In CC taking UW in IAB after NSOP and COBOP? NP! Alright freshpeople, we know you’ve just been thrust into a world where 3/4 of the rest of the population seems to speak in just letters. Here’s a quick little guide to campus acronyms and initialisms we’ve put together to help you out:

The Schools

• CC – Columbia College. Columbia’s largest undergraduate school famed for its Core Curriculum.
• SEAS – School of Engineering and Applied Science. Note the lack of an “s” at the end of “Science” and realize that if you ever call it “Fu” or “Fu Foundation,” your friends will never let you live it down.
• GS – General Studies. Common abbreviation for the School of General Studies, Columbia’s undergraduate school for “nontraditional” students.
• BC – Barnard College. The all-women’s college across Broadway from Columbia’s main campus.
• TC – Teacher’s College. North of the main campus. They train teachers.
• JTS/UTS – Jewish Theological Seminary/Union Theological Seminary. These are not the same, even though both are theological schools affiliated with Columbia.
• SoA – School of the Arts. Offers the MFA degree and more importantly, James Franco.
• SIPA – School of International and Public Affairs.
• GSAS – Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
• GSAPP – Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
• CUSSW- Columbia University School of Social Work

The Government
(Check out our Guide to Student Government for a more in-depth explanation of these groups and other student gov’ goodness)

• CCSC – Columbia College Student Council. Represents CC (let’s see how fast you learn) students.
• ESC – Engineering Student Council. Represents SEAS students.
• SGA – Student Government Association. Represents Barnard students.
• GSSC – General Students Student Council. Represents GS students.

The Bureaucracy and more after the jump.

A profile of GS student John McClelland II, who was an Army medic in Afghanistan and Iraq, in Warrior Forge. He says that he’s working on his first novel, The War in Glorious Technicolor.

Reason 10,343 to be happy you don’t go to NYU: the Times takes a look at college life in the city, you know, the downtown-city, where you never (!) run into anyone.

A hecka long profile of James Franco in NYMag this week. Prepare to vom all over your keyboard!

Victor Suarez, CC’11 and Laura LaPerche, CC’10, shot a feature film in New York, Chicago and Las Vegas called “As Luck.” It will be released in Bangladesh next year. Congratulations, dudes! Watch scenes from the movie:

“As Luck” (t2i & 5D) from Victor Suarez on Vimeo.

And sayonara to this dee-bag, too. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Farewell:

Bored@Butler (at least for now)

The Russian spies

“Tension in your buttocks”

Hours of studying for your second semester Lit Hum final, 2014!

The records for $109 million of the Columbia Medical Center’s funds

Notable Columbia alumni Robert Butler (Pulitzer-winning psychiatrist) and Bob Sheppard (beloved Yankees announcer)

Hello:

NYC Restaurant Week

The first person to consider Kitchenette “cheap” also co-owns Aquavit

Josh Lipsky’s (former Dems president) very public engagement

A McKim, Mead & White expose (well, in October)

A new seminar: How To Behave At A Paris Review Party (Franco alert!)

Gulati, PrezBill and Landon in happier times. Photo via ohnotheydidnt

That means “a motley assortment of things.” Seatbelts, everyone!

Gulati says the U.S team was “capable of more” in the World Cup.

Columbia is a partner in a jargon-y, confusing government project called the “NYC Media Lab.”

Breaking: James Franco is self-important. He is also an artist.

Joseph Stiglitz makes $109,919 a year is the highest paid B-school professor in the country.

A look at how Columbia B School has changed (by not really changing!) post-crash.

CC alum create the Salsabol, which provides a new and revolutionary way to scoop salsa.

Procrastination o’clock? Watch this footage of Columbia going crazy in 1969 1968, even though it says 1969 for some reason.

One of the greatest perks of an Ivy League education is having all sorts of guest lecturers and talks hosted right on campus. Yet many of these great talks are not publicized enough. Enter Bucket List, a weekly feature that aggregates these events in a single location that will hopefully make you realize, like Bwog has, how special our campus is. Our recommendations for this week are below; the full list is after the jump. Dig around, who knows what you’ll find!

• April 12: “Global Thought: A New (dis)Order?: The Promise and Pitfalls of Financial Market Reform,” “Covering Conflict,” “Black-Arab Solidarity, A Discussion on Coalition Building,” “Asian Americans in Media,” “The Great Debate”
• April 13: “Activists who Yearn for Art that Transforms,” “Woman’s Political Representation Around the World,” “Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?”
• April 14: “The Invisible Weight of Whiteness,” “Free Speech in a Globalized World,” “Moving Towards Utopia: What Kind of City Lies Ahead?”
• April 15: “Obama, King, Ralph Ellison, and the American Dream,” “The Veritas Forum: After the Headlines: Remaining Engaged in Haiti,” “Company,” “LateNite: Spring 2010 Anthology,” “Take Back the Night: March and Speakout”
• April 16: “Presentations on the Figure of the Intellectual in Both Colonial and Post-Colonial Francophone Societies”
• April 17: “CUFP Film Festival 2010,” “Mahavir Jayanti Dinner,” “Bach Society Spring Concert”

Read more…

James Franco: current Columbian, NYUer… and future Yalie? (Yale Daily News)

Mystery surrounds an early morning stabbing on the 2 train. (NYT)

Is CUNY full of the city’s ignominious? (NYP)

Will pulling up your pants help fight crack? (Gothamist)

Still not much is known about the future of GSAPP associate professor Lionel McIntyre. (Spec)

Update: There’s a police investigation at the 116th Station, and Manhattan-bound 1 trains are running express from 137th Street to 96th Street. Updates to follow.

Sexiness via Wikimedia Commons

If Valentine’s Day is slipping away and you’re starting to fret about not being with your crush, well, fret no longer! Following its successful stint at the College of William and Mary, GoodCrush.com (formerly the CrushFinder) has expanded and hit Columbia/Barnard and wants YOU to sign up and start crushin’!

According to Josh Weinstein, Princeton ’09, who started the site in 2007 to be a “Valentine’s Day student government intiative,” the site has a number of special capacities, including room for making, browsing, and crushing profiles; alerts for missed connections; and a new “periodic crushing” feature. In many ways it’s the same as LoveatCU, though Weinstein notes that periodic crushing does not factor as centrally on LoveatCU as on GoodCrush. He also expresses (feigns?) surprise at the Columbia-as-a-sex-free-zone stereotype, sharing that “[the website] is designed to help and I hope it does.

Weinstein singles out specific students – those “sitting in Butler or a class exchanging glances with another across the room,” for instance – as those who would benefit most from regular use of GoodCrush. However, given that most crushes and sideward glances at Butler in recent memory have been directed towards James Franco, Bwog remains skeptical.

The snowstorm blanketing much of the Mid-Atlantic kept a lot of your high school friends from flying home this weekend. (Times)

The Parks Department officially invites you to go sledding in city parks; unfortunately, they will not be officially providing post-sledding hot chocolate with marshmallows. (Gothamist)

While hosting last night’s episode SNL, James Franco french-kissed a few men during a sketch. Sadly, that’s enough for a news story. (Daily News)

In the wide world of sports, the Dallas Cowboys defeated the New Orleans Saints 24-17, ending their chances for an undefeated season, and in soccer, Fulham beat Manchester United 3-0. (Times and Guardian)

- Photo by HEH

Underperforming public schools—Bloomberg’s on the case.

Natural History Museums that don’t grant PhDs in comparative biology—but Manhattan doesn’t have one of those anymore.

Anything involving the New Jersey Nets—literally, anything.

Being Hofstra and having a football team… wait, really?

Drinking your alcohol.

UPDATE: A commenter has notified us of a Columbia-related news item – James Franco defends the artistic value of his upcoming performance in General Hospital.  At least someone’s been productive in Butler 209.

In the latest edition of Bwog’s profiles of Columbia’s unsung heroes, B&W/Bwog contributor and professional Butler denizen Brian Donahoe sat down and got to know Raj Ramachandran, the altruistic man of Butler Café.

It was a rainy mid-July afternoon when I first met Raj Ramachandran. My roommate had just met someone on the internet and invited her to move in; I was switching rooms. I was pushing an overstuffed blue bin down 114^th when, out of nowhere, Raj, still in his Butler Café uniform, tapped me on the shoulder and took charge. Just off work and with his wife waiting in the car, Raj got my boxes up the Broadway/Hogan front entry steps in five minutes, then shook my hand and left.

When’s he’s not saving the day, Raj mans Butler Café. He’s been working in Columbia Housing & Dining now for 6 years, originally in the School of Social Works before switching to Butler full-time. Over the years he’s reached the conclusion that “99.999% of the time, Columbia students are the best.” Raj does, however, find it amusing when “kids paying $50,000 for school argue over the price of muffins.”

Read more…