Cover Story

Art in a Digital World

Digital media is helping push forward the frontiers of the arts to a whole new arena. Your music is no longer in the form of a CD, but on your phone instead. Your stories go on a “doc file” instead of on paper. Even the illustrations on this page are most likely done digitally.
Working Against a Stacked Deck

“I've earned the degree and the job. It's not something that was given to me as a gift,” says Afnan Rudabe Rahman, Project Engineer and Coordinator at Energypac Electronics Ltd. She, like countless other women, has had to coolly answer multitudes of unnecessary questions about her established qualifications, simply because she didn't fit the mental image some people have of workers employed in her field. And like all those women, she takes it in stride as part of the unavoidable struggles of being a female STEM major.
LEARNING SOFT SKILLS

The types of skillsets mentioned here serve to accomplish the same goal. But as you can already tell, they are vastly different. Not only do these differ in nature, but they're also different in the methods that are used to develop them.
Evolution of Bangla

It has been long argued that language affects the way we think and the way we perceive the world around us. If this is true, Bangla will have had an immense impact on those who speak it. Today we will journey through time to take an in-depth look into the language spoken by over 250 million people worldwide, and how it has shaped and is re-shaping the land of Bengal and its inhabitants.
Are we treating our kids right?

“Kids are the torch bearers of our future” – these are the words we hear often, from political speeches to assemblies in school grounds, on the note of someone trying to establish the important stakeholders for future progress of a nation.
CHIGALYMPICS

The stage had been set. With over three hundred athletes from over a hundred participating countries, Bangladesh was set to host the first-ever Chigalympic Games.
Combatting Systematic Misogyny

The past decade has seen progress being made for movements to support equality. The #MeToo and Time's Up movements helped start conversations within the general public worldwide on the topics of sexual harassment and misogyny.
Mad about Football

It surprises me, that even a decade later, more and more fans in Bangladesh are venturing into the realm of watching foreign leagues. As a nation whose national sport is kabaddi, and where the staple game of choice is cricket – it is shocking how the fan base around football continues to grow with every passing year.
ENEMIES AT THE MOSHARI

All was quiet; I returned to the base to find myself and my team immersed in a rather peaceful environment. This was completely unexpected given that these were troubled times. The enemy had started to breach our frontlines, moving closer to civilian territory with each passing day. We were doing our best to try and hold them back but to no avail. Our tactics were being outmatched by them. Back at base, our peace and tranquillity was suddenly shattered by a soft and familiar sound. “Buzzzzz!”
Psychology as a major

While choosing a college major becomes a series of hard decisions and logical reasoning, deciding to major in Psychology makes the overall process seem harder. The idea of studying Psychology excites a lot of people, but not everyone goes through with it. More than that, there are still tons of people who find this major ineffective especially in a society that highly values medical, technical, and business degrees. But as much as people may underestimate Psychology as a subject of academics, the depth of understanding and out-of-the-box perception you need to master this subject is what people find the most galvanising. Before we get into the intricate details, we need to understand what Psychology really is.
Juggling work and academics

It can be said without a shred of doubt that Dhaka is an expensive city. A ten minute distance from your house on a rickshaw costs about forty taka. Want to hangout with your friends or eat somewhere you won't get food-poisoning?
Water Rising: Climate Change And Us

As the dangers of climate change loom nearer and nearer with us staring into the spiralling abyss that awaits us. This week on SHOUT, we decide to look at a fictional future where the world is ravaged by rising sea levels and climate-induced migration.
A TICKING MIND BOMB

Mental health is no insignificant topic. Whether it is anxiety, stress, depression, or panic attacks – such a condition can eat up our days, stopping us from living “normal” lives.
THE EVOLUTION OF OUR LIFE GOALS

We all are familiar with the concept of “life goals”, aren't we? For some it's kind of a measuring stick for forming a judgement about a person. When you're a kid, the answers to the age-old question “What do you want to be in life?”
THE HIP-HOP STORY

The story starts in 2004. A group of eight Bangladeshis who shared a passion for rap music came together and formed a hip-hop crew. They called themselves “Stoic Bliss”.
Dear Parents, please stop fighting

Ashraf jerked awake from the same recurring nightmare he has been having for quite some time now. He woke up to muffled raised voices in the middle of the night coming in from the next room.
A Beginner's Guide To Competitive Gaming In Bangladesh

Looking back, I can clearly remember, thinking that there was no way video games could get any better than this. I was wrong. Fast forward to the present, I realise that a younger version of me would be awed at the sheer number of gaming titles, platforms and the overall innovation that exists now.
INKED IN OCTOBER

What started as American illustrator Jake Parker's personal project to improve his inking skills has now become a global phenomenon we know as “Inktober”.
BEYOND BORDERS

According to a University Grants Commission of Bangladesh (UGC) report published in 2016, there were 355 foreign students studying in the different public universities and 1927 foreign students studying in the various private universities of the country; these numbers are increasing every year.
A Beginner's guide to Merchandise Business

“Because why not? The idea of merchandise business has always been something with potential, but only if you can provide quality product,” says Maleena Dhrity Gomez from the other end of the phone call when I asked her why choose this particular line of entrepreneurship.
THE IDEAL TEACHER

After parents, the only people who seem to have some of the greatest impact on our lives are teachers. A seminal study by economists Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard University and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia University claims that a student with a good teacher has much more than better grades; they have greater chances of going to college, are more likely to be better off financially in terms of income and savings, might live in better neighbourhoods, and can even have greater family success.
Bad habits that we romanticise

No human being is perfect. We are all trying to do our best with the hands that we have been dealt. However, when people bond over their mistakes and failures a lot more than they do over their achievements,it plays havoc with their minds. Questionable habits become desirable, and self-restraint is thought of as boring. Someone needs to say it though, and so, throwing caution to the wind, here are a few bad habits that we tend to indulge in, and somehow end up justifying them to ourselves.
The Vampires of Dhaka

“Hello, did you reach the graveyard?” the person on the other side of the phone inquired. “Yes, I did. I'm inside now and looking for you guys. Where are you?” “What? No, what the heck, get out of there. Take a left from the graveyard, walk for about five minutes and you'll see a student mess. It's house number 42. Do you have Google Maps? I'll send you the location,” he corrected me.
Underground Football

We all know that cricket took over as the leading fandom in our country just around the time when the new millennium kicked in. But before the craze for the gentleman's game took control of our sporting arena, football sat on the throne for quite a long time. National and club level football were always at the heart of it.
Living Sustainably

The same way your mom nags at you about cleaning your room or doing household chores because it's your house too, you have a responsibility to take care of planet Earth a little, because it's your planet, don't you think?
Freelancing - A better alternative to your 9 to 5 job?

In a country like Bangladesh, the thought of becoming a full time freelancer is quite hard to grasp at first, irrespective of the field you plan to work in. The normal full time jobs which require you to attend your workstation for a minimum of 40 hours a week is what most people believe to be the only form of employment.
The perfect TV shows for Eid

Cooking shows are more popular than ever before. Children too take part in these cooking shows and many seem to be amazingly gifted in the culinary art. However, not all children have the skills needed to cook a dish worthy of being served at a Michelin star restaurant.
Grasping at the Hidden Straws

At the stage of your life when you're about to graduate from high school and enter university, you may find yourself stuck in a haze of perpetual confusion. You've just started grade 10 or 11, but your peers already seem like they have pulled ahead of you. There's a flurry of action and everyone is looking into prospects that they can cram into their repertoires to make themselves seem more “interesting”, “pro-active” or, the worst, “worldly”.
A dog sees Dhaka

I was wrong. Sitting up there, defeated and alone, I decided to do what I always do to forget and start anew. I slept.
Admission Tests - What you need to know

Admission test — the one ominous exam standing between you and your dream university, a test more gruesome than the Twelve Labours of Hercules. Admission tests can be highly challenging not only due to the sudden leap in difficulty, but also since your result directly reflects on the undergraduate programme you choose and the path your life takes thereafter.