Opinion

Early in the morning of Oct. 27, an anonymous caller alerted Santa Cruz High School officials that an active shooter was on campus. School officials immediately called 911, initiating a massive law enforcement response of hundreds of officers.  At the same time, the school went into lockdown. Law enforcement rushed onto school grounds, searching the […]

Group quizzes, group tests, group essays, group projects, group labs and group performances — the list of collaborative assignments goes on and on. Almost every student has shared the experience of having to participate in group work where work becomes unevenly distributed, with some students essentially lifting heavy weights while others barely offer to pick […]

In recent years, standardized testing has played an increasingly smaller role in college admissions decisions.  Many schools first went widely test-optional in 2021 to accommodate for the inconvenience of testing during the pandemic, and many colleges have kept tests optional for the coming years. For the 2022-23 admissions cycle, only two out of the nation’s […]

As the college admissions process becomes increasingly competitive, students have turned to extravagant activities to distinguish themselves as stellar students, going above and beyond what an average high school student would do.   Among the ways perceived of gaining an advantage is to do research of various kinds in labs and other academic environments. And while […]

Rishi Sunak wasn’t really supposed to become the U.K.’s next prime minister.  After Boris Johnson messily resigned from the position on July 7 over a growing list of ethics scandals, former Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was next in line from the Conservative Party to take charge of the land across the pond.  Funnily, Truss defeated […]

Student debt. A two-word phrase that inevitably pops up whenever college is mentioned, especially as former students often spend decades paying it off. This issue has seen even more limelight lately with Biden’s recently introduced student loan forgiveness plan, an ambitious piece of legislation that aims to fix this problem.  The plan offers loan forgiveness […]

Disclaimer: This is attributed to our personal preferences, reader discretion is advised. Think of the iconic images from Friday nights in the fall — a time when students across the country gather by the hundreds or thousands on stadium bleachers to support and cheer on their football team. School spirit is supposed to be vibrant, […]

In June, three former fraternity brothers were sentenced to 14-28 days in jail, two to three years’ probation, and a further 28 days of house arrest for the hazing death of a Bowling Green State University student in Ohio. That same month, three other students at Michigan State were charged with one felony and three […]

Seniors in AP English Literature and college-prep English 12 this year had sporadic college essay workshops and assignments throughout September, ranging from taking notes on sample essays to writing personal statement drafts for homework. However, AP English Language students haven’t had class time or homework dedicated to the college application process at all. One main […]

Editor’s Note: Zeyneb Kaya is a junior, and she wrote this piece as a guest columnist for The Falcon. Climate change. The pandemic. Inflation. The current world faces countless issues. Yet, almost unheard of is the threat upon what is perhaps the most distinguishably human quality central to every part of our lives: language. Languages […]