7-Opinion

A

s a freshman attending my second 
semester of classes, I came across 
one phrase in all of my courses: 

office hours. From what I gathered, it was 
a valuable resource for students looking to 
interact with professors and other teaching 
staff. It provided a smaller and more 
intimate setting for students to clear doubts 
and build professional relationships. Best 
of all, attendance was optional! Little did 
I know that few courses would actually be 
treating their office hours as a mandatory 
extension of the class. 

To be clear, I’m not referring to scenarios 

where a few students regularly attend 
office hours to cope with challenging 
material. That is the purpose of office 
hours, and I’m in no way advocating for 
that to end. After all, we’re here to explore 
new topics, not to coast along on existing 
knowledge. I’ve had many instances where 
office hours have helped me further my 
understanding in a class. 

Office hours are a beneficial resource. 

Then why should they ever be an issue? 

For starters, office hours don’t affect 

the credit hours of the course. We aren’t 
supposed to account for office hours 
while planning out a course schedule for 
a semester. Consequently, office hours 
often clash with other items on a person’s 
timetable. Even if they don’t overlap 
with other meetings, students — some 
studying remotely from different time 
zones, like myself — can’t attend some 
time slots. When you factor in other time 

commitments like clubs, the available 
time slots shrink even further. The issue 
becomes worse with some smaller courses 
since the instructors are only available at 
rather specific times. Hence, office hours 
aren’t always accessible for some. This 
deprives many students of a chance to 
attend them, especially in courses with a 
small staff.

In normal circumstances, this wouldn’t 

be an issue. However, when success in 
a class depends on attending them, this 
creates a performance divide. These are 
cases where the majority of students are 
attending office hours regularly and I can 
personally attest to being in such classes. 
While the overall material was enjoyable, 
it was highly draining to have to attend yet 
another meeting.

Why does this happen? In my 

experience, 
there 
was 
a 
disparity 

between what we covered in class and 
our assignments. One might be inclined 
to interject here by saying that’s part of 
the challenge of college. However, when 
assignments are representative of the 
lectures, instructors wouldn’t cover any 
new material in office hours. Instead, 
they would prefer pointing you in the 
right direction with subtle hints. With the 
disparity, it seemed like instructors were 
content deferring instruction to office 
hours rather than adjusting the course to 
cover the requisite material for homework. 
Other instances included compensating 
for poor pacing in online lectures during 

office hours. Either way, it blurred the 
“optional” element, instead turning them 
into supplemental lectures of sorts.

The frustrating part was the impact of 

this on students. The workload between 
weeks didn’t necessarily depend on the 
underlying material but on whether I 
attended office hours. I saw some peers 
drop the course because they couldn’t 
attend the extra meetings — the workload 
was overwhelming them. 

Here’s the thing; it doesn’t have to be like 

this. I saw many approaches to this issue 
that worked much better. A few courses 
that were offered asynchronously decided 

to hold office hours during the slated lecture 
times, thereby ensuring that everyone 
would have access to them, if necessary. 
Another course opted to carve some time in 
the lecture for a makeshift discussion to deal 
with some applications of the theory. Many 
courses avoided the problem altogether 
by basing assignments purely on material 
covered in lectures instead of delegating 
the necessary instructions to office hours. 
Computer science courses, specifically, 
offered a queue-based office hours platform 
that I felt was ideal for courses with a larger 
staff size. The new remote format offers 
many unorthodox solutions; it’s time for 

instructors to capitalize on them.

The pandemic has definitely made life 

harder for students: We don’t need to be 
actively impeded by the course structure. 
It’s time for instructors that turn office 
hours into another lecture to stop saying 
that “we’re all in this together in these 
unprecedented circumstances.” I’d much 
rather infer that they care about us from 
the structure of the course, instead of a 
token acknowledgment that serves as a 
cover to place more work on us.

I

t all started in a car. I couldn’t tell you 
how old I was or where we were going, 
but I remember distinctly the first time I 

appreciated The Beatles the way I do now. My 
dad, now owner of a music publishing company 
based in Nashville, Tenn., has ingrained a 
comprehensive music education in me and my 
siblings — beginning with my bedtime lullaby, 
“My Girl” by The Temptations. In that car, on 
that day, I realized something that I will now 
gladly argue to anyone at any time: The Beatles 
are forever. 

Since that moment, I have listened to every 

Beatles song in existence. I’ve had the life-
changing opportunity to see Paul McCartney in 
concert twice and have unforgettable memories 
belting “Helter Skelter”, “Oh! Darling” and 
“Eleanor Rigby” with a 70-something-year-old 
Paul. My laptop, walls and Spotify Wrapped 
have been eternally overwhelmed by The Fab 
Four, and I can confidently say that nobody will 
ever take their place. 

All of this to say that I am my father’s 

daughter in that I have utilized my 
appreciation for bands like The Beatles, 
Queen, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, etc., 
to encourage exploration of all genres and 
decades of music. Anyone who knows me 
knows the nature of my Spotify playlists 
transcends all times and variations of music; 
from Chance the Rapper’s “Hot Shower” to 
Bobby Darin’s “Dream Lover” and back again. 
My appreciation for and love of music all is 
thanks to The Beatles. Therefore, it truly is all 
thanks to my dad. 

I have met few people in my life who have 

the audacity to make statements such as “I 

don’t like The Beatles,” or “Yellow Submarine 
is a terrible song,” but nonetheless it’s worth 
addressing for those that have. 

For me, understanding their humble 

beginnings underscores the magnitude 
of appreciation they demand. The Beatles 
began as a group of four young boys from 
Liverpool, 
England. 
15-year-old 
Paul 

McCartney was invited to join 16-year-
old John Lennon’s band and after a series 
of additional member changes, the rest is 
history. While my short column cannot 
effectively do justice to this sensational 
story of the beginning brewings of the 
British Invasion, I have watched and 
encourage everyone to watch the plethora 
of documentaries made about The Beatles. 

In 1964 — coincidentally, the same 

year my dad was born — The Beatles 
came to the U.S. and made their first live 
American television debut on “The Ed 
Sullivan Show.” But the band’s prolific 
nature became a problem for its individual 
members. As George Harrison further 
pursued his own interest in song-writing, 
they began to have difficult decisions to 
make: What songs would be recorded 
and, even more challenging, what songs 
would be performed? This led to their hard 
but historically well-received decision to 
take a step back from the stage and focus 
instead on experimenting in the studio. If 
you have ever listened to the album titled 
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 
you know exactly what I’m talking about — 
and if you haven’t, what are you still doing 
reading this column? 

The Beatles officially broke up in 1970, but 

years later are revered for the ways in which 
they permanently changed the game of music. 
Time and time again, today’s top artists will 
announce their primary musical inspiration 
as The Beatles even in the unexpected genre 
of rap. This article displays it perfectly by 
citing explicit Beatles references and times 
that artists such as Wayne and Mac Miller 
paid homage to The Beatles. 

I recognize that not all music is for 

everyone. Some people exclusively take to 
one genre or artist or sound, and I respect 
that perspective. As someone who relies on 
music to provide a soundtrack to my life in 
more ways than one, I can understand the 
specificity that comes with choosing music 
that speaks to you. 

However, I will argue until the day I die 

that everyone has a Beatles song that will 
speak to them. This is simply because The 
Beatles do not fit in a box; they are a genre 

within themselves. In this chaotic world we 
continue to navigate through, take a second to 
pause whatever it is you’re listening to and play 
something by The Beatles — anything at all. 

To end this article, I’d like to say something 

that I’m not sure I say enough about my 
unmatched love for The Beatles: thank you, 
Dad. 

A

ll eyes have been on Texas for the past 
10 days as a “once in a lifetime” winter 
storm knocked out power and left 

millions of Texans without electricity and heat 
in freezing temperatures. In the days following 
the initial power outage Republicans, including 
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, have taken to Fox News 
and other media outlets to proclaim that wind 
turbines, renewable energy, the Green New Deal 
and even U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 
D-N.Y., are to blame. In reality, this couldn’t be 
farther from the truth. Texas’s infrastructure, 
although unique, represents a bigger issue in the 
United States — its power grid is dangerously 
old and out of date. Texas should be seen as 
a warning to the rest of the country that the 
climate crisis is here. Being unprepared will put 
millions in harm’s way. 

So if it wasn’t the Green New Deal or 

renewable energy, what actually caused the 
Texas power outages? That question comes 
with a response that is very on-brand for Texas. 
The contiguous 48 states have three separate 
power grids: Eastern Interconnection, Western 
Interconnection and Texas. Their power grid 
is called the Electricity Reliability Council of 
Texas. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 
the Federal Power Act in 1935, which gave the 
federal government oversight over electricity 
sales — but Texas, which did not want to be 
subject to federal regulations, adopted its own 
power grid. 35 years after the Federal Power Act, 
ERCOT was formed and tasked with managing 
the grid’s reliability. In short, Texas has its own 
electricity grid to avoid dealing with the federal 
government. 

Those who chose to blame the Green New 

Deal for Texas’s power failures have already 
been receiving backlash for their false or 
misleading claims. ERCOT predicted just 7% 
of their anticipated winter energy capacity 
would come from wind power sources around 
the state. All energy sources have struggled 
during the sub-freezing temperatures in Texas, 

but the majority of energy production failures 
came from natural gas and coal plants. Blaming 
renewable energy, although baseless and 
scientifically inaccurate, is one thing. However, 
blaming the Green New Deal, a policy proposal 
that has not been implemented in Texas or 
federally and has yet to even be brought to the 
floor in Congress, is a whole other level of mental 
gymnastics.

Not only did Texas isolate itself from the 

rest of the country in terms of energy, but their 
officials repeatedly ignored warnings that 
this exact situation could happen. Ten years 
ago, a similar disaster struck Texas. Freezing 
temperatures froze natural gas wells, wind 
turbines and coal plants. Texas’s government 
and regulatory officials had the opportunity 
to learn from prior mistakes and winterize 
their energy infrastructure to prevent future 
statewide blackouts. However, they left the 
decision to prepare for cold weather up to 
the individual companies who passed on the 
upgrades, citing high cost. Texas officials, both 
in the public and private sector, chose to forgo 
infrastructure updates because of the cost, 
stranding millions of Texans — who had no say 
in the matter — without heat or water in freezing 
cold situations. 

This 
infrastructure 
problem 
is 
not 

isolated to Texas. The American Society of 
Civil Engineers puts out a comprehensive 
infrastructure report card every few years 
grading America’s infrastructure. The most 
recent report from 2017 gave the U.S. a D+. 
This grade is unacceptable, especially in the 
richest country in the world. 

Yet, this was not the first time it received 

that grade. In 2013, the U.S. also received a 
D+ and it was estimated that the U.S. would 
need to invest an estimated 3.6 trillion dollars 
by the year 2020 in order to upgrade its 
infrastructure. 

It is clear that the U.S. needs to drastically 

modernize its infrastructure and energy 

systems. As climate change and rising 
temperatures weaken the jet stream, it is no 
longer strong enough to contain the polar vortex 
in the North Pole. This causes what is called 
a “wavy polar vortex,” meaning it is no longer 
restricted by latitude and parts of the extremely 
cold, low-pressure climate system dip down into 
typically warm areas like Texas. New regions 
will experience climatic events they have 
never experienced before and they need to be 
prepared. 

As we see more and more of this increasing 

uncertainty surrounding the climate, there 
are only so many things that we can do as 
humans and as a society. One of those things 
is to overhaul the nation’s infrastructure so 
we are better prepared next time there are 
freezing temperatures in places where they 
are not usually expected. This strategy can 
also be flipped as colder places should similarly 
prepare for warmer weather. Infrastructure 
includes the obvious roads, bridges and tunnels 
but also encompasses public transportation, 
energy, schools, public parks and drinking water 
systems, among many other things. Improving 
these integral parts of society both structurally 
and to increase efficiency would create millions 
of jobs while making the U.S. a safer place. 

As climate projections are fluid and leave 

room for unexpected events it is important to 
over prepare so that there are no situations that 
catch society off guard. There are no downsides 
to acting boldly and transforming and revitalizing 
our infrastructure and energy systems. The 
downsides come from a lack of action. 

What’s going on in Texas is a wake-up call 

to the rest of the country to listen to experts 
and prepare for what is coming. Government 
officials have been offered a golden opportunity 
and they must take it, or millions of lives will be 
destroyed. 

Opinion
10 — Wednesday, March 3, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

SIDDHARTH PARMAR | COLUMNIST

ALEX NOBEL | COLUMNIST

JESS D’AGOSTINO | COLUMNIST

Siddharth Parmar can be reached at 

sidpar@umich.edu. 

Alex Nobel can be reached at 

anobel@umich.edu.

Jess D’Agostino can be reached at 

jessdag@umich.edu.

The subversion of “optional” office hours

Texas blackouts are a wake-up call

The Beatles are forever

Graphic by Tejal Mahajan

Design by Shannon Stocking

ANYA SINGH 
| CARTOONIST CAN BE REACHED AT ANYAS@UMICH.EDU