GradZone February Edition

GradZone is the central, online source for graduation-related details for you and your family. You will find details about ceremonies and events, as well as information on ordering your cap and gown, the bookstore Grad Fair, and much more.

Are you planning to Graduate?
Make sure you Apply for the Degree ASAP! Applying for the Degree ensures that your family will receive invitations to Class Day, you will be able to pick up your Commencement tickets, and your name will appear in the Class Day program. After you have completed this very important step please follow the rest of the list to make the most of your last semester. Read more

News

We need your updated information!
With graduation invitations, announcements and other information soon to be mailed, make sure your information is up to date in SSOL! Read more

What’s the difference between Class Day and Commencement anyway?
Want to know at which ceremony you get to walk across the stage? Trying to explain the difference between Class Day and Commencement to your family? Here’s the info you need. Read more

Senior Portraits and Yearbook
Did you miss out on Senior Portraits in the fall? Now is the time to make sure your picture appears in the Columbian yearbook. Senior Portraits will take place February 13th – 17th in the East Ramp Lounge. Read more

Nominate your classmates for Awards
At the end of each academic year, Student Affairs recognizes students with awards for leadership, cocurricular accomplishments, and noteworthy contributions to the Columbia community. Nominate Now Read more

He's ready for his close-up, Mr. Trebek!

The show will air at 7:00 pm on channel 7, though it was taped over a month ago. “My grandmother thinks it’s live,” Tyler admitted to us, “It’s going to blow her mind when I call her during the show!”

We asked Tyler a few questions about his appearance, though we probably should have just given him answers and let him provide the questions.

Bwog: Were you forced to wear a Columbia sweatshirt?

Tyler: Technically speaking, I guess I was “forced,” yes, but I prefer to think of it as I GOT to wear a Columbia sweatshirt. Lion pride, yes?

Did you have to purchase the sweatshirt yourself?

I got a stipend from Jeopardy! for “expenses” to purchase the sweatshirts (they make you bring 2, in case you get food, makeup, or vomit on one of them). Got ‘em at the good ol’ Columbia Bookstore. And yes, I am plugging them because I’m hoping for an endorsement deal. Sue me.

How beautiful are people on television?

I can’t speak for myself (though I must say the makeup artists were miracle workers…thanks Lisa!), but so far the Jeopardy! blogosphere (it exists!) seems to think that our pool of contestants is among the most attractive in history, as evidenced by posts like these. And of course Alex Trebek is just dreamy.

Did you have to sign an NDA about specifics of his taping?

Yes, there’s a lot of paperwork about disclosing results of shows before they air. I seem to remember signing it in blood.

Did you sign an exclusivity contract that says you can only answer trivia questions on Jeopardy!?

Part of that paperwork says that I can’t be on another game or reality show for 18 months after my Jeopardy! appearance or they’ll break my legs. So my Price is Right appearance will have to wait. But bar trivia at 1020 is still fair game.

Did you like Alex Trebek better when he had a mustache?

I must confess, I prefer a more facially hirsute Trebek…can’t you just imagine lazily running your fingers through it in some seedy L.A. motel bed? But I was lost in his eyes, so I didn’t pay too much attention to his upper lip.

How long does it take to film an episode?

I have no idea how long it takes to film a game…to me it felt like the time was flying by. But probably about forty minutes, including setup, fixing technical problems if they occur, and the commercial breaks.

How did you prepare?

Jeopardy! is really something you prepare for unconsciously your whole life…I mean, I was getting questions right based on stuff I’d seen on The Simpsons. Even the stuff I tried to “study,” like world capitals and presidents, didn’t help me at all.

The best preparation is to watch Jeopardy! like a crazy person…I burned through all the YouTube clips I could find, studied old games on Jeopardy! fansites, and of course watched each new episode on the good old-fashioned TV. That definitely paid off…I remember getting a few answers just because I had a vague feeling I’d “seen them before.”

What was the process like to get onto the show?

First, you take the online test at jeopardy.com, which is something like 50 questions. You have 8 seconds to answer each question, so Google won’t really help you. If you get a good score and you’ve got luck on your side, you’ll get a call for a live audition somewhere in this fine nation (I did mine in New York).

There, you take another 50-question written test and play a live game with buzzers. You also get to do “practice interviews” with show staff to make sure you won’t look super-awkward on television. After that, you get a nice free pen and a “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” I’d tried out once before, and this time I was fortunate enough to get the call.

Numbers-wise, thousands of people take the online test, about 300 or so get a live audition, and from that 15 people go to play in the College Championship. Clearly, luck is a HUGE factor.

What were the other contestants like? Did you make any new friendships?

All the other contestants were awesome. Here I was all worried that they were going to be a bunch of pasty, mouth-breathing nerds, but they weren’t pasty or mouth-breathing at all! We still keep in touch, and it’s been fun to watch everyone on TV. The next day there’s always some fun chatter on our Facebook group. (That’s right, we have the Facebook. Aren’t we cool.)

Would you do it again if you had the chance?

I would absolutely do it again if I had the chance. It was probably the best experience of my life (well, maybe top 5). Alas, since Jeopardy! is quite literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I’m stuck watching at home for the rest of my life, but I already have a master plan to succeed Alex Trebek as host. He has to retire someday…

Daily double! The answer is: Columbia University. What’s the question?

“Despite protests from a certain school in Ithaca, what institution is generally accepted as the only Ivy League school in New York?”

If I’ve learned anything in my three years here, you can’t go wrong bashing Cornell.

Copyright infringement via Jeopardy!

With a cherry on top

The Columbia Culinary Society is hosting its 3^rd annual Erotic Cake Competition, and they need more bakers! The competition will be held this Tuesday, the 7th of February, at 9:30 in the Satow Room. For inspiration, check out last year’s entries, and if you feel you can get up to this stimulating challenge, email culinary@columbia.edu with your team name, number of bakers, and recipe. The Culinary Society will provide basic ingredients; you will probably have to bring your own inflatable phallus.

A can't miss combo.

So tomorrow, our women’s basketball team is facing off against Harvard. In case you were planning on trying to squeeze onto those crowded bleachers for some Division I action, you can eat pizza beforehand for no money. After all, nothing goes with not playing sports like vegging out.

Here’s the deal: Deans Shollenberger and Martinez have set up this pizza party thing at 5:30 before the game. The location is TBD, because—and here’s the kicker—only 50 people can go, and it’s first come, first serve. According to CCSC President Aki Terasaki, “There will be foam fingers, pompoms, and plenty of food.” According to the Google Doc where you sign up, the “best part” is that “Dean Shollenberger and Dean Martinez will be there to make sure you’re having a great time!” (emphasis theirs)

Community—we’ve got it!

Mmm broccoli

I have a confession to make: I have never been to McBain. All I know of the place is that sophomores often get “shafted” there. I found my way to Alexandra’s relatively well-stocked double, complete with chicken cutlets, broccoli, mozzarella. It was a beautiful sight. Even with these options, the obvious vehicle was pasta, the go-to form of sustenance for the college student.

Pasta with Chicken, Broccoli, and Crème Fraiche

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• ½ lb. pasta, cooked in salted water and drained
• 2 tbsp. butter
• 2 chicken cutlets, diced
• Salt and Complete Seasoning (or pepper)
• 2 C broccoli florets
• ½ C crème fraiche
• ¼ C shredded mozzarella
• Parmesan for garnish

Directions:

1. While the pasta is cooking, heat the butter in the skillet over medium-high heat. Season the chicken cutlets with the salt and Seasoning. Toss the chicken into the skillet and sauté until cooked through, 2-3 minutes. Remove from the skillet to a plate, using a slotted spoon. Toss the broccoli into the skillet and sauté until crisp-tender, 2-3 minutes. Add the chicken back into the skillet and add the crème fraiche, making a thin sauce. Add the mozzarella to give the sauce a little body.
2. Right before the pasta is finished cooking, drain and toss with the sauce, over medium-high heat about 1 minute. The pasta will finish cooking to al dente in the hot sauce, and it will take on the flavor of the sauce.
3. Plate and garnish with the parmesan.

Cheezin' it up

Bwog: We miss you around Columbia. How does your work there compare to managing Campo?

Mike: It’s just a different dynamic. Campo is great—I’m still a partner there so I definitely still have an interest in seeing it succeed. Campo was a neighborhood restaurant near Columbia that catered toward the university as a whole—the students, faculty, sports teams came there a lot.

Campo was also a bunch of different things within the same community—a lot of people just thought it was a club, because they were only there from 1 am to 4 am, while others in the neighborhood had no idea about the nightlife going on. And my experience at Campo was so important because it allowed me to move on from this and operate at a higher level.

Bwog: How do the clienteles compare?

Mike: The clientele is definitely different – people that come to Momofuku and Má Pêche are foodies—they watch food network; they watch top chef. There are a lot of celebrities that come in.

But I still have so many connections in the Columbia community: People that used to come to Campo—some that have now graduated—come to Midtown to Momofuku. I still have a lot of friends that I made while at Campo that I’m very close to.

Bwog: Favorite dish at each?

Mike: Má Pêche: The raw bar – oysters, stuff like that. Seafood is one of our strongest items. Campo: The linguini. I’ve lost like forty pounds since I left Campo, because I’m not eating their pasta anymore!

Bwog: What attracted you to the Momofuku restaurants?

Mike: Working for Momofuku has validated for me that you can run a restaurant in a proper way and still make money. It’s about doing things with integrity. The industry notoriously takes advantage of workers, dishwashers especially. We make sure that the lowest level kitchen staff members get full medical and dental insurance, etc. And of course, it’s one of the most “covered” restaurants in the world – it’s on the forefront of food, with a lot of smart young ambitious people reaching new things.

Bwog: Really, we miss Campo parties. Do you host many events at Má Pêche? What’s the nightlife like?

Mike: There isn’t a nightlife scene at the moment. It’s in midtown, so it’s a lot more business-oriented. In the summer, though, we’ll be doing sessions with events throughout the week. It’s all up in the air still. We’re thinking of projecting movies some nights like they do at Bryant Park. We might have a DJ late-night some nights—not like we did at Campo, though.

It won’t be that crazy.

Bwog: No, Mike, it certainly won’t.

We’d like to take this moment to thank our sponsors

Bloomberg steps up after Komen for the Cure backs down on breast cancer screening. (The New York Observer)

Another type of cancer. (The Raw Story)

PrezBo would not be happy with the treatment of journalists yesterday on Capitol Hill. (Huff Po)

The economy might just be turning around. Or maybe it’s all an elaborate hoax. (New York Times)

Because ConEd has too much on their plate. (CNet News)

Sponsors via WikiMedia Commons

FALSE, everyone deserves a big spoon. And YentaBwog is here to help you find that special someone. Lovelorn single folk, we invite you to participate in our annual Personals series. Just fill out the scientifically proven questionnaire below and submit your most flattering photo to personals@bwog.com. We’ll showcase the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes on Bwog for Planet Columbia to admire. Then, interested dates can contact us, and we’ll shell out $10 for your romantic evening.

True love starts with this survey:

• Name, Year, School, Major
• Preference (guy for guy, etc.)
• Hometown
• Your dream date in seven words or less
• What redeems you as a human being?
• Myers-Briggs Personality type
• Ref room or 209
• Guilty pleasure song
• Late night food stop
• Historical Hottie

If you wake up looking like this, you did it right

Every week, CBA continues on their quest to mess you up. Upset about this morning’s spotted shadow? Matt Kalish is here to help you forget all about it…

Happy Groundhog Day, Columbia! Most of the notable groundhogs who emerged this morning, including Staten Island Chuck, told us what we could have told them weeks ago: Spring has arrived early. Punxsutawney Phil, on the other hand, seems to have been living in a hole for the past month (badum-ching). While Hollywood in recent years has destroyed the holidays of Valentines Day and New Years Eve, Groundhog Day sits alongside Independence Day as an excellent holiday movie. We’ve all had our share of bad days, but only Bill Murray had to relive his 38 times. If he had just made this drink…

Mind Eraser

2 oz. Vodka
2 oz. Kahlua
1 oz. Tonic Water, Sprite, or club soda

Pour the Vodka and Kahlua over ice in a lowball glass, then add the tonic. Drink with a straw from the bottom of the glass. The last ingredient is entirely personal preference — I’ve seen it made all 3 ways. Each leaves a slightly different aftertaste so try them all and see what works for you. This can also be served with smaller portions as a shot.

If you’re not sure if you made it right, wake up tomorrow and turn on your clock radio. If it’s February 2nd and “I Got You, Babe” is playing, the drink was perfect.

Dapper Bill Murray via Wikimedia Commons

Bwog: What major changes have happened with the transition to Il Cibreo?

Scott: It’s the same ownership, same sous-chef, but I’d say it’s a little more family-oriented. We’re doing a lot more with Columbia, a lot more parties; we’re trying to donate as much as possible. We’ve been trying to put ads in fliers and whatnot when groups are doing shows.

As you may know, Columbia students affectionately refer to your restaurant as “the new Campo” — we remember it as the popular going-out spot of our early college days. Is it true that “Campo is back”?

It’s not as much the late-night crowd. Late night parties were getting out of control. We’re doing them now, but more subdued, tasteful. We’re doing karaoke on Wednesdays now, and a lot of private parties as well — weddings, bridals showers, christenings. We’re not packing 400 people in the door anymore. We want it to be a fun environment but a safe environment.

What kind of events can we look forward to?

A lot of the groups we’re collaborating with are from the Columbia community. We have a carnival on February 24 – a Brazilian dance party.

Anything else?

Super Bowl Sunday is right around the corner, and so is Valentine’s Day.

…Don’t remind us.

Feeling strangely sleepy...

On Monday, the scintillatingly entitled talk Opium Trade in Afghanistan: Implications for Human Rights, Security and Public Health was held in IAB 501. Bwog’s resident lotus-eater Clava Brodsky couldn’t help but delay her return to her suite and stop by.

“Let’s face it, we’re not going to turn Kabul, Afghanistan into Des Moines, Iowa.” –Colonel Louis H. Jordan, Jr

What do an Absolute bagel and the Helmand Province in Afghanistan have in common? Poppy seeds. What do Des Moines, Iowa and Kabul, Afghanistan have in common? Very little, according to Colonel Louis H. Jordan Jr, a speaker at the panel on Monday.

The implications, it turns out, are bleak. But as optimism is the opiate of Americans, the panelists focused much of their discussions on hopeful alternatives and solutions.

Jake Sherman, Deputy Director of Programs at NYU’s Center of International Cooperation, spoke of poppy eradication. He warned that eradication of poppy fields creates more problems than it solves and argued that NATO forces and the Afghan government should focus instead on traffickers—their coercion should target the higher levels of the “value chain.” He supported the alternative crop program, where US military leaders provide incentives for Afghan farmers to plant roses (nice to sniff?), saffron, pomegranates and other poppy alternatives. Colonel Jordan, the Deputy Director of the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, also supported this program, but pointed out that it takes a long time for these crops to produce a yield.

Don Duncan, a freelance journalist, focused on another aspect of the opium/heroin trade—the HIV epidemic. With over 120,000 heroin users, many of whom inject it, Afghanistan is facing an HIV epidemic. Duncan pointed to the methadone clinics that Doctors Without Borders has established as one successful method of battling heroin addiction and the HIV crisis.

According to these speakers, the situation in Afghanistan almost sounded hopeful –– challenging, to be sure, but not desperate. Colonel Jordan made an interesting point that I think implicitly conceded a certain degree of pessimism. He stated that Afghanistan has its own police tradition, in which the police protect the governor and not the people. He denoted this as Afghan culture, as opposed to corruption. On the one hand, America is a superpower Don Quixote, righting the world’s wrongs; and on the other, America’s woefully relativistic. If we’re allowing corruption to fly under the banner of culture, how optimistic should we really be about Afghanistan?

Dorothy’s downfall via Wikimedia Commons

Cheater, cheater, pumpkin-eater.

Two days ago, we took you to that bright, airy temple of the mind, the Reference Room. We talked about the place where you put your butt. Bwog’s CC professor said that Plato is OK with sitting, so long as you’re thinking, so tonight we’re headed to another thinking-place, Milbank.

If you’re sitting in Milbank Hall, there’s a significant chance you’re in a Psych class. And if you’re in a Psych class, there’s a large chance it started at 9:10. And, if it started at 9:10, there’s an even larger chance that you were late.

Given this scenario, you have likely burst open the door to a room with a wide abyss and a lecturing professor at the front, and a sea of students packed so tightly together in those damn crowded desks that you cannot see the chairs they sit on. You stand, paralyzed, in front of the door as you scan the room for an open, accessible desk.

Cued by the exasperated sigh of a professor, a real-life game of Rush Hour begins; given the limited area provided by the Milbank desk, chairs must be shifted to create an aisle where there isn’t one, so you can get to the seat in the third row in the middle that was just too far for anybody else to navigate this labyrinth for. Though only a third of the desks are filled, all students are seated in the first three rows, such that you have to leap over backpacks, juke around grande coffees and lift your backpack over your head to avoid other people’s heads. Once you reached your seat, you placed your backpack on top of the radiator (because why would there be room on the floor?) and contort your body such that you aren’t sitting in your neighbor’s desk.

Now you are finally settled in your chair. As you sit through class, you observe the scrawlings on your desk as a means of entertainment, but stop when the only thing that reminds you that you are not in high school is the inscription ΣΝ. And when your mind returns to college, you become aware of the sound in your left ear. It is a pigeon, that is seated under the radiator next to your desk that has the pleasing effect of amplifying the pigeon’s cooing directly into your ear. Quickly the cooing becomes rhythmic, and blends into your professor’s voice. As you struggle to fit your normal-sized notebook on the abnormally-tiny surface of your desk, you give up trying to take notes. Before you know it the entire room rises from their chairs—some more gracefully than others—and begins to shuffle around to find the most direct path to the door. You remain seated—you won’t be out for another ten minutes.

Milbank desk chairs: 3.5/10 for the chair, 4/10 for my new friend, the pigeon.

Not THAT type of agent...

On Tuesday night in the Barnard Hall James Room, Barnard Career Development hosted a panel with figures from the entertainment industry hosted by UTA Co-head of the Television Talent Department Nancy Mendelson Gates. Dodge Cafe King and Queen Bijan Samareh and Alexandra Svokos were there.

When it comes to centering your career plan around making it in Hollywood, William Goldman’s famous epigram that “nobody know anything” can be a bit daunting. While the nature of climbing the ranks in entertainment is far more arbitrary than say following the course it takes to become a doctor or an engineer, certain principles do exist that can push one in the right direction. These principles are exactly what Tuesday night’s Careers in Entertainment panel wished to discuss.

Organized in Barnard Hall by Barnard Career Development, the panel consisted of NYC-based talent agents, a PR manager, and an entertainment lawyer. Nancy Mendelson Gates (Barnard ’89), kicked off the discussion relaying how career with the United Talent Agency as Co-head of the Television Talent Department wasn’t always fated. After graduating college, she received at MBA from UT Austin and worked with non-profits in NYC. Deciding that such work didn’t suit her, she moved to LA in 1996 and climbed the ranks at UTA as one of their fasted promoted agents. Her life journey was echoed in her sentiments to the audience, as she repeatedly discussed how it is okay for college students to be uncertain as to what they want to do in the future.

Hailing from a different side of the industry, Ira Schreck (Columbia Law ’80) took Gates’ sentiments a step further. Before working for Columbia Pictures as an entertainment lawyer and going on to start a boutique entertainment Law firm in LA, he worked all over the place. From a job at a casino in Reno to working as a cabbie in New York, he reminisced on his adventures as some of the best years of his life. A period of such personal discovery gave him the life experience to one day represent playwright Tony Kushner (Columbia ’78, Class Day Speaker ’04), the oft-spotted Sarah Jessica Parker, and other big names in entertainment. His desire to defend artists arose from his dissatisfaction representing big businesses, which he found too impersonal.

The panelist that hit home the hardest was Melissa Wells (Columbia ’06)— a Motion Picture Literary Agent at UTA who once produced the Varsity Show and majored in Film Studies (5th floor Dodge, woot woot). While working a babysitting job as a freshman, she discovered that her employer was the master of rom com, Marc Lawrence. He wrote and directed Two Weeks Notice, Miss Congeniality, and Music and Lyrics. She milked this opportunity for all it was worth, and started working as his assistant junior year. This eventually led to them founding their own production company. She encouraged students to stay close with their friends who also want to work in the industry, as her current friends and collaborators are the same people she ate omelets with at John Jay..

Among the other panelists were Stephen Gates (Head of Literary Department at Evolution Entertainment) and Cari Ross (President of Balance Public Relations), who echoed similar sentiments. Amidst the Q&A, they also stressed how important craft development is— writers must write every day, actors must always be acting, etc. The drove home how that if you want to do work in entertainment, you have to work anywhere you can, even if it’s a movie made on an aspiring director’s iPhone. The panelists also stressed that if you want to work on the representative side and get a job in the industry, you need be the best you can at it to get recognized for your hard work. People will remember the effort you put in and it’s not unlikely for “the best coffee-getter” to be promoted.

The evening was very enjoyable and informative. Gates gave a disclaimer that no soliciting or resume submissions would be allowed, much to the chagrin of eager attendees. It would have also been nice if they added a few panelist who are involved in the creative side rather than just talent representatives working on the business side. I’m sure many who attended would have enjoyed speaking with an actual Hollywood actor or screenwriter to learn how they got an agent and worked deals. Nonetheless, it was nice leaving the event “knowing some things”.

Dedicated fan collection via Wikimedia Commons