DISCLAIMER: The Mount Holyoke News does not advocate the use of alcohol or similar substances for coping with stress and anxiety. Instead, drink a lot of water, eat dark leafy greens, go for a run, shower regularly, use your free counseling sessions, and make similarly healthy choices. Don’t forget: Everything in moderation… Drink responsibly.

Traveling to somewhere new can be scary even at the best of times. And of course that is only compounded if you hear reports of said place being “dangerous.” But how do you assess a place for danger? And once you have, how can you reduce your risk of being vulnerable? Well, here are five handy hints and tips!

Mount Holyoke College is renowned for its culturally diverse student body and globally integrated community. Relevant statistics have already been made very familiar to us: 20% of the students are international students and 28% of domestic students identify themselves as African American, Asian American, Latina, Native American, or multiracial. However, do the students take the college’s outstanding dedication to diversity as an opportunity to perceive other cultures?

A mother returns to Mount Holyoke as a Frances Perkins student after having been away for 23 years.

As the fall semester is winding down, seniors are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel—or perhaps for some, the tunnel is narrowing. With the state of the American economy and high unemployment rates, many graduating seniors are feeling the pressure of finding jobs and the dread of being released into “the real world.” But on Monday, Nov. 15, four Mount Holyoke alumnae spoke of their experiences during an Alumnae Panel for Environmental Studies majors about the transition from college to the career world.

The American Association of University Women, as it comes close to its 129th year of service, has named its 2010-11 Student Advisory Council. Mount Holyoke’s Chiedza Mufunde ’12 has been named as one of ten college students from across the United States to the Council. The MH News caught her in between classes this week to talk about her selection.

This week, Sarah and Allie, Co-Managing Web Editors for The MHNews, each lost their OneCards and keys…multiple times. Maybe it was rushing to and from newspaper meetings, or maybe it was just an ordinary bout of forgetfulness. Either way, they each learned something about lost valuables and the campus community.

This week, The MHNews talks to Haeinn Woo ’11, whose mission is to raise funds for a school for underprivileged children in Petionville, Haiti.

My first experience with the Annual Chrysanthemum Show at Smith College was when I was a freshman in high school. I was going college-tripping with my best friend and her older brother who would be graduating soon. Needless to say, he was not looking at Smith, but his mother insisted we stop to visit what she pronounced “mum heaven.” My friend’s mother had a special affinity for mums and for autumn in particular, and their house was perpetually threatening to burst with rust and pumpkin toned petals. I don’t remember much of this first visit to the Chrysanthemum Show; puberty had rather diverted my gaze from nature’s simple pleasures to Hollister’s new line of cologne imbued tees. However, this fall, in my senior year at Smith’s rival college, I found myself again at the Botanical Gardens, looking at mums.

Food for Thought Books in Amherst is, in the words of community members, a “staple” and a “landmark.” It is a space beloved not only for its unique collective co-operative business model (one of only a few that exist in the country), but also for the educational events it hosts, which allow the community to physically share the space with the collective owners. It is, as of this fall, also a space at risk of succumbing to the powerful hand of the economy.