Every time I return from a break in the espresso-stained, red sauce–laden part of New Jersey I call home, I feel uneasy. I just spent a week consuming at least three cloves of garlic a day and beginning all conversations at a 7/10, but as I try to settle back into Baltimore, I wonder if I need to tone it down.

Hopkins can feel like something of an identity proving ground. The University is far from forming an adequately diverse faculty and student body, but for most of us, arriving here means joining a far more heterogeneous community than that of our hometown.