Every morning as I ride the bus from Newton campus to Boston College's main campus, I do what every RA, RD and orientation leader warned me about not doing: I sit with my nose buried in my phone. However, I’d like to think that what I am so captivated by on my screen counts as a legitimate excuse for being anti-social. I’m updating myself on the current events of the world that have gone down since the previous morning’s bus ride. Each morning, between six and seven, I receive an email from theSkimm and it has become my routine to save this email until my daily bus ride.

I read theSkimm because I strive to be as caught up with the events of our tumultuous world as I can be. I'm not ashamed to admit that I love being the first to say, "Hey, did you hear about ______?" And, theSkimm makes it so easy to do so. The writers make the content engaging, brief and comprehensive. That’s just about all I can ask for during my eight-minute bus ride.

I went to boarding school for high school, so this is my fifth year living away from home. When I was younger, my parents would have the news on every morning as I ate my breakfast and every night as we got ready to eat dinner. I was always exposed to it. Ever since I went away to school, the news on TV was a part of my day I missed. In high school, I made attempts to stay updated by setting my laptop homepage to CNN or a similar site. However, nothing really ever caught my attention until theSkimm.

This newsletter provides the news in a Betches Love This-esque tone. So much so, that I find myself depressed with the state of the world in one paragraph, but laughing out loud in the next. This is not to say that theSkimm trivializes serious current affairs, because they do not. But, the writers provide the perfect balance of light heartedness and humor with the more sober updates on, for example, ISIS or a recent tragedy.

As college students, I think it is so important to stay on top of what is happening in the world. Not only is there life beyond the bubble of our campuses, but it's admirable to be able to participate in a discussion with peers, teachers or even our parents surrounding current events. And, we should all be educated on the happenings and current state of the world, because it's the world we are going to inherit as the next generation of leaders.

You, too, can get theSkimm to read every morning as you eat to breakfast, wait in line for your coffee, or walk to class.

Happy Skimming! You can thank me later.