Interesting

Harvard Student Makes History After Submitting Rap Album As His Final Thesis

He “never thought it would be accepted by Harvard” – and now he’s graduating with honors!

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A Harvard student just made university history by becoming the first one to submit a rap album for his final thesis – and he’s actually graduating with honors!

20-year-old Obasi Shaw wrote and recorded Liminal Minds, a 10-track rap album, within a year and it eventually ended up being awarded summa cum laude minus, the second highest grade in the department.

Shaw, who is from Stone Mountain, Georgia, admitted that he “never thought it would be accepted by Harvard”.

Source: AP

In a feature by Independent, we learn that each song in the album is “told from a different character’s perspective, a format inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s seminal 14th century piece, The Canterbury Tales, and focuses on black identity in America.” .

The website also tells us that while undergraduate university students are not required to submit senior theses, it is necessary for those intending to graduate with honors.

Shaw decided to take the ‘cool’ route and did something different instead of writing an essay or submitting a collection of poems. The student likewise shared that it was his mother who gave him the initial idea after she saw him writing raps and performing at campus open mic nights.

Declaration of Independence, the first song in Liminal Minds, has the words:

“Behold, what we hold is three-fold—Body and spirit to be thrones for free souls. Self is the evidence, please close the freak shows, And depose the evils, our peoples are equals”.

Watch the video feature here and learn more:

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Josh Bell, a Harvard English lecturer and Shaw’s thesis adviser, says he is very much impressed with the student’s output not only as an academic piece but also as an artistic creation.

After graduation, Shaw will work at Google as a software engineer.

Source: Office for the Arts Harvard

We sure hope he’d keep making music though on his free time!

For those interested to hear the complete album, head over to SoundCloud and listen to it for free.

Art

Korean Barista’s Stunning Latte Art Will Make You Think Twice About Taking A Sip

Barista level: Asian!

Mark Andrews

We here at EliteReders are huge fans of art, regardless of the medium. When it’s done well, we couldn’t help but geek out and probably feature it here in our site - from awesome tattoos that cover scars and satirical Indian comics, to stunning sandcastles and masterfully Photoshopped images, and everything else in between.

With that in mind, I guess it would be easy to imagine our delight when he found out about the work of this amazing Korean barista who’s been serving lattes with top notch designs.

Born in 1991, Kang Bin Lee has been working as a barista for 10 years now.

Interesting

You’ve Been Breaking Toblerone The Wrong Way Your Whole Life

Toblerone lovers, here’s a useful tip for you!

Wendy Rimes

Most people don’t really care how to eat their chocolates because what matters is that it gets inside your mouth and you enjoy the sweet treat. But what if you learn a simple trick on how to easily break off a piece of chocolate – particularly Toblerone? Eating the chocolate would be much more convenient.

Apparently, that trick exists and there’s a way to break off the bars and get a perfect piece of Toblerone triangle. If you didn’t know this yet, a video by Kaitlin Moore demonstrate exactly how to break off a piece the right way.

All your life, you may have been breaking off the chocolate pieces the wrong way by pulling them outward. You have to admit though that it takes more power to get that perfect piece without having your fingers covered in chocolate or accidentally letting the piece fly off and land on the floor.

Interesting

Bride Without Girlfriends Asked Her Guy Friends To Pose As Bridesmaids Instead

You can’t deny just how adorable these friends are.

Wendy Rimes

A girl will always have her own group of real friends whom she can comfortably be herself. This friendship will likely blossom to adulthood and most likely, a girl would have her friends show up as bridesmaids to her wedding. But what if a girl doesn’t really have girlfriends?

24-year-old Rebeca Abrantes didn’t have women in her life she considers her real friends who were deserving enough to act as the bridesmaids to her wedding. What she did instead is to invite her male friends and have them pose as her bridesmaids.

The Brazilian computer engineering student is one of the only four women in a class that is comprised of 60 students. But even with that very few number of women in the class, she didn’t consider them much as her friends to give them special roles on her big day. She met and made friends with great guys instead, who agreed to do a bridesmaid photoshoot with her.