Fans who gave up on Tech football after an embarrassing loss to UNC would be pleasantly surprised by recent events.

The team finished up their season in spectacular fashion. A win between the hedges and a convincing victory in a bowl game helped cap a bounce-back season for the Jackets. Improving their win total by six this season, 2016 will be considered a success.

This season was marked by explosive plays in key situations by special players on the offense, defense and special teams. This theme was very evident in Jackets’ final two games.

Tech sought revenge for last year’s home loss to UGA, and at Sanford, they got just that.

Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate began with scoring back and forth on both sides. After the first half, the two teams stood even at 14 points apiece. Tech stuck to its blueprint early on, delivering big plays on offense from Clinton Lynch and Brad Stewart.

On their two touchdown drives, Tech averaged 21.14 yards per play. However, this game will be remembered for how the Jackets responded to tremendous adversity late in the contest.

Facing a deficit of 13 points with just under 12 minutes remaining, Tech stepped up and delivered in the clutch. The defense forced a punt and a Lance Austin interception on Georgia’s next two offensive possessions. On offense, timely plays by Justin Thomas, Clinton Lynch, Marcus Marshall and Dedrick Mills helped to set up a third-down-and-goal situation at the UGA six-yard line with just 30 seconds remaining.

In the defining moment of this game, Qua Searcy took the pitch from Justin Thomas and was faced with a decision. The play called for a throwback to Thomas in the flat, but the Bulldogs had it covered all the way. Searcy made a gutsy call and chose to take his chances with a small seam in the middle of the field. Airborne at the three-yard line, Searcy ping-ponged his way into the end zone, helping Tech tie up the game. The go-ahead extra point by Harrison Butker and subsequent interception by Lance Austin secured the Jackets second straight win in Athens. Tech fans will not soon forget the 109th edition of this rivalry.

Tech’s win only served to help the team come bowl selection time. The Jackets were matched up with an overachieving Kentucky team fresh off beating Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson and the Louisville Cardinals.

The TaxSlayer Bowl was a significant win for all the players involved, particularly the young and the old. Freshman running back Dedrick Mills proved he is ready to take on a bigger workload going forward. He shined with 169 rushing yards on 31 carries to go with one touchdown.

The veteran players made their impact on the game as well. Senior linebacker P.J. Davis set the tone early on with a scoop-and-score fumble recovery touchdown, putting the Jackets up 7-0. Senior Patrick Gamble also spent a significant portion of his day in the Wildcat’s backfield, recording 7 total tackles, 5 solo tackles, 2 tackles for loss and 2 sacks.

Senior kicker Harrison Butker had a banner day as well, successfully converting four field goals, a single-game personal best for him and a fitting end to his career in white and gold.

Tech moved to 3-0 against SEC opponents on the year, a testament to their ability to compete at a high level against teams from another of the Power Five conferences. As Tech reflects on and celebrates the immense contributions from their senior class this year, it is heartening to know that talented players are well on their way to filling their roles to the best of their abilities.

Not enough can be said about the Tech graduating class, which played a part in such highs as the 2014 Orange Bowl and dealt with the adversity that came with the 2015 3-9 season.

This year, it is particularly difficult given the number of departing players who each played integral roles on the team.

Running backs Marcus Allen, Lynn Griffin, Austin McClellan and Isiah Willis all did their part in keeping the chains moving when called upon. Offensive linemen Freddie Burden and Michael Muns helped clear the way for these playmakers. Linebackers Chase Alford and P.J. Davis and defensive lineman Rod Rook-Chungong, Patrick Gamble and Francis Kallon played important roles on a physical defense. Placekicker Harrison Butker and punter Ryan Rodwell teamed together to deliver clutch field goals and precision punts to optimally flip field position.

The TaxSlayer Bowl also marked the last time Justin Thomas would play for the Jackets. His electric running style and capable arm often combined to mask deficiencies and stun opponents. An undersized passer, his NFL future is uncertain. His Tech legacy is set in stone.

Thus is life in college football. Every four years, a program experiences nearly complete turnover, and Tech is no exception. With stalwarts such as Lynch and Mills proving their worth going forward, not to mention a coaching staff that has provided a steady hand for seasons, there is much to anticipate in the coming era of Tech football.

Over the break, the Jackets men’s basketball team began conference play with the toughest three-game stretch of any team this season. In a span of eight days, they faced three of the top ten teams in the country.

On Dec. 31, they played the North Carolina Tar Heels in Josh Pastner’s first ACC game. By all accounts, the team faced a huge uphill battle in each game. Early season polls had Tech as the second or third worst team in arguably college’s best basketball conference. However, in a very ugly, hard-fought game, the Jackets prevailed 75-63 in a shocker to start the conference slate.

While it was a win, the performance by both teams was less than stellar. While it was a great accomplishment to beat a top ten team in his ACC opener, Pastner still had to prove it was no fluke.

Moving into the new year, Tech faced the Duke Blue Devils in Cameron Indoor Stadium. In a game that saw Grayson Allen return from an “indefinite” suspension of one game following a Duke loss to Virginia Tech, the Jackets found themselves outmatched on both ends of the court. When time expired, the Blue Devils had thoroughly stomped the Jackets in a 110-57 rout.

The key stat in this game was three-point field goal percentage. Tech finished the game with an abysmal 14.3 percent of shots made beyond the arc, while Duke made a prodigious 51.6 percent. In fact, 48 of Duke’s 110 points were scored from three.

Following the tough loss in Durham, the Jackets returned to McCamish to face the surging Louisville Cardinals and their standout Deng Adel.

While the game was much closer than the one against the Blue Devils, there was still a very obvious gap between the two teams as Louisville took a convincing 65-50 win. Key performances from Ben Lammers and freshman standout Josh Okogie cut the deficit from double digits to three points midway through the second half, but the talented Cardinals pulled away.

The struggles so far this season seem to come on both sides of the court, the offensive side more so than the defensive side. In terms of offense, it seems that if freshman guard Josh Okogie or junior guard Tadric Jackson don’t show up to score, Tech will struggle on offense. That is not to say that Tech does not have offense from other sources — they do.

Junior center Ben Lammers has been a shining star of consistency for the Jackets so far this season. He leads the team in points per game, rebounds per game and blocks per game. In addition, he is second on the team in free-throw percentage, which is a humongous feat for a center to achieve.

However, despite his consistency, he still needs to work on his offensive rebounding, and he is not one that the team can rely on to score well over 20 points if they need him to.

That role falls to Okogie and Jackson who have both answered the call in certain games but failed to do so against some of their tougher opponents.

In the Carolina game, Okogie led the team with 26 points, but in the following games against Duke and Louisville he scored 11 and 15 points, respectively. If the Jackets want to win — and win convincingly — he and Jackson should be able to put up at least 35 points together with consistency.

As for defensive struggles, it seems that the whole team needs work. Again, Lammers is the shining star. What he lacks in offensive rebounding skill, he makes up for in defensive rebounding. Additionally, he is currently sitting at fourth in the nation in blocks per game with 3.3, only 0.5 blocks per game away from the top spot. However, it seems that the rest of the team is far behind their opponents when it comes to defense. This was painfully obvious in the Duke game as the Blue Devils drained three-pointer after three-pointer over the heads of almost every Tech player.

While this start may seem dismal and a sign that Tech will continue to stew at the bottom of the ACC, it must be considered that this is Pastner’s first year as head coach. At the ACC’s annual media days, Pastner’s conference colleagues expressed skepticism about the coach’s likelihood of having success in his first year, according to myAJC.com. That Pastner has already notched a conference win with such an experienced roster is a success in and of itself.

The main reason Pastner was brought on to coach was his stellar ability in recruiting players, something Tech basketball has sorely lacked over the past few years. He has already proven his recruiting prowess at Memphis and in the early stages at Tech. A 1-2 record against three national championship contenders puts Pastner right on track.

It will be a few years at least before the Jackets can begin to put themselves in the same sentences as their conference rivals. However, the foundation is being laid with each passing game.

Perhaps a bit of cautious optimism is warranted for Pastner and his Jackets as they look beyond 2016, developing a program that can contend for conference titles.

After a montage of cheerleaders, football players, a surgeon wearing scrubs and a Florida Gators bandanna, the scene shifts to actress Wynn Everett standing in what appears to be the Everglades. “Whatever it is, here, it just means more,” she says.

Thus ends the Southeastern Conference’s latest ad, no doubt one you saw at least once if you watched an SEC football game over the holidays. To many, the SEC represents the gold standard of college football. “SEC! SEC!” chants can be heard while teams expertly dispatch their out-of-conference opponents.

I’m not so aggressively proud when it comes to the ACC. Whether Pitt or Florida State or Boston College wins or loses its next game is of little import to me. But for those who care, the ACC may have finally caught up to its Southern brother.

No, this isn’t a knee-jerk reaction to Clemson beating Alabama in one of the most exciting college football games in recent years. Frankly, I think that game could have been dramatically different save for Alabama running back Bo Scarbrough’s injury.

Rather, this argument is a year in the making, a year that saw SEC teams lose double-digit games against the ACC for the first time ever. That included a 1-4 mark for the SEC in bowl games. Their sole win came against a Louisville team that hadn’t looked right in weeks and ran into LSU’s notoriously stingy defense.

On other fronts, the Vanderbilt squad that beat Georgia and Tennessee (and hung tough with Auburn) was obliterated 41-17 by a decidedly nondescript NC State team. The same Kentucky Wildcats who beat Louisville to end the regular season were routed by our Jackets in Jacksonville.

And the ACC is a conference on the rise. It’s a conference where the Louisville Cardinals are finding their footing, just a victory away from their first 10-win campaign in the Bobby Petrino era. Mark Richt has taken over nicely at Miami, finishing the season with a ranked-versus-ranked win over West Virginia in the Russell Athletic Bowl. And Dabo Swinney has added the first (although almost certainly not last) national title to his resume.

That doesn’t mean that the ACC’s recent success over the SEC is forever. Coaches move, players graduate and programs change. With former Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin taking over Florida Atlantic and former Texas coach Charlie Strong taking over South Florida, recruiting in ACC strongholds just got even tougher. With stars such as Clemson’s Deshaun Watson, Pitt’s James Conner and Tech’s Justin Thomas leaving for the NFL, effective replacement plans are a must across the conference.

This is no funeral dirge for the SEC, and even if it were, me saying so wouldn’t make it true. (If only.) But the fans who proudly break out the “SEC!” chants on fall Saturdays should question themselves: in 2017, does it really mean more?

Asked about the composition of the 2016-17 Tech swimming and diving team, Coach Courtney Hart does not hesitate to respond.

“We’ve really been pushing a culture of, ‘Everybody plays a role’,” Hart said. “Everybody has to be on top of their game, top to bottom. We’re only as good as all of us combined. Everybody has a role, and we all move forward and get better together.”

With the ACC Championships quickly approaching on the horizon, Coach Hart’s group will be expected to do just that.

After a slow start to the season, including a sweep at the hands of rival Georgia, the men’s and women’s teams rode respective two-game winning streaks to close out 2016 and could have added to that tally but for weather that cancelled a meet held at Virginia Tech. With a young corps of swimmers and the training of Hart, an Olympic Gold Medalist and former UGA standout, the Jackets may return to their winning ways in the high-stakes conference tournament.

That tournament comes with an extra twist this season: thanks to the ACC’s opposition to the North Carolina legislature’s controversial HB2, which bans transgender individuals from using the bathrooms of their choice, the Swimming and Diving Championships will be held at McAuley Aquatic Center on Tech campus.

Views on this development vary in the team. Coach Hart describes it as a blessing and a curse.

“It’s our pool; it’s our starting blocks; it’s our flip-turns. We do it every day. But at the same time, sometimes when you don’t travel, you don’t get that sense of, ‘You’re going away.’ So we do go to a hotel. We do try to make it a championship environment, but it’s just a little different when you travel. The pros definitely outweigh the cons.”

To sophomore Iris Wang, competing in Atlanta is a positive.

“I think it’s easier because you’re used to the pool, … the temperature, the air conditioning, everything. And you don’t need to take an eight-hour drive to Greensboro. It’s like a home game. The people you know ­— your classmates, your friends, your old coaches and family — they can come.”

Wang is no stranger to traveling long distances to pursue her dream. Competing with a relay group that set China team records at the 2012 London Olympics, Wang left her home in Xiamen to attend Tech.

The results have been spectacular. The dynamo sophomore was named an All-Academic ACC pick last season and already holds six school records, courtesy of ramblinwreck.com. That has not been lost on her fellow Olympian coach.

“I think freshman year for anybody can be a big transition year. She [came] from China. I think she’s settled in. She knows what it means to be at Georgia Tech; she has the academics down, so it’s a little bit easier to relax and focus on getting better in the pool, too,” Hart said.

Like Wang, the rest of Tech’s swim and dive team has had to balance academics with the increasing demands of their competition season.

“We have a program called Excel@Tech through the athletics department, so all of our freshmen are required to meet with them and make sure they’re staying on top of things. And making sure they use the resources, not just within the Athletic Association but on campus,” Hart said.

Flying under the radar for much of the season, Tech swimming and diving nears the postseason in solid form. They round out the regular season with contests against Alabama, Florida and the Savannah College of Art & Design, the latter two of which serve as the team’s Senior Day.

Swimming aside, a few members of the team made national news after the cancelled Virginia Tech meet by filming a viral video. The video shows Tech swimmers Aidan Pastel, Matt Casillas, Colt Williamson and Brad Oberg mimicking a relay race in the snow. The video has been replayed more than 80,000 times and shared by media outlets from BuzzFeed to SportsCenter, courtesy of ramblinwreck.com.

The video also served as a reminder of Tech swimming’s youth. With the exception of Orberg, a junior, all participants in the video are freshmen and sophomores. Even though 13 seniors are scheduled to graduate at the conclusion of this season, there is more than enough young talent for Hart to mold into a consistent conference force.

If Tech’s swimming and diving team has a positive showing at the ACC Championships, the narrative will be a fascinating one indeed. One Olympian passing the torch to another, a young group better known for their viral videos than their times, a program historically not even the best in its own state suddenly fighting for national relevance. If there is any combination of coaches and athletes that can bring about that result, this may well be the one.

Tech fans will not have to go far to watch the conference championships. If the Jackets advance to nationals in Indianapolis, it will be well worth it.

The second Monday of the new semester will see classrooms devoid of students as Tech ceases operations in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Though most students will use this as an opportunity to sleep in and put off homework for an extra day, some will use it as the kickoff to a week full of programs and service honoring one of Atlanta’s most prominent historical figures.

While MLK Day is held on the third Monday of every year, the events have already begun. On Jan. 11, Tech hosted attorney and CNN political analyst Bakari Sellers for a lecture on Dr. King’s legacy and the current state of America’s civil rights movement.

Along with being named in Time Magazine’s “40 Under 40” multiple times, Sellers has served in the South Carolina’s legislature since age 22, making him the youngest elected official in the country at the time. He also played a role in President Obama’s South Carolina steering committee during the 2008 election. His lecture dealt with, in his words, “how far have we come, and where do we go from here.”

Jan. 12 saw the Student Center ballroom play host to a celebration dubbed “Coming Together to Fulfill the Dream,” which included a candle-lighting ceremony. From Jan. 12–15, Tech is sponsoring two more events: their Focus Program and a Washington, D.C., civil rights tour. The Focus Program, held in the Tech Hotel and Conference Center, is a program designed to raise awareness of Tech’s graduate programs among underrepresented populations. The D.C. tour is a three-day event in which students and faculty will visit important civil rights sites in the nation’s capital.

On Saturday, Jan. 14, Georgia’s own Alonzo King will be bringing the LINES Ballet dancers to the Ferst Center at 8 p.m. for a show “that draw[s] on a diverse set of deeply rooted cultural traditions, imbuing classical ballet with new expressive potential,” per the Institute Diversity website.

The actual holiday itself, Jan. 16, presents students with the opportunity to partner with groups around Atlanta for various service projects. Information on how to get involved can be found at diversity.gatech.edu.

The Georgia Tech Cable Network will be screening a series of documentaries focused on civil rights issues available for viewing throughout the month.

Wednesday night, Jan. 18, will give students the opportunity to participate in an open discussion about race relations in American society. From 8–10 p.m., the Christian Campus Fellowship will be holding an event called “Spectrum” in which anyone is free to contribute to a dialogue on diversity in the community and ways to bridge cultural divides.

To cap the events off, Tech student Danielle Mathis will be presenting her original musical production “What’s Going On” in the Ferst Center. The production, focused on social justice issues faced by today’s society, will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Jan 25. Admission is free and open to
the public.

The concept of virtual reality has been around for longer than one might think. Since the origin of realistic paintings and other art forms, innovators have been attempting to create an experience that allows the consumer to feel like they are a part of a scene when they physically cannot be. In fact, art and storytelling are at the heart of modern virtual reality (VR) technology.

Jonathan White, fourth-year CM, is working right at this intersection of art and technology. He became interested in virtual reality when he realized that this area of the market in particular is growing exponentially and that if he was a part of it, he would get the chance to make an impact.

“No one knows where it is going to go right now, so everyone is a pioneer,” White said. “The reason I’ve gone into VR is that it’s a huge opportunity, and with the trends that we see in the market, people have the chance to do more expressive things.”

Currently, many large companies are working to develop virtual reality technology. Some are working on what’s called Native Virtual Reality, which encompasses gaming.

In addition, corporations like Mozilla are working to create a space where people will be able to browse the Internet virtually. Instead of scrolling through pictures of an exotic place, people will soon be able to be there virtually and walk around, experiencing everything first hand.

“The other day, I flew over Hong Kong with Google Earth View. I was able to stand on the streets of Hong Kong in VR, and I was able to walk around the city,” White said. “People are creating entire worlds within VR.”

White began blogging about his experiences with front end development and design and accumulated a million views and thousands of followers in a little over two months. He thinks this is because he is an honest writer, although it is obvious that in terms of VR, he knows his stuff.

“Before this, I wasn’t very public about what I did. One of the reasons why I started writing is because I realized one of the things I was most afraid of was people judging my work. I started writing my thoughts on design, my thoughts on how do you move your career forward.”

White found that people were receptive to his open discussion of his work, and he quickly began working with companies such as Mozilla, Chrome VR and Widescreen VR.

In addition to his work outside of class, White had internships with Airbnb and Yahoo, even helping them to visualize the experience that they are giving to their customers.

White is interested in the possibilities that VR will provide in the near future. In addition to experiencing other geographical locations, it has the potential to help users perform medical procedures, visualize math problems in 3D, work in the office from home and view media content or art.

However, many have strong reservations about virtual reality. Is it making people too tied to technology? Is it dehumanizing and preventing people from having true human interactions?

In fact, White feels that VR will allow people to be more expressive and lift some of the limitations that prevent some from interacting with others.

“There are opportunities for people to become more human. What humans should be able to do is be expressive. What VR does is lift some of the physical limitations,” White said. “It is no more isolating than Skype, because now all of a sudden you can be in the same room as someone who is in China, and you can form tribes of people that you resonate with within digital environments.”

White’s degree in Computational Media is allowing him to explore both the liberal arts and the technology that compose his interests in design and VR.

“I think that the most important thing that CM can teach a person is how to tell stories,” White said. “The one thing that humans are consistently fascinated with isn’t marketing campaigns or new shiny things. It’s stories. What CM does is teach you how to tell a story through a product, a film or writing.”

Hopefully,  people around the world will see more stories told, science explored and art created with Virtual Reality in the next few years.

For the Georgia Tech chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), 2016 was a fruitful year. Not only was the organization given four national awards at the national conference, but they were also selected to host the SWE Region D Conference, which will take place in March.

SWE currently has approximately 780 paid official members in the Georgia Tech chapter this year, about 200 active members and is currently ranked as the second-largest section nationwide. The organization’s mission is to give female engineering students a unique place and voice within the engineering industry and is centered on a passion for members’ success in engineering and technology specialties.

As Vice President of Administration, Hannah Chen, third-year IE, arranged the logistics for the 28 women who attended the most recent SWE national conference in Philadelphia in 2016. Her duties included booking travel and flight tickets, transportation, selecting the 28 SWE members who attended the conference and planning three professional pre-conferences sessions.

“We are so honored to be able to win four national awards at the national conference this year,” Chen said. “We usually don’t win any awards, period. There are a lot of other competitive sections out there, but we were lucky and grateful to win four this year. I think it has a lot to do with our membership, just how much our members are contributing to our SWE section.”

The three professional pre-conference sessions included a public speaking and networking event with Alpha Kappa Psi, a “How to Use LinkedIn the Smart Way” event — in which SWE brought in two representatives from the Center for Career Discovery and Development (C2D2) — and finally how to make the most out of the national conference, organized
by Chen.

This past summer, the Awards Chair Application committee was hard at work, applying for different awards for different committees online. This year, SWE put in the extra effort to research the rubric and judging criteria, narrow the categories down and communicate with the Executive Board of Tech’s SWE who in turn provided statistics about the events in the past year.

“Another thing SWE has been doing is feedback surveys so that we’re able to capture what people want to see more,” Chen said. “In terms of applying to awards, this is very helpful because if you have all this data, it can really help improve the application. What really made us stand out as a section was how much information we had, and we also became really serious about applying, and that helped us win four awards.”

The four categories that Georgia Tech SWE won at the past conference were Membership Recruitment, Outreach, Professional Development and Communications. The next awards ceremony will be held at the upcoming Region D Conference at Tech.

Hosting the Region D conference at Tech is an honor in itself, and making the bid was no easy feat. Alissa Alberico, a fourth-year AE and current conference committee chair, presented a bid at the Nashville, Tenn., National SWE Conference in
October 2015.

“I was responsible for leading the team that created the initial bid,” Alberico said. “I helped come up with potential costs, a potential schedule and reasons why Tech is the perfect place to hold our regional conference. One of the major points for our bid was Georgia Tech’s presence in the world of engineering. Whether it’s GTRI, our amazing students or our ground-breaking faculty, Tech has all of the resources an organization like SWE could need.”

Starting in October 2015, SWE began planning the conference that would be held at Tech in March 2017.

“Some of our biggest challenges are working with the sponsors and attendees to create the best and final regional conference that SWE will be hosting,” Alberico said. “I am most excited for the career fair we will be having and our ‘Celebrate SWE’ event.”

The conferences following the Region D Conference at Tech will no longer be hosted by universities and will instead be hosted by the national SWE at particular locations around the United States.

The Region D conference at Tech is generously funded by corporate sponsors including Baker Hughes, International Paper, Solvay, Caterpillar, Chevron, General Motors and Eaton, among others.

The conference will occur from Thursday, March 9, to Saturday, March 11, at the Georgia Aquarium. The conference planning committee is currently busy planning guest speakers, conference sessions and food catering as well as managing the other minute but important details.

“We expect a couple hundred attendees from the southwest region, and this includes professional and collegiate,” Chen said.

Admission to the conference is $95 for a paid SWE member. Any Tech student is allowed to attend, but it is less expensive if one is attending as a SWE member. Georgia Tech SWE plans on bringing about 50 people, which does not include volunteers.

Along with the Region D Conference, Georgia Tech SWE is also currently preparing for their recruitment week, commonly known as “SWEek.” During SWEek, which will occur the week of Jan. 17, SWE hosts a social activity every day to allow potential new members and current SWE members to get to know each other.

“All the networking and relationships you make at SWE can really lead a long way,” Chen said. “You never know where the connections you make will take you. I remember my freshman year, I jumped on a plane to go to conference, and two years later, I’m the one who is helping to plan it.”

Since the Wachoski sisters’ series released in 2015, Sense8 fans have had to savor a mere twelve episodes. The sci-fi drama follows eight strangers from across the world who experience a mental and emotional link. Because the show is filmed in eight different countries, the long-awaited second season will not be released until May 2017. As an interlude between the two seasons, the “Happy F*cking New Year” special began streaming on Dec. 23.

The special opens with one sensate, Kala (Tina Desai, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”) swimming in the ocean by herself, with all the sensates, and with just Wolfgang (Max Riemelt, “The Wave”), her fellow sensate who is also her love interest. The soaring music (“Feeling Good,” Avicii) paired with the sharing of an exhilarating experience raised hopes for the rest of the special.

Unfortunately, that magic was not maintained throughout the two hours. While some scenes sparkled with common humanity and hit on powerful themes, the special overall dragged along and did not drive the plot of the series forward significantly. Though it is understandable to spend time catching up on each main character, especially with a long time since the release of the first season, watching the first hour felt like waiting for something to happen.

Sense8 has always relied more on an intriguing premise and beautifully executed production than on a clear, logical plot. While this approach is not atypical, especially for the genre, the lack of development of the antagonist has made it difficult to root for the sensates as a group. Their individual stories are well established and most have personal nemeses, but the collective evil that wants to exterminate them has been a vague concept to rally against. In the special, the main face of this amorphous evil, Whispers (Terrence Mann, “All My Children”) reveals that there are more people looking for the sensates.

While the villainous Whispers storyline improved as he is now an immediate danger to the captured Will, other personal storylines suffer in the special. Riley (Tuppence Middleton, “The Imitation Game”) loses her plot entirely to become Will’s caretaker. Though Will does need help for both his and the sensate cluster’s safety, this change does not mean the audience no longer cares about Riley’s complicated life as a DJ and relationship with her father.

Another sensate maintains his storyline but changes face. Recast from season 1, Capheus is now played by Toby Onwumere (“The Book of Dallas”) instead of Aml Ameen (“The Maze Runner”). The heavy handed dialogue acknowledging this change was an unwelcome bump against the fourth wall. While the special did not give Onwumere much material to work with, so far he seems to lack the same warmth that Ameen gave the performance.

The special succeeds, as this series always does, when it touches on larger issues and the essential commonalities of humanity. The dialogue was more explicit than it has ever been at connecting the show’s sci-fi premise to 21st century reality. As Kala explains to her new husband Rajan (Purab Kohli, “Rock On!!”), she struggles to deal with privilege and happiness when others are suffering. Kala hits on the difficulty of justifying the terrible realities of others less fortunate when one lives a comparatively excellent life.

Between Lito’s mother (Dolores Heredia, “Get the Gringo”) surprisingly accepting him with open arms after he has been outed, and the San Francisco queer community hiding Nomi (Jamie Clayton, “Hung”) and Amanita (Freema Agyeman, “Doctor Who”), the Sense8 special reminds of the power of support from family and friends at times when institutions and public opinion threaten.

Other memorable scenes include the cluster celebrating their common birthday in a crescendo of ecstasy across continents. Sun (Doona Bae, “Cloud Atlas”) shines in her scenes, especially when she shares her ideas about sex with a nervous Kala.

While Sense8 delivered its usual excellent fight scenes and emotional punches, the special was more of a nicely wrapped, but overly long, present to the fans than a substantive step towards a second season. Tided over until May, viewers can only hope that Sense8 will return to the stronger ground of its first season.

At just 22, Simbi Ajikawo, better known as Little Simz, has the feel of a seasoned veteran.

She is a true rapper’s rapper, with flow and skilled lyricism that would quickly shut down any old-head’s claim that hip-hop is dead. She has even caught a cosign from two of TDE’s finest, Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q. Her mixtape premiered on Jay Z’s blog, and she has opened for Lauryn Hill on tour.

What does someone in her early 20s do when she has seen fame and fortune intimately? Simz’s newest, “Stillness in Wonderland,” offers a view into her experiences and an answer to that question. With a tight total runtime of 44 minutes and 15 tracks, three of which are minute-long interludes, there is little fluff.

Throughout the project, the mood, tone and theme are consistent, though somewhat vague. The vagueness was probably an intentional move on her part since it does create a sense of universality.

The album touches on relationships, fame and loss of trust. Collectively, these concepts have made Simz quite jaded as the album goes along, loosely incorporating the “Alice in Wonderland” narrative.

However, the overarching storyline falls flat for the most part, resulting in just a couple references. The motif of the “White Rabbit” and interludes spoken by Cheshire feel like an oddly uncreative decision. These references stick out considering the strength of other aspects of the album.

With a consistent production and lyrical style, the project is cohesive in a way few rap albums are, especially in the modern era. The focus is even more impressive since Simz is incredibly prolific: “Stillness in Wonderland” is her twelfth project.

The features on the album also provide variety to Simz’s dizzying flow. SiR’s smooth jazzy flow fits perfectly into the dreamy vibe in “One In Rotation.” The rising star Bibi Bourelly’s braggadocious singing on “Bad To The Bone” helps the track create a more aggressive sound.

“Shotgun” shines as the most upbeat track of the project with a highly welcome feature from The Internet’s Syd.

On another standout, “Picture Perfect,” Simz takes on a somewhat malicious personality. She acts as a guide through Wonderland, pointing out that it has its flaws and more importantly that it is not without cost.

Simz touches on creating a legacy in “One in Rotation,” while in “King of Hearts” she raps that “old rappers need to stop talking about legacy.” This contradiction exemplifies the internal struggle that runs through the album. One of the greatest qualities of the album is that Simz expresses conflicting sentiments, yet she makes it sound genuine and even
elicits empathy.

In the closing track, “No More Wonderland,” Simz is entirely sick of the fantasy world she has been inhabiting. Never leaning towards any specific topic, she allows “Stillness in Wonderland” to represent that which is false or masked, from the lifestyle that comes with fame to friends who show up only after success.

With this realization, she does not hesitate to go back into the real world. In the end, it is the only choice she has: as she rapped in an earlier track, “Picture perfect ain’t picture perfect.”

With the atmosphere a bit uneasy post-election, more-so than after most elections we’ve had in the past, International Ambassadors at Georgia Tech (GTIA) hosted the 2016 Election and Diversity Discussion Forum on Thursday, November 17. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Tia Jackson-Truitt, the Assistant Director of the Center of Engineering Education and Diversity (CEED), and called together various departments on campus to participate in a discussion where students and administrative representatives could express their concerns, discuss how Tech should move forward, and remind the community of Tech’s core values.

Perhaps the most important message to cross the forum was the obvious yet necessary reminder that Tech’s campus values have not changed. The racist, homophobic, sexist and xenophobic comments that have been thrown across the political spectrum, prompting people to feel empowered to act on their hatred, do not give anyone in the Tech community the permission to act the same way and compromise Tech’s core values. Bigotry, discrimination, and hateful rhetoric have and never will be tolerated on Tech’s campus, and doing so will result in disciplinary action or criminal charges.

The Technique spoke with Maithili Appalwar, third-year IE and Vice President of Outreach of GTIA for more insight into the purpose of the 2016 Election and Diversity Discussion Forum. “Post-elections, international students were feeling a lot of uncertainty on campus about their rights as minorities, visa and sponsorship statuses and their place on campus given the current rhetoric. We just wanted to create a place where they could vent,” said Appalwar. “Our events tried to target international and minority students but were open to anyone because we wanted to encourage healthy dialogue between diverse people on campus. I don’t think we anticipated [holding this event]. I’ve always wanted to hold some kind of event to promote diversity on campus, but I never imagined that the rhetoric around the country would be so bad after the election that we’d have to do it on a emergency level. I’m thankful for the support that we received from different administration departments, especially OIE and CEED.”

With regards to how Tech intends to tackle the issue of mollifying students’ worries concerning their rights, a variety of resources are available to allow students to voice their concerns. “The presence of administrative representatives from various departments at our events is a pretty good start and shows their willingness to understand our concerns and guide us to the right resources if they exist or help us create new ones if they don’t,” said Appalwar. “ We had people from the Office of International Education (OIE), CEED, Dean of Students, Office of Minority Educational Development, Office of Hispanic Initiatives (OHI), and Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion (CSDI), Undergraduate Admissions and New Students and Sophomore Programs, which was an amazing turnout given their busy schedules. President Peterson’s heartfelt message during International Education Week is also immensely supportive. That being said, I would have liked if there was an institute wide email that just reminded students of our values and ideals as a Yellow Jacket Family.”

In addition, educating the student body on the consequences of potential new policies relieve some uncertainty. “It would be nice if OIE could explain to international students what the power of the government really is with regard to previously issued visa statuses – none of us can predict the President-Elect’s policies, but it would be great if we understood what effect potential policies could have on us. It would just help in reducing the uncertainty for international and minority students. Since uncertainty often breeds fear, I think this would have been a great step.”

The discussion affirmed Tech’s shared core values and reminded the community that regardless of our political views, hateful action and rhetoric will never be tolerated.