Memories tagged “Barnard”

A Just Education When I was a freshman I led a panty raid on Barnard. We had at least 100 guys storming the Barnard dorm in search of underwear. (What trophy could be more valuable?) In the pandemonium I hit...

Columbia College 1958

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

Back to “Seven Storey Mountain” This will be brief. Some time at Columbia (two years at Barnard), around 1944-46, I became acquainted with the writings of Thomas Merton. I read “The Seven Storey Mountain” and particularly enjoyed his recollections of...

Teachers College 1959, School of Nursing 1949

Best Library Moment Sophomore year I was living with my ex-girlfriend and my best friend, Vince, in a 3-person suite in East Campus. It was close to mid-terms, and the tension in the suite was rising as exams got closer....

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1990

Best Sporting Event at Columbia Football–Cornell at Columbia–fall 1966. My roommate was dating a Barnard student whose younger sister was attending Cornell and came down to NYC for the game. I was fixed up with her younger sister, who turned...

School of Law 1968

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

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

Dorm Life It was a warm, beautiful, late-spring day, and we were studying for finals. As I looked out of my Livingston Hall 2nd floor window, a pretty co-ed walking by caught my eye. I yelled a hello to her....

Columbia College 1958

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

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

Gospel! During the winter and spring, numerous students and parents packed Altschul Auditorium in SIPA to hear the joyous and triumphant sounds of the Barnard-Columbia Gospel Choir. Some of my fondest memories of Columbia are of directing the choir with...

Teachers College 1990, Columbia College 1989

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 First Day Commuting to Columbia My life is now a fast paced blur of events as I run though the treadmill of life with work, family, and the kids, however, first memories of Columbia are still sharp and forever...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1989

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

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

So THAT’S What Life Is About! I came to Columbia largely sheltered from the real world, with little experience other than sitting on a stoop with my friends or immersing myself in books. As a freshman, I was assigned to...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1956, Columbia College 1954

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

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

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

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