Name, school: Kabita Parajuli, CC

Claim to fame: I specialize in not specializing. (TBTN, AYP, peer counseling, potluck and its many seductions, some NSOP, gorilla art my sophomore year. And of course, Imbiena)

Where are you going: Wherever my slowly un-muddling heart takes me.

Three things you learned at Columbia:

  1. Not to take it too personally.
  2. There is such a thing as doing too much. It’s not the event that matters as much as the process…
  3. If you want something—even if you just think you might want it—you have to ask for it. Then you have to keep asking until you’re satisfied

Justify your existence in 30 words or less: The consent snowbeing. Also, I’ll remember your face and say ‘hi!’ long after you’ve forgotten why I know you.

Any war stories from the War on Fun? The most epic involved our house being severely chastised, threatened of being shut down, then put on probation. Various vagrants had to go to housing in tears in order to have Artluck.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? Everyone’s been saying cheese, which I get, but on principle: most binaries are false. I’m sure there’s a third way.

Any advice for the Class of 2014?

  1. You don’t know how much you don’t know.
  2. Find what you love, study it, and do it. Also, talk to your friends about what you’re doing and writing—my favourite paper was born out of a multi-hour conversation with an alum in Butcafe.
  3. Go to Potluck, with food, then first Friday.
  4. Columbia has almost everything you want. The money, the books, the people who believe in you, the secret nooks—they’re all there, but you have to find them. (Especially the books. They’re all there, on ILL, borrow direct, or offsite.)

Any regrets? Plenty! Not having done COÖP/CUE, not going to enough office hours for classes I loved, not having been in any performances here. But there is life yet to live!