Memories tagged “Relationships”

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

1980 My brother Ted also went to Columbia, and though he is an education major, he really loves music. He was the producer of the coffee house at St. Paul’s Chapel. I went there with boyfriends, family, and friends to...

Program in Physical Therapy 1982

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 Texan’s First Winter at Columbia My first winter at Columbia was a big shock to my system. I was a Freshman all the way from Texas, and had absolutely no idea what I was in for. I was a...

Columbia College 2004

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

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

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

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

As La Rosita Goes, So Goes Morningside Heights I arrived on Manhattan’s Morningside Heights 27 years ago, a Baltimore suburbanite with little experience of urban living. I immediately fell in love with the place, embracing its grunginess with much enthusiasm....

Columbia College 1983

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

Beauty on Campus I was on campus from Aug 1986-May 1990. I spent most of time on the steps overlooking the beautiful quad. Every day (weather permitting) for four years, I’d spend multiple hours on the steps just to the...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1990

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 Sports Event I Saw In the spring of my sophomore year, 1988, I asked the Office of Sports Information how to try out for the position of Lion mascot. The answer was “You got the job!” The lion suit...

Columbia College 1990

Big Time Football I chose the Columbia Business School (in 1975) for my MBA program in part because it was a long way from the midwest, where I’d spent my life up till then. One of my friends in the...

Graduate School of Business 1977

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

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

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

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

Commencement Beer Run One of my favorite memories of Columbia was Commencement Day, when friends and I brought several bottles of bubbly, both beer and wine, to the ceremonies. It was a hot and sunny day, and, as Kofi Annan’s...

Columbia College 1998

“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

Dormitories then, apartments now Furnald, in the early 1960’s, had the wood panelling, the fireplace, the overstuffed lounge chairs, and the red brick elegance of McKim, Mead, and White, along with a view of resident comfort which is absolutely stark...

Columbia College 1966

Eggs and Sausage During the middle 70s, the Morningside Heights neighborhood, especially Broadway, was just beginning to change. A College student with meager resources still had a number of choices of fine, inexpensive places to eat and drink. The College...

Columbia College 1977

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

Facilities Manager I spent my first and only summer on campus after completing my freshman year. I had decided not to return to Cleveland, so as to avoid working in the mall or at a restaurant waiting tables. Of course,...

Columbia College 1998

Faith in studying I identify as Protestant and was very happy to find an event entitled GradPraise during my first week at Columbia. GradPraise turned out to be a meeting that occurred each semester and involved students from all of...

School of Social Work 2002

Finding Columbia University In Bulgaria It is strange how going to an art museum in Sofia, Bulgaria makes one think of Columbia’s Henry Krumb School of Mines…. I have been coming to Bulgaria for almost 20 years. The late Prof....

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1973

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

Forging Friendships on the Road to Columbia Being a part-time graduate student from the business community in New Jersey, my Columbia “social life” consisted of long, afternoon commutes into the city and somewhat shorter drives back home. The many hours...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1987

Frank: Learning to Love “Frank” was the grumpiest old man I’d ever met. He was a pillar of the church at Broadway Presbyterian down on 114th St, and his face often reflected it: a perpetual frown carved in stone. He...

College of Physicians and Surgeons 1974

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

Freshman Year 1968 We formed a terrific group of friends in Hartley Hall in 1968, a time when we slept on bunk beds, doors had to be open when a girl was in the room, and the hallway floors were...

Columbia College 1972, Graduate School of Business 1976

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

Furnald Fun Who doesn’t have a story about the dorms? I remember trekking up all those flights of stairs in my Columbia boxers to move into Carman 13, the band that practiced down the hall and only seemed to know...

Columbia College 1995

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

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

Great Football Game My father and family went to every football game for years and years. A very good friend of Lou Little, my dad was swimming coach at Columbia. Dad never sat in his seats on the 50-yard line...

Columbia College 1948

“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 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 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

Invitation I am now teaching fourth grade! Would love to hear from any friends.

Graduate School of Business 1987

Jet Lagged When I first arrived in Paris, I was tired from my long trip from New York to Reykjavik to Luxembourg, then a train ride to the Gare du Nord. At Reid Hall I was told I couldn’t check...

School of General Studies 1975

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

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

Laetitia et Pulchritudo In the fall semester of my sophomore year, I was quite adrift, with little or no sense of what I was doing at Columbia. I had done very poorly in my freshman year and was amazed that...

Columbia College 1965

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

Livingston Hall Freshman year I opted for the cheapest room I could find, which as I recall was $190/semester. It was a double with bunk beds in Livingston Hall. At left is a picture of the room with my roommate....

College of Physicians and Surgeons 1973, Columbia College 1969

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

Love Letter to Alma Mater Columbia is indeed a special place. Every time I walk across College Walk, a feeling of family comes across my heart and a sense of opportunity comes to mind. I first set foot on 116th...

School of Law 1990

Lunch Date The day I’d like to relive is the day I had lunch with my wife on the top floor of Hamilton Hall. I was in my third year of law school. We were newlyweds, having married at the...

School of Law 1998

Meeting My Wife I met my wife-to-be at a Newman Club mixer in 1957, two weeks after I got out of the Army. In those days, the Newman Club was nominally Catholic; but their beer blasts were legendary and were...

Graduate School of Business 1959

Meeting the President’s Wife I arrived on campus in the fall of 1952 as a scholarship student. I waited on tables at Johnson Hall for meals and took extra jobs for income. One of my first jobs was to wait...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1957, Graduate School of Business 1970, Columbia College 1956

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 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

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 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

Nu? Hall In those glorious days of yesteryear when New Hall was unfinanced and therefore unnamed, women were prohibited from the dorm. Surprisingly, this even applied to Vassar women, as I discovered one rainy day when I smuggled such contraband...

Columbia College 1964

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

Onondaga in June June of 1988 saw the Freshman Heavyweight Crew wrap up an extremely long season that included fall racing in Boston and New York, January work in Tampa Bay, Spring Break in New York City, and daily practices...

Columbia College 1988

Owl Hunting I have the fondest memory of orientation week, thanks to the Columbia Spectator. Some of my new friends (who after a week of pre-orientation in the Catskill Mountains felt like old friends) were enjoying a warm early autumn...

Columbia College 1999

Pains and Pleasures of Dorm Life It was painfully obvious from the first day that I met my first-year roommate that we were different. She had a shaved head, had piercings and tatoos all over, and drank out of a...

Barnard College 1998, School of Public Health 2002

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

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

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

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

Relaxing on Sunday Mornings My favorite place to relax at Columbia was on Low steps. My wife (she is now anyway), Rebecca (‘93) and I would go to Columbia Bagels on Sunday mornings and ask “What’s hot?” The employees would...

Columbia College 1993

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

September 12, 2001 I was in my apartment, one block from Ground Zero, when two planes destroyed my neighborhood. My husband and I (who, incidentally, had gotten married in Columbia’s Chapel) walked uptown seven miles to his mother’s house. The...

School of the Arts 2001

Serendipity “Perhaps this is old news but I heard the West End was at last closed down. V&T’s is still around, I hope? And what of the Hungarian Pastry shop next to it?” I received this question through an alumni...

Columbia College 2004

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

Show Time My strangest and possibly my fondest memory in the Columbia library took place late one night during the cold month of February. I was studying in the large room in the back for my orgo test the following...

Columbia College 2005

SILENCE & LIGHT I remember two experiences which happened before, and after my graduation at Columbia. Although both were secular events I remember them as profound and at least for me religious experiences. The first experience was an individual one....

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 1993

Ski Jump on Low Steps After a once-in-a-decade snowstorm in the heart of New York, my teammates and I decided (brilliantly, I might add) to venture with our ski gear out to the Low library steps. After all, we weren’t...

Columbia College 2003

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

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

Summer Vacations at Columbia During my one and only summer vacation at Columbia (I only attended graduate school at Columbia), I took an internship working with the Central Park Conservancy. The internship involved cleaning, patinating, and waxing all of the...

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 2000

Sunday mornings at Columbia Chapel An Episcopalian friend of mine, whom I had already known as an undergraduate at Ohio State and who was getting her masters in English Lit at Columbia, sang in the choir of the Columbia Chapel....

School of Library Service 1957

Support in the Big City When I arrived at Columbia I was a 20 year old from a dairy farm in Western Pennsylvania. The Lutheran student organization provided me with friends with interests apart from the medical center. It also...

School of Nursing 1970

Support Sticks After Graduation When my play (which was actually my writing/directing thesis at Columbia in 2002) was being produced in the Upper West Side, Liz Gill Neilson, my college roommate in Watt, invited me to be her roommate once...

Columbia College 2002

Taps Columbia was probably more interesting than other university campuses musically not just because it was in the middle of a thriving musical marketplace but because musical things happened so serendipitously and had such unexpectedly pleasant consequences. As a freshman,...

Columbia College 1967

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 City of Cats, Crescents, and Cigarettes: Studying Abroad in Cairo in the Fall of 2001 My study abroad experience in the Middle East can be divided into three phases: The “Wow - look at the pyramids!” phase; the “HolyShitSomoneCrashedAirplanesIntotheWorldTradeCenterandPentagon!”...

Columbia College 2003

The Columbia Riots of 1968 In the fall of 1967 I entered the School of General Studies, following a three-year stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolivia. I won’t say that the spring of 1968 was my happiest time...

School of General Studies 1974, School of Library Service 1976

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 Frightening City Turns Out to Be Friendly I will never forget the first day I arrived at Columbia. I had just flown in from the West Coast and had managed to traverse the airport and shove all of my...

Barnard College 1995

The Hogan Life I was studying in Russia when I got the news that I and my friends had managed to snatch a suite in Hogan Hall. Ah Hogan, the King of Dorms and lucky Seniors’ pride! My own room...

Columbia College 2002

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 Ike and I As a student at The College of Pharmacy (68th St. and Broadway), I was in my sophomore year. We had to go to Pupin Hall on the campus for physics. During a lab period, we were...

College of Pharmaceutical Sciences 1952

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 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 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 Pub Relaxing in the basement of John Jay in the Pub was a frequent activity. Of course, back then, the Pub was a real pub. When another graduate and I recently visited campus, how things have evolved – having...

Graduate School of Business 1978

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

The Thrill (and Agony) of Winter at Columbia As a member of the Women’s Swim Team at Columbia from 1983-1987, I vividly recall both the thrill and agony of the arrival of wind, snow and ice on the CU campus....

Columbia College 1987

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

Tom’s I was a graduate student from a much smaller city–and Morningside Heights was not then, 1971, what it is now! Tom’s was not the facade for the fabulous Seinfeld episodes. It was rather disgusting–in terms of the ambience–and as...

School of Social Work 1977

Use What You Can Find I was living in an off-campus apartment on East 95th Street, and it wasn’t well heated - or so I thought. Actually, it was par for the course in NYC. I looked at the radiators...

School of General Studies 1975

Wein Hall As a member of the women’s basketball team, I was required to stay on campus during Christmas Break. During my sophomore year, I lived in Wein in a single with my best friend across the hall. Campus was...

Columbia College 1995

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 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