Memories tagged “Personal growth”

Abroad in Kenya The early 90s were somewhat charged with cross-cultural issues, accentuated by the Audubon Ballroom construction plans. I had decided a year before, as a wise fool, that I would take the rural south head-on through Teach for...

Columbia College 1994

Advice to My Columbia-Bound Self Reconsider the nose ring. You’ll like it for a few years, but in the end your mother will be proven right. Break up with him. He’s a nice boy, but you two have practically nothing...

Columbia College 1999

Advice to Myself To an entering freshman who did not grow up in New York City, I would strongly advise him/her to set aside one evening a week and one Saturday or Sunday a month to explore Manhattan. A Sunday...

Columbia College 1954

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

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 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

Freshman Dorm Life Lessons My religious experience at Columbia began from my first day moving in to John Jay hall as a Freshman, where I lived adjacent to an Orthodox Jewish student, a Muslim, a Buddhist and an atheist! I...

Columbia College 1989

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

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

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

Meaning of Commencement Before Columbia, graduation ceremonies were meaningless exercises. In elementary and high schools, everyone who kept their warm bodies in their seats for the required time was guaranteed a spot at the commencement party. So I questioned the...

Columbia College 1979

Painting a Picture Is the First Step I was entering the second year of the Master’s program at SIPA when my life was suddenly changed - once and forever. During the summer, my internship brought me to Africa. Sitting in...

School of International and Public Affairs 2003

Planning a Life In 1956, Joni, my recently-departed beloved, and I began planning our life late at night on the steps of Low Memorial Library. From time to time we would stay late enough to get nudged by security. Later,...

Columbia College 1960, Graduate School of Business 1992, School of Public Health 1993

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

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

Unusual Memory of the Columbia Library Fresh out of West Virginia for the first time in my life, I was a twenty-two year old library school student at the School of Library Service, Columbia University, in the winter of 1945-46....

School of Library Service 1947

Wien Hall, Tacos, and a Toilet: One Year in the 11th-floor Janitor’s Closet 86 square feet. There is really no way to understand the true meaning of the size without spending a year in my sophmore-year dorm room. During the...

Columbia College 2002