Memories tagged “Academics”

1968: Year of Decision I am a Vietnam Veteran, a college graduate of the Vietnam Era, and a professional journalist. That should establish either some kind of credibility or culpability. The Vietnam War began when I was l7 years old...

Columbia College 1967

2 1/2 Dimensions? I sat at my desk, arms hanging to the side, furrowed brow, mouth slightly agape. It was a computer vision class, and Dr. Kender was talking about how we humans live in more of a two-dimensional world,...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1987

50th Class Reunion On May 18-19, 1999, the Class of 1949 celebrated our 50th graduation ceremony. On May 18, 1999, I was nominated to give out the 1999 graduation pins to all the seniors of the graduating class of 1999...

Columbia College 1999

A Civilian Freshman in Hartley Hall (June 1944) Graduating high school in early June 1944, I entered Columbia College to begin my freshman year the 2nd week of June. We freshman were on the fourth floor of the dorm, and...

Columbia College 1949

A Kid from the Bronx–Part 1 I arrived at the College in September 1952. At that time, a large percentage of Columbia “Men” (remember those dark days before women were admitted?) lived at home in the city or nearby suburbs...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1982, Columbia College 1956, School of General Studies 1976

A New Life I was newly married and starting my studies at the graduate school of library service. Every day I took the bus and the subway from NJ, and stopped at the old Chock Full o’ Nuts coffee shop...

School of Library Service 1978

A Rose Is a Rose Is a Rose In regards to my social life while at Columbia: With the name Wasserman, I was the talk (if not the laugh) of my class because I dated a Barnard student named “Siff”!...

Columbia College 1947

A Spiritual Tale from the Mansion I started Columbia School of Social Work as a newly married, college graduate from Minnesota. The challenges of living in the city, starting graduate school, and married life were exciting and amazing. Learning to...

School of Social Work 1963

A Student’s Story My first year in a CC class upset my applecart. Catechism instruction did not prepare me for the daily debates. Occasionally I made a point. The one I remember is “omission can be as much an offense...

Columbia College 1951

A Wonderful and Baffling Mix As one of seven kids in a Philadelphia working-class home, I never expected college, but a National Merit Scholarship made it feasible. My Princeton visit convinced me I’d be a misfit there (tall blonde guys...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1971, Columbia College 1969

Almost Like Hercule Poirot! My favorite teacher definitely was Sig Grava, a distinguished guy who reminded me of Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot. He carried clippings from the New York Times into the classroom and thus connected theory with real...

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 1990

Already a Quarter of a Century? There are so many people who pass through our lives, like breezes on their way to the sea - they might jostle us, or soothe or please us before they disappear, or they may...

School of Social Work 1980

Amazing Coincidence The very first class I attended as a student of the School of Social Work was Social Policy with Richard Cloward. He began the class by welcoming us all to the program and to his class specifically, and...

School of Social Work 1999

An Arizona Columbia Wedding Several of my undergraduate friends, including people I lived with Freshman year in John Jay 15, will be attending my Phoenix wedding. Guests include Veru Narula, Dimitri Christopolous and Rasheq Zarif. I am currently a student...

Graduate School of Business 2007, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 2003

AN ORIGINAL SAM Some of you will remember Sam. When I arrived at Columbia after the spring 1970 riots, he was sitting on Low Library steps or at the Broadway Gate selling his color abstracts. They were always of fanciful...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1972

Ani DiFranco, Neil Young A high school buddy came from out of town for a few days and saw posters on campus for an Ani DiFranco concert in Wollman Auditorium (may it rest in asbestos-abated peace). Needless to say, having...

Columbia College 1994

Art Reflections I planned my class schedule to have Fridays free to visit art gallleries with my friend Cecilia, who was in the MFA program. Pieces that were affordable then are selling in the millions today.

School of Social Work 1973

Arts While at Columbia A long time ago, the physical therapy degree program was all-consuming, with classes at 168th Street and internships all over NYC, but I found a few hours, once in a while, to enjoy the arts in...

Program in Physical Therapy 1958

Auditing Taking more points a semester than was necessary, there was no time or room for Prof. Joseph Wood Krutch’s course. The literature course covered modern novels and writers. Somehow, I managed to get to his class without registering and...

Columbia College 1951

Beauty Beneath No one would dare call Earl Hall a beauty. It may actually be among campus’s bleakest buildings; ironically, it is the geographical mirror counterpart–if memory serves–to the Maison Francaise, one of the loveliest. Neither I nor anyone I...

Columbia College 1978

Before a Seminar At Columbia, when you have an hour and a half before your next seminar, there is always a place to go. I imagine Universities–of Nebraska or Main or Iowa or New Mexico–and think their “places to go”...

School of the Arts 2006

Best Lecture I Heard While at Columbia “Define ‘American,’” Jai said. “Why do many of you call yourselves ‘American’ and not something else?” A few people tried the easy way out of tautology: “A citizen of the U.S. is an...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 2003

Best Lecture in College Willard Gaylin, a psychiatrist and adjunct professor, taught a class on Freud in the early 70s. Gaylin was animated, brilliant, accessible, and captivated a huge room full of students for two hours a week. I usually...

Columbia College 1973, Graduate School of Journalism 1976

Best Lecture The best lectures I had at Columbia–among many competitors–may well have been Richard Wollheim’s aesthetics lectures, in which he walked us rather philosophically naive undergraduates through his own theory of criteria for the identity of artworks. He was...

Columbia College 1986

Best Teacher Ever As an impressionable young freshman in 1979, I had the distinct pleasure of attending Joseph Bauke’s CC class. It was more than a class. It was a wake-up call to what higher thinking was all about. We...

Columbia College 1983, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1986

Blasting Through the Core When I began my jouney through the CC Core, I was a student raised amid urban gang warfare in East Harlem. I responded with enthusiasm to the journey I undertook in the Core and subsequent classes,...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1962, Columbia College 1959

Boy Meets 616 One of the highlights of my Columbia housing experience was sophomore year when an acquaintance from a Barnard linguistics class asked if I would be interested in joining a Japanese special-interest house. I had just started studying...

Columbia College 2003

Breaking the Tension in Low It was during the days of the Ethnic Studies protests in April 1996. Students had entered Low Library to lend support to negotiators meeting with administrators–but President Rupp took umbrage, and would not meet until...

Columbia College 1996

Brilliance Personified The best teacher I had at Columbia was Professor Lloyd Motz. Beyond teaching a very interesting course in Astronomy, he gave me a real-life personification of what it was to truly be an intellectual. In every class I...

School of General Studies 1975

Carman and the Freshman Line The first memory that I have of Columbia is getting into a long, snakelike line on the sidewalk of 114th Street outside Carman Hall with my parents after grabbing a parking spot somewhere in the...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1988

Carman’s Wall of Sound As a freshman member of Columbia College’s last class to be admitted as an all-men cohort (women transfers graduated with us), we who lived in Carman Hall were likely also the last to experience a certain...

Columbia College 1986

Change the World, Bit by Bit, Byte by Byte Two aspects of my Columbia experience turned out to be the opposite of what I had expected. And two other aspects of Columbia changed me – or didn’t! After graduation, I...

Graduate School of Journalism 1990, Graduate School of Business 1990

Chrysalis of Awareness: The First Step in World Change Columbia provided the environment for the most dramatic growth I have experienced, immersed in a culture of diverse and amazing colleagues undergoing similar growth and guided by the luminance of engaged...

Columbia College 1990

Civil War Draft Riots - Prof. Shenton Professor James Shenton’s lecture on the Civil War draft riots that took place in New York City in 1863 was an exceptional experience for the several generations of Columbia students who heard it...

Columbia College 1982

Club Law at Our Apartment Lee Feldshon, my roomie in 1993-94, was in the Law School. He had it all–smart, dashing, etc. He had a great Law School party for the whole class, it seemed like, near the end of...

Graduate School of Journalism 1994

Columbia Books to Live By Many books from my Columbia days have had profound impact on my appreciation of Western and Eastern civilization and on my worldview. One of these was a book from Professor Robert Thurman’s class, Buddhist Ethics,...

Columbia College 1990

Columbia on My Mind My first contact with Columbia was in the small cotton town of Cleveland, Mississippi, home to Delta State Teachers College. In 1924, the state legislature created this school to train teachers for the public school system....

College of Physicians and Surgeons 1959

Columbia Spirituality: Buddhism As a Theravada Buddhist by family tradition, I arrived at Columbia with a cultural exposure to layperson Buddhist practice, as well as a superficial understanding acquired through the excuse of getting out of bible study class at...

Columbia College 1990

Columbia Universtiy and Orhan Pamuk Columbia University and Orhan Pamuk October 24, 2006 Columbia Universtiy in New York City became home to two new Nobel Laureates early in October this year when Prof. Edmund Phelps won the prize in economic...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1964, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 1970

Combat Veterans I entered Columbia College in 1946 along with many combat veterans of World War II. I was 22 years old and one of the youngest veterans in my class. I had flown missions over Germany in B-17’s with...

College of Physicians and Surgeons 1953, Columbia College 1949

Community/Columbia Amidst graduate seminars at the Casa Hispanica, Teachers College, and SIPA, I worked at Community Impact’s adult education program where I supervised Columbia volunteers in ESL classes in Washington Heights, taught ESL and Spanish GED Social Studies. It’s really...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 2002, School of International and Public Affairs 2002, Teachers College 2002

Commuting at High Speed The dorms were full of midshipmen and v-12ers, and I lived in Hempstead, whence I commuted every day, running for the 7:20 train on the LIRR, then fighting my way into the B’way train that took...

Columbia College 1945

Coping with Winter at Columbia No problemo.* I commuted from home on Long Island while getting my masters at Columbia. Never outside for more than a minute - from house to car, from car to LIRR station - from subway...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1960

Declaiming in Johnson I remember well the day I moved into Johnson Hall (now Wien). It was a Sunday morning, one of those blue-sky days you just about never see in the city, and everything about the campus looked magnificent....

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1977

Diamond’s E& M Class It was 1987-1988 when Electrical Engineering was a still a popular major to pursue. I still get shivers when I think of my E&M class with Professor Diamond. That was the mother of all weeding out...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1989

Divine Intervention in Hamilton Hall The construction of the International Affairs Building involved heavy blasting, which was supposed to be scheduled to coincide with intervals between classes. Frequently, the blasts came early. Given the religious and philosophical themes in CC...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1976, Columbia College 1970

Documents to the People In April 1968, the turmoil on campus led the University to close Butler Library. The Library School was on the top floor of Butler. With the library closed, we were unable to attend classes. A group...

School of Library Service 1968

“Don’t go there” When I attended Columbia, my core Catholicism after 13 years of Catholic schooling was weakish, but still strong enough to send me into the arms of the Newman Club, and to keep me attending Mass on Sundays...

Columbia College 1967

Dormitory Life After a period of commuting, my parents changed our apartment and my brother opened a dental office in my bedroom. It was a good reason to move into the dormitory. I shared my room with a classmate who...

Columbia College 1951

Dozed Off In the 1960s I worked in Special Collections in Butler Library. We had a room called the Papyrology and Epigraphy collection where we stored the ancient texts. One afternoon, we let in and locked inside the room a...

School of General Studies 1968, School of Library Service 1970

Dr. Charles Frankel – Five Years Later Dr. Frankel exposed this freshman to Contemporary Civilizations; each lecture, “lights” would go on! He wrote the basic history of contemporary thought. I recall inquiring on the first day of class what faculty...

Columbia College 1953, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 1955

Engineering Detail for Every Shower I took a controls systems course with Dr Guy Longobardo. He was a great lecturer who could make tough concepts intuitively easy to grasp. One day he was explaining the major parameters affecting controlling and...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1968

Entering College I was a graduate of Lafayette H. S. in Brooklyn, N. Y. in 1942. World War ll had started, and I enlisted in the Army Air Corps as an Aviation Cadet. After flying as a Bombardier with the...

Columbia College 1949, College of Physicians and Surgeons 1953

Envious Regrets I went through the college as a young 16 year old, still living at home in Washington Heights, focused on a pre-med education and adolescent socialization. I helped out on the Columbia Review, wrote humerous poems for the...

College of Physicians and Surgeons 1953, Columbia College 1949

Experimental Art at Prentis Hall One memory sticks out beyond others in my Columbia experience: a series of crazed, semi-unofficial parties in Prentis Hall on 125th St. Home to Columbia’s world-class computer music center as well as the industrial sculpture...

Columbia College 1995

Extended Winter Parking in NYC Every permanent and temporary New Yorker knows about the difficulty of finding parking in NYC - SIPA graduate students are no exception. Having grown up in nearby New Jersey, I enjoyed the advantage of having...

School of International and Public Affairs 1996

Favorite Prof This was a tough call (as I had many great profs), but my favorite professor was Edward Mendelson… who apparently is still in Columbia’s Department of English and Comparative Literature. Prof. Mendelson was sharp, funny, and taught me...

Columbia College 1987

Financial Aid: Thanks, `55 Without substantial financial aid, I would not have been able to attend college. About a third of my education was underwritten by a most generous scholarship sponsored by the Class of 1955. Whenever I meet a...

Columbia College 1965

Financial Aid Quite simply, I could not have even considered coming to Columbia but for having qualified for a Ford Foundation grant in 1952. The program sought high school juniors a year or more younger than their classmates (I had...

Columbia College 1956

Finding Furnald During my first year at Columbia, my home was 929 Livingston, a double with a view across the John Jay airshaft. If you got really close to the window and moved over to one side, you could see...

Columbia College 1965

First Mother at the J-School Can youthful dreams come true? In my case, yes. When I was a student at the Philadelphia High School for Girls, I heard of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, and dreamed of going there. But...

Graduate School of Journalism 1960

Fluffy Little Clouds . . . So I’m living in Furnald Hall during my sophomore through senior years (which was a feat in itself, since everyone seemed to want the large rooms in Furnald!) between 1989-1992, and typically had a...

Columbia College 1992

Frankenstein Plus My junior year, I took a course in Gothic Literature. I was trying to save money on books and discovered that many of the novels we were reading were available in Butler – and nobody else seemed to...

Columbia College 1992

Freshman Arrival After having attended a rather conservative and traditional high school, I was immediately excited and electrified by the freedom of my first semester at Columbia…the variety of intelligent classmates from all over the world made my first year...

Columbia College 1989

Freshman Orientation in Furnald Hall Coming from an extremely conservative immigrant family, I was not allowed to live in the dorms my freshman year. My parents claimed that it was an unreasonable expense, given that we lived just across the...

Columbia College 1992

Freshman Orientation Most members of the college class of ‘52 will remember our first introduction to the then newly appointed president of Columbia University, Dwight Eisenhower. He gave us some quite unexpected advice at our freshman orientation, telling us to...

Graduate School of Business 1953, Columbia College 1952

Freshman Week Hosting: Opening a Door At the start of my senior year, my Freshman Week host duties mainly involved meeting each night with several dozen fresh-faced denizens of an upper floor of Carman Hall. At 11:30 p.m. they were...

Columbia College 1972, School of Law 1977

Frozen Moments All our states of elevations They lead to our creations They’re a festival of life In which we show appreciation But if we live for elevations That come from our creations Our lives move back on the road...

School of General Studies 2002

full circle on a warm, sunny day, classes over, would sit on the sun dial and wait. and friends would walk by and sit and accumulate. and in the pre-cell phone/answering machine days, it was the best way to line...

Columbia College 1976

Funny Student Comments In my Contemporary Civilization class, a student interrupted the professor’s train of thought: Professor: So, reading Rousseau, we have to ask ourselves, what is the state of freedom like? Student: New Hampshire?

Columbia College 2005

Furnald Snowball Fight - 8th takes on 7th If I’m not mistaken, it was one of the President’s holidays in February of my senior year. I was the 8th floor residence counselor with a room right across from the TV...

Columbia College 1978

Getting Snowed in at Columbia Coming from Chicago, I was pleasantly surprised at the mildish winters in NY. It got cold, but not the bitter icy winds of the midwest. The best part was that when it actually snowed, the...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 2004

Ghana Be Good During my junior year (Spring 2003), I left for what would eventually become a life changing experience. I had originally been scheduled to study in South Africa, but at the suggestion of a couple of friends, I...

Columbia College 2004

Government Defined Professor Rothstein taught Government 101. His most brilliant lecture included a piercing analysis, the definition of government broken down to its lowest common denominator: “That group which has ‘legitimate’ access to violence.” The lecture occurred in 1963, right...

Columbia College 1966

“Great Minds of My Generation” The greatest mind of my generation, it was my privilege to know, belonged to my classmate, the late and much regretted Allan Farnsworth. All members of our class were proud of the first Columbia Law...

School of Law 1952

GS Hangout During the late 60’s and early 70’s, a group of about 10 of us from GS, along with a few grad students, used to hang out regularly at the West End bar. There was a long banquette that...

School of General Studies 1973

Hang Time One of my favorite places to hang/study was the Hungarian bakery a couple of doors down from V&T’s Pizza. I eventually found the right balance of caffeine and sugar to keep me sharp while working through the Core...

Columbia College 1993

“He Had a Moustache” The year before I saw him again–in the Columbia library–we had been students together in Dr. Schwartz’s Social Work “Group” class. He sat next to me, told me jokes and helped me get through the class...

School of Social Work 1975

How I Kept Warm at Columbia: Revised As I put myself through Columbia via loans, work, and other forms of “creative financing,”* I had relatively limited resources with which to keep myself warm during the long, cold, and dark winter...

School of General Studies 2003

How Will You Spend Your Time? On the last day of policy class, a core requirement of the Graduate School of Business, Professor Don Hambrick took us through a brief exercise that challenged us to think about the choices we...

Graduate School of Business 1985

Intellectual Bull One of my most favorite stories involves my very first class on the very first day attending Columbia back in September of 1941. Not surprisingly, my first class was in the Humanities. What was surprising to me, however,...

Columbia College 1947

Intellectual Honesty “The best lecture I ever heard at Columbia.” That stopped me in my tracks. I heard so many good ones, so many entertaining ones, even several that I remember in detail. Names crowd in, names of faculty and...

Columbia College 1972, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1974

James Farmer and the Cable Guy In senior year I arranged for James Farmer, head of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), to speak at Columbia. I reserved a large corner room in Hamilton Hall, infomed “Spectator” and WKCR, and...

Columbia College 1963

JJ7 24/7 365 420 Ask Class of 2004 residents of the seventh floor of John Jay Hall about JJ7 and a wry smile will quickly adorn their faces. JJ7, as we affectionately called it, was our introduction to Columbia–and what...

Columbia College 2004, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 2004

John Jay Allegiance I began my Columbia tutelage on John Jay 11, room 1127, to be exact. I will always remember move-in day - maneuvering those bulky, orange moving bins from the elevator to my little slice of Columbia. My...

Columbia College 2003

Joseph Bernard Stern I took some classes the summer of 1952 to make up deficiencies so that I could enter the School of Nursing that fall. One of the courses was Sociology, taught by Joseph Bernard Stern. He used to...

School of Nursing 1957

Junior Year Abroad in Rome “What are you going to DO with it?” is a question all Latin majors hear a hundred times. All I can reply is, at age 56, I’m gainfully employed and have never missed a meal....

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1971, Columbia College 1970

Just the Facts The class was evidence. The professor was Michael Sovern, later to become Dean of the Law School. I sat in the second row, with my then and still best friend, Jeff Weisenfeld. Mike (as we all thought...

School of Law 1965

Kant/Can’t This is not a student comment, but a funny professor comment. I was in philosophy class, and we were discussing Kant. The professor said, “Kant says you can’t.” Then he stopped a moment and added, “Or Can’t says you...

School of General Studies 1975

Keeping Warm in NYC Winters can get pretty cold in New York, with the wind whistling down the canyons of the streets and avenues. With Columbia’s proximity to the Hudson River, an added chill off the water adds to the...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1976

King Lear and Professor Tayler Although at age 19 I had little understanding of Professor Tayler’s lectures on Shakespeare’s great tragedies, I knew enough to copy what he was saying as completely as I could. I recall him standing at...

Columbia College 1987, Teachers College 1994

Law to Layman Karl Llewelen, jurisprudence prof, left class after his point was made. 30 mins, 20 mins or whatever time it took. “Law to layman is a person walking down the street who looks up to see marble steps...

School of Law 1948

Life at Johnson Hall I arrived at Columbia University and Johnson Hall in August/September of 1975. This was the first academic year that Johnson Hall was coed. Previously it had been a women’s graduate dorm. I believe two or three...

Graduate School of Business 1975

Livingston Hall: All Three Varieties As a NYC freshman in the (in)famous Dudley’s Follies class, my parents and I thought that living away from home made sense. Rather than live in the almost brand new NEW HALL (nu?), for whatever...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1968, Columbia College 1964

Look Up My spiritual experience at Columbia was, in a word: awful. Before becoming a student at Columbia I was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church. I grew up in Huntington, Long Island, New York. This was a great...

School of General Studies 1978

Mario Salvadore Mario Salvadore taught me to see the world differently: a transparent reality emerged, which is invisible to most. Salvadore taught a seminar called “Tower of Babel, or Why Buildings Stand Up.” It was a philosophical history course, in...

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 1989

Mark Van Doren Mark Van Doren was my humanities teacher. One day in class, he asked a question and called on me. I wasn’t paying attention and asked him to repeat the question. He then apologized to me for not...

Columbia College 1954

Memorable Lecture In my 1939 freshman chemistry class, Professor Urey came into the class to tell us about the discovery of the neutron, which was not yet in our chemistry book.

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1939

Mr. Stade The guy was tall, lean and looked a little seedy. His walk seemed a cocky amble. His face took on aspects of pain, fatalism and bemusement. His hair seemed more a perverse steel brush with long bristles than...

Columbia College 1967

My “Artsy” Experience In my 7 years at Columbia, my “artsy” experience both on and off campus was significant. On campus, I had a memorable classes in art history, music and in Shakespeare. I also took a class in textile...

Graduate School of Business 1974, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1971

My Best Teacher Even though it has been over 50 years since I was graduated from Columbia College, it took me less than a split second to come up with my “best teacher” nomination: Professor Boris Stanfield. Why? More than...

Columbia College 1955

My Dorms My first dorm room was in John Jay. It was not so cold during the winter break compared to my friend’s room behind the FBH building. JJ is very private environment. Not much chance to bump into others....

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1997

My Favorite Campus My favorite times to hang out on the Columbia campus were in the summers. From the times when the South Field was slippery with the dew of the humid mornings to the times when the night sky...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1978

My Favorite Place When I was at Columbia, I was on the Health Science Campus at 168th St. which is not known for it’s “beauty.” At that time, the School of Nursing was located in Maxwell Hall, and we had...

School of Nursing 1980

My Favorite Professor The best professor I ( and many others) had was Gene Santomasso, who taught a very popular architecture course. He was a terrific guy, always interested in the students, but he really shone as an educator. His...

Graduate School of Business 1975, Columbia College 1973

My Favorite Teacher During my years at Columbia, I had many outstanding teachers in contemporary civilization, economics, and psychology, which was my undergrad co-major (with economics) and the concentration for my M.A. and Ph.D. In psychology, Clarence Graham, Nat Schoenfeld,...

Columbia College 1961, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1966

My Most Memorable Cultural Experience at Columbia My first (and most memorable) cultural experience at Columbia occurred during my first week as a new MBA candidate at the Graduate School of Business in the Fall of 1973, when one of...

Graduate School of Business 1975

My Other Life: A Journey When I hear someone say “I wish I were in 21 again; life was so easy,” I always respond: “You can take 19-23. I’ll stay who I am now!” I came to Columbia-SEAS at the...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 2001

My Shoes Wore Thin! In the Program in Occupational Therapy, we often traveled many miles per day: from 186th St. on the west side to TC campus on 116th St. and south to 23rd St. and First Ave., many days...

Teachers College 1960

My Spiritual Pilgrimage at Columbia I was a fairly nominal Christian when I entered Columbia. During my second year, another engineering student, having heard via the grapevine that I was supposedly a Christian, invited me to his room each night...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1951

NYC Cold In response to your call for anecdotes regarding weathering the NYC cold… As a native Texan, I was grossly unprepared for the NYC cold (circa 1983, when I began college there). This was particularly challenging for me as...

Columbia College 1987

Oddly Collegial In the fall of 1986 I somewhat reluctantly entered the School of Library Service. In the five years since graduating college, I had considered law, theater, journalism, wildlife ecology and clown school. I’d worked in libraries through college...

School of Library Service 1987

Oh, Do I Remember! In 1968, Bernard W. Nussbaum - my distinguished classmate and dedicated donor to the Columbia College Fund - decided to run for political office. So, he mustered the shock troops, Ernie Brod and this correspondent to...

Columbia College 1958, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1976

On Broadway My most “artsy experience” was in the summer before my senior year, when I ended up taking a class called “The New York Theater Experience.” I was hoping that it would be an easy way to see free...

School of General Studies 2003

Openness My spiritual experience at Columbia was exceptional. I was born and raised Catholic and as an adult struggled to combine my personal values with the dogma of the church. During my final year at the School of Social Work,...

School of Social Work 1999

Opus Dei at Columbia I was intrigued that you would want to know about our religious experiences. During my four years there, I remember Columbia University feeling like the most God-forsaken patch of pagan indifference on the planet. Perhaps I...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1976

Oxford Days I had a wonderful oportunity to take part in an Oxford summer study program while a junior at Columbia. Studying along with British and other American students in such a classic setting was memorable. I rememebr with great...

Columbia College 1989

Perfect Columbia Day Submitted by Rod Allee, GSAS ‘97, American Studies A gorgeous early summer day in 1992. There was a breeze, slow and thorough, that afternoon. The brown haze had been blown clean beyond memory, leaving a shocking azure,...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1997

Perseverence The teachers at CBS - and especially those from professional practice - had such a profound realistic idealism. They encouraged us to dream, but encouraged us to perform our due diligence as well. These professors taught us the importance...

Graduate School of Business 2003

Playing Hooky Led to My Most Artsy Experience! During my graduate student days in philosphy, I took a course taught by Professors Ernest Nagel and Thomas Merton on the Sociology of Science. There I met someone who was older and...

Columbia College 1962

Porpoises and Philosophy It was the first lecture in a graduate course on German philosophy between Kant and Hegel. Dieter Henrich, a visiting professor from Germany, was giving the packed lecture hall an introduction to the subject, when a person...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1976

Post World War ll Years Dear Editor, I entered Columbia College in February 1946 as one of many World War ll combat veterans. The G. I. Bill of Rights paid for most of my tuition, thank goodness. I also earned...

Columbia College 1949, College of Physicians and Surgeons 1953

Pre-Meds Are Scary I was teaching lab sections for Leon Lederman in the basic Physics class that pre-med students were required to take. One day there was a demonstration planned using lasers to show how light was refracted in different...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1977

Professor Gordon Shillinglaw Can you imagine a required course in basic accounting…full of controversy and impassioned arguments among the students? The words “accounting” and “exciting” are rarely found in the same sentence. It was Professor Gordon Shillinglaw’s special talent to...

Graduate School of Business 1964

Professor Rice My Columbia education was a gift, especially having the opportunity to learn from Gene Rice. Each class with Professor Rice expanded my world and demonstrated the power of his unique first-person research. His lectures were perfectly crafted, totally...

Columbia College 1998

Prominent Classmate from Israel I got married during my Columbia experience and helped found the University rugby team, so there wasn’t a lot of time to be a part of the community. However, there was one friend I was particularly...

Graduate School of Business 1961

Proust on the Lawn One of my favorite recollections from my freshman year is going out onto the (great) lawn in front of Furnald Hall in late spring (finally warm weather!) with my copy of Proust’s “A la Recherche du...

Columbia College 1971

Psychological Religion During my time as a graduate psycholgy student 1948-52 I took completely elective courses on the Old Testament the New Testament. With another grad student I sat in on a course on Genesis given at Union Theological Seminary....

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1952

Quentin Anderson Ruminating on St. Augustine’s Confessions, the great Professor Quentin Anderson sat at the head of the boardroom table, we twelve or so sophomores tucked around in confidence of his sage and gentle pronouncements on the humanity lessons of...

Columbia College 1980

Religion at Columbia I was a graduate student in sociology in the 1960’s. My wife and I, both white, lived in Woodbridge Hall at 115th and Riverside. Before we met, she had joined Church of the Master, a largely African-American...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1969

Religious Life as an Undergraduate As an undergraduate (1954-58) I went to services, including a few at St. Paul’s (at one, Billy Graham waved his gilt-edged Bible and impressed my friends who were interested in theater), some at Union Seminary’s...

Columbia College 1958

Roar Lion Roar Beyond question, my favorite day/night at Columbia was Saturday January 18, 1964. I was a member of legendary coach Jack Rohan’s first recruiting class and after playing freshmen basketball I moved up to the varsity as a...

Columbia College 1965

Scowl (A Lament, with Apologies to Allen Ginsberg) Scowl (A Lament, with Apologies to Allen Ginsberg) I. I’ve seen the best minds of my generation silenced by manufactured fear, Banalized by materialist want, marginalized by a creeping sense of anomie,...

Columbia College 1975, School of International and Public Affairs 1991

Scowl New York at its meanest - circa 1986 Infested with Goetzes, panhandlers and pricks “God Save the Winos” said the man with the stick And what did we do, journo-stars of tomorrow? Grew stubbly chins a la “Miami Vice”...

Graduate School of Journalism 1987

Seeing Snow for the First Time I was a freshman from Hawaii, and had never before left the islands. The cooler temperatures of Fall 1966 were certainly a new experience for me. But I will never forget sitting in one...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1971

Shenton’s Army Coming into Columbia as an apparent economics major, and pretty much taking all core classes my freshman year, I decided to try a history class my sophomore year. Entitled “The Radical Tradition in America,” and taught by Eric...

Columbia College 1988

Shivering at Columbia Arriving at JFK in January of my first year at Columbia, just back from the winter holidays, the flight attendant announced that it was -35 degrees with the wind chill in New York. At first, I hoped...

Columbia College 2003

Shut Up and Listen to Yourself With an MS in Clinical Therapy, many might think I have strayed from the path. With a series of Anti-Self help books (Shut Up! And Listen To Yourself, Vinnings Press), I have been called...

School of Social Work 2000

Snooze I used to love the Architecture library as it had particularly comfortable easy chairs to take a snooze in between classes, since I had an early class on Tuesdays and a huge chunk of downtime until the next one....

School of General Studies 1990

Something New for Astronomy Class My defining moment at Columbia involves neither my arrival on campus nor meeting a Barnard co-ed. In fact, I was not even on campus when it started, but home eating dinner when a reporter on...

Columbia College 1960

Sophomore Sweetheart Dance One of the dippiest things and one of the funniest things I ever heard at Columbia did not take place in a classroom. It took place at the Sophomore Sweetheart Dance. Our class had not one, but...

Columbia College 1959

Sound from the Depths of Philosophy I had come to Columbia in 1950 on a research fellowship in the Electrical Engineering Dept. My sponsor was Prof. Harvey Fletcher, who had recently retired as director of research at Bell Labs. He...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1959, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1959

Southern Californian Not Ready for Real Cold My reaction to the first cold days I experienced in Morningside Heights were a little like Dorothy’s initial response to being in Oz: “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” In fact, I...

Columbia College 1962

Spiritual Culture Shock I came to the College in the fall of 1972 as an eager music major. Having already worked as a pastoral musician (organist and choir director) in the Catholic church since the age of 12, I considered...

Graduate School of Business 1978, Columbia College 1976

Spirituality During My Years at Columbia At the ripe old age of “over 40,” I began my long term full-time graduate work at TC in 1991. That work was the culmination of a lifelong dream to attend Columbia. Early on...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1997, Teachers College 1993

Statistics…Whaaa? It had been 11 years since I graduated from college with my bachelor of science in nursing, and I was very anxious about going back to school - papers, exams, etc., not to mention the fact that I worked...

School of Public Health 1997

Staying Alive In the spring of 1965, finding myself drifting within a sophomore slump, playing pool a tad more than reading utopian theory, visiting the West End Pub almost as often as visiting my class on the poetry of Stevens...

Columbia College 1967

Staying Warm A daily endeavor in the New York winters. Layering…that was the key. Hopefully, the snow was new or maybe if I was lucky there would be no snow at all. Because if it was one of those days...

School of Dental and Oral Surgery 2004

Studying Spirituality I took a course at Barnard in 1983 called “Religious Ritual”–because I was personally interested in the subject and because I had heard of Elaine Pagels, who normally taught it. Unfortunately, she left Columbia just before the course...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1989, School of General Studies 1984

Succeeding the Focused Way When I was an undergraduate in occupational therapy, part of our classes were at the medical center and part at Teachers College. I lived on the main campus. I found that returning to college after a...

Teachers College 1967

Succinct as Could Be During freshman week we attended several lectures. The one that stayed with me and which I passed on to my children (Michele ‘86C, Benjamin ‘91C) is that of the late Harry Coleman. He said to us,...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1958

Summer in the City The celebration of graduation by law students is always just a little muted. In the back of your mind is always the dreaded bar exam. Columbia provided a fine legal education. I learned to “think like...

Graduate School of Journalism 1972, School of Law 1976

Summers spent … wisely? I spent two summers taking classes on campus: the first time, between my 2nd and 3rd years, so that I could spend the following fall in Paris and still complete my two majors; the second time,...

Columbia College 1999, School of Law 2003

Talking Back to the TV (and the Movies at the Nemo) I lived on the ninth floor of Livingston Hall in my freshman year (1958-59) and on the second floor for a few months at the start of my sophomore...

Columbia College 1962

T.E.R. Singer’s Class It was a very hot day in June, 1959. We all were seated in Butler Hall, on the top floor, waiting for the professor to arrive. There was no air conditioning, and no fan in the room....

School of Library Service 1962

Thank You Ford Hall I was ecstatic when I was accepted into the Fall 1985 class of Arts Administration students studying for MFA degrees in the School of the Arts. The only problem–no on campus housing available for students who...

School of the Arts 1988

The Anabaptist Vision One of the more momentous, though still little-known, lectures ever given at Columbia was delivered by Harold S. Bender on December 28, 1943, in the Men’s Faculty Club. The occasion was the annual meeting of the American...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1980

The Armada Defeated Garrett Mattingly was a spell-binder who could keep history graduate students on the edge of their chairs while describing a story for which we all knew the ending. When he finished the lecture, there was breathless silence...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1956

The Beauty Part For me, now celebrating the 50th reunion of the College’s class of 1956, the most beautiful site on campus was and remains the Casa Italiana in general, and its Teatro in particular. I was honored to serve...

Columbia College 1956

The Best Thing Happened to Me in FRONT of the Butler Library It was an early spring-like Saturday morning in the fall of ‘04. I was brand new to June Cross’s news reporting seminar. I had always heard stories of...

Graduate School of Journalism 2005

The Big Hedge In my freshman CC course, there was a classmate who was fond of giving lengthy answers that were somewhat amorphous and tended to cover all bets so that, in some way, his answer – or some part...

Columbia College 1966

The Dungeon Walking in the crisp fall air at Columbia, I always wondered why my computer science lab was in this underground bunker type space next to the gym. It was 1985 and anyone who took a computer science course...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1989

The Everlasting Year I arrived at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in Sept. of 1967 from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was a year of many firsts for me: my first time in New York, my first subway ride,...

Graduate School of Journalism 1967

The first day of class On the first day of classes, I sat next to a tall young man. We talked about nothing in particular waiting for our first graduate class to begin, both a little nervous about what the...

School of Social Work 1986

The Hungarian Pastry Shop At the beginning of my sophomore year at Columbia College, in 1989, I decided to study Russian. Within a week of starting my first-year Russian class, taught by a charming graduate student whose name escapes me,...

School of Law 1996, Columbia College 1992

The Invisible Student You don’t know me. I was an invisible student, one of many who worked their way through Columbia. As the lights came on in the dorms, I left for my job as usher at Radio City Music...

Columbia College 1947, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1948

The Lectures Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my beloved Columbia University. I was drawn to share my anecdote when I read the question, “What’s your favorite part of campus?” I started thinking. As a graduate...

Graduate School of Journalism 2005

The Lesson of the Wrong Train My first significant Columbia experience occurred a month or two before my freshman year began, during the summer of 1959. A family friend invited me to visit the campus and gave me directions: take...

Columbia College 1963

The Lows and Highs of Campus Beauty An urban university campus is not the first place in the world that comes to mind when I think of locations that have the capability to move the soul, but Columbia has these...

Columbia College 1990

The Misfit There I was: a nice southern girl (so I thought) at a nice green-campused southern university with a nice southern roommate, and I was miserable. Academically, I was happy, but socially - well, the year was 1974, and...

School of Nursing 1978

The Return of Mario Salvadori In 1978, all engineering freshmen were required to attend a once-a-week engineering overview lecture. The professor was Mario Salvadori, who was prompted to “un-retire” for this class. During our first class, Dr. Salvadori explained his...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1988

The Sexy Manuscripts It was back in 1957, when I was on campus taking my MS in Mechanical Engineering. I had some time between classes and decided to explore Butler Library from top to bottom. I took an elevator to...

Graduate School of Business 1967, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1958, Graduate School of Journalism 2002

The Teacher Who Changed My Life It was unlikely that I, a solidly pre-medical student from a solidly medical family (father was P&S ‘00) would be impressed by a distinguished professor of philosophy. Yet it was James Gutmann who introduced...

College of Physicians and Surgeons 1951, Columbia College 1941

Things I Wish I’d Known–Making the Most of Columbia Overall, I’ve found my Columbia education – liberal arts impracticality and all – to be invaluable. I look at a movie, a building, a worm dying on the ground and I...

Columbia College 2003

Timeless Meaning The rigors of the Core Curriculum saw to it that I read what seemed like an infinite number of pages of the collective wisdom of Western Civilization. Unfortunately, I have a far greater appreciation for that now than...

Columbia College 1993

To Thine Own Self Pay Heed If I could travel back in time to 1974 and translate my regrets into good counsel to my freshman self, I would say go ahead and be a “grub.” “Do all the problem sets...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1978

To Value Difference As an African-American male, feelings of isolation and hostility abounded during my years at the College. Misrepresentations of historical contributions of my forefathers and foremothers permeated my “classical” education and gave ongoing foundation to the insanity of...

Columbia College 1993, Teachers College 1997

Trying to Study When I was an undergrad, a lot of my mental energy, maybe too much of it, was expended in search of the perfect place to study. As an easily distracted student, I was always looking for a...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 2001, Columbia College 1998

Using Old Tradition to Create a New World Columbia’s reputed “traditional” core curriculum was one of the things that drew me to the school. Throughout Lit Hum and CC, I fully appreciated that we were engaging with texts that were...

Columbia College 2004

Warm Weather in Manhattan In Canada, where I’m from, September marks the end of summer, with days getting shorter and temperatures dropping. In November, snow starts, and it gets really dark outside. Then, in December, it gets very cold, and...

Graduate School of Business 1981

Watching X-Files With No Lights On Ah, the memories of freshman year on Carman 10. We were an eclectic group of athletes and computer geeks. East coast sophisticates and west coast bunnies. There were econ majors and philosophy minors. Future...

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 2001, Columbia College 1998

What Is Art? Thomas Roma, even though he wouldn’t know my name, was by far the best teacher that I had during my tenure at Columbia. I spent five years in the school of the Arts doing my MFA in...

School of the Arts 2000

What New York Had That Warmed Me Most I live in Ohio’s snowbelt, now. In my memory, New York, with streets on which the snow seemed to melt like magic, was warmth itself. All fall, I loved taking the bus,...

School of General Studies 2002

When Fruit Fly Genetics Only Cost a Nickel Though I could not attend the Columbia 250th Anniversary celebration, I do want to express my appreciation for all that Columbia has meant to me over the years. In 1936-7 I was...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1937

Where Am I NOw? Coming to New York City at the age of 17 from Memphis was a great challenge - one that my mother said ruined me for life - but in my opinion it made my life. I...

Columbia College 1948

Where the Heck Is It? I was the first boy in my family to go to college since my great-grandparents emigrated to this country – something that may have been true for more than a few of my classmates, I...

Columbia College 1956

Where to Hang Out I had three hangs-outs during my time at Columbia. My favorite was WKCR’s lounge, as my Barnard girlfriend did a classical music show there, and I could count on her showing up a lot of the...

Columbia College 1960

Window Stops I lived in the Schapiro residence hall the year that it first opened. It was (and I hope still is) an excellent dormitory. Perhaps the most bizarre experience of my life at Columbia was when URH had a...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1989