A letter to the Class of 2030: nothing here is embarrassing

Washington Square News opens Welcome Home, its annual Under the Arch magazine for incoming first-years, with a letter from the editor-in-chief. Its pitch is that New York’s greatest gift to a student is a culture of shamelessness. Jaywalkers keep jaywalking, drivers keep honking, and even a mayor on a bicycle is old news within the hour.

The editor, a senior, says she used that freedom twice over: to run for the top job at the paper, and to recover after the awkward moments. The letter acknowledges a harder backdrop for the new class, from federal changes to higher-education policy to the spread of artificial intelligence on campuses, and answers with advice to try things: join a club, take the fascinating class that fills no requirement, do bizarre things responsibly.

The package that follows covers a film made inside the NYU community, a global enrolment explainer, guides to the city’s art and sports scenes, and the two personal essays that open this chapter. One photograph from the package shows friends watching the Manhattan skyline from a Brooklyn lawn, which is this issue’s thesis in one picture.