicles to reduce this alarming statistic. There is plenty of research to validate that autonomous vehicles and equipment will dramatically improve safety in all applications, which means campuses will be safer if autonomous transportation is deployed.

In conclusion, with parking continuing to be an increasingly difficult (and expensive) problem on college campuses, providing students with an alternate mode of transportation could solve many campus transportation issues while providing other benefits. Bringing autonomous shuttles to college campuses would greatly improve the overall safety and productivity of the students, teachers and staff, and having innovative, eco-friendly and convenient options increases the attractiveness of campus life — an important consideration in the college selection process.

My mom and I always joke that Las Vegas residencies are where pop music careers go to die. They are almost exclusively pop divas that have lost their relevance in the mainstream. Their new albums see diminishing returns, and the residency is an easy steady check for them to bank on. Yet over the past few years, Celine Dion has consistently been proving us wrong.

Dion rose to worldwide prominence in the ’90s. She had been a successful teen star in Canada, releasing French-language albums throughout the ’80s. After gradually learning to speak English, she released her debut English-language album in 1990. Once Dion got her foot in the door, she took command of Adult Contemporary radio with her soaring emotional ballads and never looked back. She has earned diamond certification on two albums, a rare feat.

Dion began her second Las Vegas residency in 2011 at The Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace. She continued to perform there through this past June, completing a total of 427 shows. In that time she released two albums (2013’s “Loved Me Back to Life” and 2016’s “Encore un soir”), went on multiple European tours and won Billboard’s Icon Award.

Most importantly though, Dion lost her husband of 22 years and longtime manager, Rene Angelil, to throat cancer in 2016. Despite the devastating loss, Dion has continued to forge ahead.

Her new album “Courage,” released Nov. 15, is an exploration of this loss and how far she has come in the healing process. It is her first English-language album in six years, and the 12th in her career.

Much like on “Loved Me Back to Life,” “Courage” sees Dion collaborate with several modern forerunners of pop music to update her sounds. Smash hit songwriter Sia penned two tracks on the album and another on the deluxe edition. Sam Smith, Skylar Grey and Lauv also made writing contributions. On the production side, she gets assistance from David Guetta, Stargate, The Stereotypes, DallasK and Greg Kurstin.

Celine Dion finds the perfect balance of catering to current trends and knowing her voice, her audience and her age. Many mature pop stars often feel like they are playing young to connect with the target demographic, and it just comes off kitschy and cringe-worthy. But Dion hits the sweet spot and the level of camp and theatrics built into her brand helps her flourish.

The opening track,  “Flying On My Own,”  really sets the tone for the album. It took me quite by surprise on first listen. It starts out quite mellow, feeling like a typical ballad. But as Dion soars vocally in the pre-chorus, the classic dance break, piano stabs and hand claps come in. As she goes for the hook line a full house EDM drop hits. This song is Pride playlist ready.

For Dion, this song is about coming back into herself after her major loss. She had gone her whole career with Angelil by her side, but now she is quite literally “flying on her own.”

The album is centered around this loss but is not a sad album. It is an album about rebuilding yourself and discovering new parts of yourself late in the game. It is an empowering and hopeful listen.

Sometimes there is an odd sonic clash between the EDM influenced tracks and the more stripped and earnest ballads. Still, Dion never relinquishes the spotlight to the track. She is always front and center with a stunning vocal performance.

The album drags on a little long for the casual fan — it clocks in at 57 minutes, with the deluxe edition reaching an hour and 11 minutes. I would say check out the highlights first — “Flying On My Own,” “Lovers Never Die,” “Imperfections,” “Nobody’s Watching,” “The Chase,” “For The Lover That I Lost” and “Perfect Goodbye.”

Overall, it is immensely impressive to reach a point in your career where you are releasing your 27th album. Celine Dion has managed to stay fresh and stay true to herself over four decades and continues to be one of the most beautiful voices of our times.

I guess the best way to sum up “Zombieland: Double Tap” is that you will probably get what you expect from it. If you have seen the original “Zombieland,” you will likely have just about the same response to this sequel as you had to its predecessor. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing from a creative standpoint, but that’s my evaluation of it. I moderately enjoyed the original and was adequately entertained by the sequel. It got some genuine laughs out of me, and seeing it in theaters probably helped with that.

However, as I’ve thought about it in passing over the last few days, I have started to see some issues with it. Not plot holes or anything that really alters my impression of it, but just areas where it could improve. I found the story to be somewhat predictable, although that didn’t necessarily hinder the movie. At the end of the day, it works.

One thing I can definitely say in praise of it is that it embraces its identity as a sequel in the right ways. The end of the first “Zombieland” didn’t give the impression that the story would continue, so its sequel didn’t really have anything to deliver on. There is a ten-year gap between the two movies, which is addressed naturally. I think where it excels is in how it deals with the iconic aspects of the original. Columbus’ (Jesse Eisenberg) rules and omniscient knowledge of all zombie fighting activities around the country makes a return in just the right way with a few welcome twists and developments. Tallahassee’s (Woody Harrelson) intense “‘Murica” personality is played up a lot. Where the movie really has fun is with the increasingly inventive ways that humans fight the zombies and deal with the post-apocalyptic state of the country.

I will warn that it is definitely harder to enjoy this sequel if you haven’t seen the original. I guess that’s true of all sequels, but I think it’s especially noticable for “Double Tap.” You won’t exactly be lost, but there will be a lot that will be harder to appreciate.

If an all-star cast is a draw for you, I can safely say that this movie delivers. Nobody has a career-defining performance by any means, but they all play their roles well and are very entertaining to watch. To be fair, the characters aren’t really developed much, so the actors are all essentially hitting the same note the whole time. On the upside, they are well cast, so everyone’s performance and chemistry is moderately entertaining.

I’m not going to recommend that you rush out to see this. A movie like “Joker” might be a more fulfilling experience for you. But if “Joker” looks a little too deep or emotionally intense for you, this is a good alternative. Not to throw shade at any of this week’s releases, but it looks like it’s going to be a pretty underwhelming weekend, so I’d recommend “Zombieland: Double Tap” over anything else opening on Friday. Despite the zombie element, it is not even remotely in the horror genre. Unless you’re averse to somewhat gory action, this should be worth your money in terms of entertainment. Just don’t go in with huge expectations, and you should be satisfied.

The cost of purchasing books for classes from the Barnes & Noble bookstore is something that I think every college student has been nearly floored by at least once.

Thankfully, I am at the point in my college career where I am taking only the last few English courses to finish up my English major, so I don’t have to worry about some of the really expensive and, quite frankly, annoying stuff from past years. But I still remember my first trip to the bookstore very well in my freshman year. The math text book I bought was well over $100, and the access key that was packaged with it was nearly half the price of the book itself.

Now, I’m not trying to say that the books at the bookstore are overpriced, because I don’t know enough about the process of how the people involved in the selling of the books come to determine the prices that they do. For all I know, they could be setting prices that are completely fair based on their calculations and research. However, being that I am still a college student who has to buy these books, I will say that I find the prices to be a bit steep when you consider the consumers to which the books are being sold.

Obviously money has to be made from selling these books — significant money — and I can’t say that I don’t at least understand why the prices are so much higher at the bookstore; we essentially get instant access to whatever book it is that we need. We can inspect the book before we buy or rent it if it’s used, check for any damages, see if there are too many notes in it already and most importantly, make sure that all the pages are in it. However, I start to question if these benefits are really worth the price when my friend tells me that he found the same anthology book on Amazon for $5; meanwhile, at the bookstore it’s $42 to rent a used copy, $75 to rent a new one and $100 to buy a new one just to push the point home.

Thankfully, we as students don’t have to rely solely on the bookstore. A large portion of us get our books either online as e-books or shipped to where we live, but the problem with this is of course the wait time. Sometimes a book can take a whole week to arrive, even though the shipment information said it would only take two or three business days. That may not seem all that major, but what happens when you need the book in two days so you can do the assigned reading material before you have to go to class? Obviously it’s not the end of the world, but it’s an inconvenience — one that could have been avoided by a simple trip to the bookstore to get the book immediately.

Another thing that can be very hit or miss is price matching. In the details section of price matching for the Barnes & Noble bookstore, there’s a small bit of fine print at the bottom that contains what I find to be a rather important piece of information.

“Titles listed on Amazon that are not ‘rented by’ or ‘sold by’ Amazon are excluded, as are publisher websites and select local competitors.” Essentially, this narrows the potential number of books that can be price matched to just ones that are sold by Amazon. And often times, the cheaper books are listed on Amazon but not sold by it.

And again, I’m not knowledgeable enough about how such a rule is created. I highly doubt that the people coming up with things like this are doing it without a good reason. And while I would love to have the logic behind it explained to me, currently, it just seems like an unnecessary restriction. I can understand wanting to make as much money as possible off selling these textbooks to students, but I don’t think allowing more options for price matching would lead to a significant loss financially.

The bookstore is a fantastic resource, that much I cannot deny as it has been pivotal for acquiring the books that I need for my classes these past three years. That said, I think it can still improve, and everything I’ve brought up in this article hasn’t been to attack the bookstore. I believe that the relationship between students and the bookstore is acceptable for the most part, there are simply some aspects of the transaction that aren’t desirable, but they can be fixed with some communication and understanding from both sides.