After four years of writing for Pipe Dream, and after 46 columns discussing issues from cheese to feminism, my 47th article was my final, goodbye column.

“On the first day of my senior year at Binghamton University, I navigated my way through the infamously confusing Engineering Building to find myself a seat in my classroom.

My class began at 1:10 p.m., But by 1:25 p.m., my classmates and I were still anxiously awaiting the arrival of our professor.

When he didn’t show, I was dismayed. What a poor start to the beginning of the end of my college career.

Was this how my last year at BU would go? Would I have to be taught by a lackadaisical professor who missed the first day of class? Or was this the fault of the beloved BU Registrar? Regardless of the circumstances, I was disappointed.

The next class, I arrived eager to see what kind of professor would be teaching me for the next few months. My professor stood calmly in front of our classroom. “I apologize for missing class yesterday,” he announced. “My wife gave birth.””

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The choosing of a commencement speaker for a college graduation is a big decision, so when Brandeis University students broke out in protest once the speaker was announced, and then again once that same speaker’s invitation was revoked, I decided to write an article discussing the issues that gave rise to the protests.

“Yet early this April, Brandeis rescinded its invitation to have Ayaan Hirsi Ali speak at commencement.

Ali is a politician, writer and women’s rights activist. As a Muslim-born woman who went through genital mutilation in her home country of Somalia, Ali speaks out loudly against the relationship between conservative Islam and abuse toward women. The university originally confirmed Ali as one of the 2014 commencement speakers until a petition, which argued for the withdrawal of Ali as a speaker, circulated the campus and gained over 7,000 signatures. The president of Brandeis University, Frederick Lawrence, announced on April 8 that Ali would no longer be speaking at commencement.

After its initial decision to have Ali as a speaker, Brandeis faced nothing but criticism. Lawrence was condemned for offering Ali a microphone to purport her anti-Islamic values before a large and diverse audience, and he was then later condemned for taking that very power away from her.”

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In one of my favorite pieces published in Pipe Dream, I wrote about the difficulty in balancing success with happiness, and what success means for the individual.

“But why does everything we do have to be for the sake of getting a job? Can we not learn for the pure love of learning anymore? Have we become so blindsided by corporate America that studying the works of Shakespeare, Hemingway and Twain are no longer important? And have we become so caught up in the need for wealth and empowerment that those who have a passion for history should change their area of study because that track will not land them a job behind a large desk in a private office overlooking Manhattan?

Today, success is consistently defined by money, power and where we stand in the socioeconomic hierarchy that charts America.

But what if we defined success by our happiness? What if instead of basing our human contribution to this world on the number of zeros on our paycheck, we made sure we felt happy, fulfilled and proud at the end of each and every workday?”

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On September 16 2013, a shooting took place at the Washington Navy Yard, and just three days later, another shooting took place on a basketball court in Chicago, leaving a three-year-old boy in critical condition. Admittedly, I only learned about these shootings a few days after they took place. My article following these shootings sought to discuss and question Americans’ reactions.

“I am ashamed that I only learned about the Chicago shooting an entire day after it had happened, and I am worried that our nation does not appear to be as alarmed or distraught by the violence.

Have Americans become so accustomed to mass shootings in our country that they are just considered routine? Does the fact that an innocent 3-year-old was severely injured from gun violence not seem as disheartening as it did nine months ago? And as Cenk Uygur, a Turkish-American political commentator, tweeted, “One day someone’s going to shoot 12 people & people aren’t even going to notice because it’s so common. Is today that day?”

I hope not. And the majority of the American people hope not as well.

It is clear that something needs to change and that stricter gun control is the change we need so that that day never comes.”

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After Boston and every other U.S. city was shook by the bombings that took place during the Boston Marathon in April 2013, a newfound hatred toward Muslims was ignited. In my column in Pipe Dream a few weeks after the bombings, I wrote about the unwarranted prejudice for a group of people that stems from events like these.

“Our enemies are not one group of people who practice one religion from one country; our enemies are the individuals that choose to hurt us.

In the wake of the Boston bombings, immigration reform has been under much scrutiny. Supporters of the Gang of Eight’s plan, which is the proposed bill to strictly reform immigration as well as identify the 11 million foreigners living in the U.S., were even more adamant on securing our nation’s borders.

But unfortunately, no one piece of legislation is going to stop the violence, because there is not just one identifiable enemy.

As much of a tragedy as it is that three lives were lost and more than 250 were injured from the Boston bombings, it is also a tragedy that we Americans are still so closed-minded in the face of adversity.”

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