Brian Wagner

Little-known fact: contrary to popular belief, Bwog does not stand for the Blue and White Blog, but for Brian Wagner, Original Gangster. Our second former Bwogger to share his wisdom: Brian Wagner, previous managing editor, gchat hero, and 95% of the reason Bwog did not crash on a daily basis for a year. Thanks, Brian.

Name, Hometown, School: Brian Wagner; Park Ridge, Illinois; SEAS (which surprises a lot of people for some reason)

Claim to fame: I used to write and edit things that (hopefully most of you) read. Once I did a really good job of describing the average Columbia student.

Where are you going? For now, Los Angeles to put computers in spaceships. Or robots or something. Later, who knows? I don’t like the idea of staying in one place for long.

Three things you learned at Columbia:

• 1. When you disagree with people, it’s easy to mistake your argument with their idea for an argument with their character. Once you stop doing that, it’ll make your conversations actually productive. And I’ve yet to meet someone with whom I’ve disagreed that I haven’t enjoyed grabbing a beer with.
• 2. Don’t fear failure. In order to achieve anything worthwhile, you’re going to have to step out of your comfort zone and take risks. It’s okay if things don’t end well (and believe me, sometimes they don’t), because that’s how you learn. I failed a class while I was here and it taught me more about myself and the world than practically everything else. Try not to fail any classes though, cause that sucks.
• 3. The reason you’re here is likely because back in high school, you were the best. Now you’re not (probably). But that’s okay, because now you’re surrounded by literally hundreds of people who are just as smart, talented, caring, and incredible as you are. And once you learn to accept that you don’t have to be the greatest anymore, you can ditch that competitive attitude and start forming real relationships with your peers. Do it—they, morso than anything else—are the best resource Columbia has to offer, and don’t be afraid to ask your friends for help when you need it.
• 3.1. Don’t put two spaces after a period. Just don’t.

Back in my day…NSOP meant frat parties, study breaks meant J.J.’s place; NoCo wasn’t finished yet; Bwog looked bluer; EC lounges reminded me of parties and not studying; and everyone else looked older than me.

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David Hu

And now for the first of our very own graduating seniors: David Hu, former Bwog managing editor, who does some ambiguous, then not so ambiguous, admiring.

Name, Hometown, School: David Hu, Virginia Beach, SEAS

Claim to fame? Managing Editor of this Bwog thing for a year. I might have helped you draw on Low or write on Butler at some point (these don’t work that well anymore :( ). Made a few websites here and there too. Somebody once said my Gchat statuses were funny.

Where are you going? So many places! The next two months will be a blur between San Francisco, Europe, and China before I settle down in the Lower East Side and start working for Foursquare.

3 things you learned at Columbia:

• 1. The #1 most valuable thing in life is time. The #2 most valuable thing is time with friends, and #3 is time to yourself. Some people may argue swapping #2 and #3 (and I’m sometimes guilty of it myself), but don’t let that get to you.
• 2. People matter. You’ll like classes because of your professors, not the content. You’ll enjoy events because of the people around you, not the thing itself. You’ll get job leads because of your network, not your cover letter. I wish the last one weren’t as true as it is.
• 3. If you pretend to be confident, you’ll actually be confident. No one will know the wiser.
• 3.5. Don’t break rules. Bend them.

Back in my day….Club 1020 was Club Campo, and Carman didn’t have a forest in its basement. We only had one dining hall and enjoyed it. You squeezed sophomores into the doubles in EC and Juniors couldn’t regroup. Gateway was a pretty shitty class.

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Name, Hometown, School: Sam Schube, Los Angeles, CC, studying English

Claim to Fame? The Blue and White, COÖP, and I probably spoke over you in that English seminar a bunch.

Where are you going? Staying in New York, looking for editorial work.

Three things you learned at Columbia?

1. 1020 is a better living room than anything housing has to offer.
2. Poetry just isn’t for me, but Victorian lit is.
3. I’m still not sure I ever learned how to use “dialectic” properly in class or in writing, but that didn’t stop me from doing it anyway.

“Back in my day…” they called it Shea.

Justify your existence in 30 words or less: I’m equally interested in the death of the author and the plight of the point forward.

Is the War on Fun over? Who won? Any war stories? As long as the university is run like a corporation, the war on fun will continue. We’re simply too big a liability to be allowed to wreak the good kinds of havoc. That’s cynical, though–you can always get away with having a good time. The terrace on the 5th floor of Kent is a fine place to start.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? I’ll defer to Keith Richards, who’s seen some things: “Cheese is a no-no for me. Everybody else, go eat it. Just take a look at yourself. Fermented milk is not the ideal choice for everyday eating, that’s all.”

Advice for the class of 2016?

You’re never too busy to have a few with some pals at 1020. Put away your phone, especially if it’s smart; you might see someone or something interesting. Ride a bike. Try to read the occasional extracurricular novel. Play hooky to go to a baseball game. Broadly, watch sports–it’ll only add to the things you learn in class about labor, race, and history in America. Study what you love–this place needs curious students in every field–and defend it, fiercely. And never stop questioning the administration, who, to these conspiracy-seeking eyes, are more interested in LeBron-style global brandhood than healthy (uninhibited, robust, and wide-open?) undergrad education.

Any regrets? 

Too many, most of which involve 1020.

Name, Hometown, School: Sean Zimmermann, New York, NY, SEAS, Electrical Engineering (EE)

Claim to fame: Bwog ESC Reporter for 4 years, IEEE President, SciFi Club Librarian

Where are you going? I’ve accepted an internship at Microsoft for the summer. After that, I’ll return to Columbia in the fall to get my Master’s Degree.

Three things you learned at Columbia:

1. The people are what make this school truly great.
2. Participate in things that make you happy.
3. If it doesn’t work, check that it’s plugged in.

“Back in my day…” Dorm internet bandwidth quotas were a serious annoyance.

Justify your existence in 30 words or less: I knew I wanted to be an EE when I got enormous happiness from building a small green LED.

Is the War on Fun over? Though I’m not sure if it is over, there was once time I returned from a movie to a party in my suite with someone passed out in front of my door. While waiting for CAVA, I got to see a row of at least 5 public safety officers slowly approaching our townhouse.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? Cheese can provide happiness on demand, oral sex cannot.

Advice for the class of 2016: Ask for help! If you feel yourself falling behind, speak to the professor. Many will go above and beyond the call of duty to assist you. As a professor said to us during our first week in 2008 – “You already got in, you don’t have to prove anything.”

Regrets? Though I don’t have many, the greatest one was probably not learning MATLAB earlier – professors (in your more advanced classes) simply assume you know how to use it, and I could have saved myself many headaches in the long run.

Mark Hay

Claim to Fame?

Teller of too many odd stories. Hater of shoes; lover of religions. Old man trapped in twentysomething body and therefore sour grumbler of the first order. Show-er up-er in odd places.

On the laundry list side of things: Former Managing Editor of Bwog, Editor-in-Chief of Awaaz, The Blue & White, and the Columbia Political Review. Founder and Chair of the InterPublications Association. Writer for a number of other publications (and bridge between the Bwog-Spec divide).

In other words, I did all things good, inky, and nearly obsolete.

Co-Chair of the Student Wellness Project. Some involvement in South and Southeast Asian groups before I got sucked into publications. I will still answer to the name “gora ladka.”

Where are you going?

Reclusion and insanity. But before that, a grad program at Oxford. But before that, an aimless sojourn through Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Three things you learned at Columbia?

1. You can’t be too worried about fucking up. That’s not a license to slack or cut corners. But stressing about messing up (and not just making an honest best effort) is responsible for at least 25% of my collegiate hair loss. You’ll piss people off, make enemies, screw up, fail, and do it all on a regular basis. Embracing failure and enmity is a great form of learning, and one that college facilitates well, especially when stewed in ego and ambition. And if you feel like you can make it through without screwing up a bit, like you don’t have to embrace failure … well, I look forward to the publication of your self-help book.
2. Four years of dealing with Columbia bureaucracy have turned me into an immaculate sleuth. Seriously, if you go to this school and you can track down the person in charge of coordinating toilet paper deliveries to dorms without suffering at least one stress-induced wall-punching session, you will have achieved Zen. I think we ought to start putting “navigating Columbia bureaucracy” on our resumes. It’s an incredible practical skill that would probably help us all secure our dream jobs with half the effort.
3. Everything you know is wrong. Everything. For everyone. And no one’s doing it right.

“Back in my day…” it was actually pretty easy to get on tunnels and roofs. I get the security concerns, but I mourn the suppression of urban exploration and history.

Justify your existence in 30 words or less: I’m a massive enabler. If I find out you’re into macramé, I’ll try to convince you to abandon Econ and join an arts commune I heard about in Vermont.

Is the War on Fun over? Who won? Any war stories?

Have you met me, Bwog? I’m a somber dude. I’m the friggin’ Switzerland of the War on Fun: I don’t participate, and whoever wins, ‘s cool with me.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese?

Oral sex. … I’m sorry, was that supposed to be a difficult question? I mean, it’s CHEESE for Wisconsin’s sake.

Advice for the class of 2016?

• “Hold fast to the spirit of youth, let the years that come do what they may.” But seriously.
• Make time for TV. Or whatever else gets you by. For me it was lots and lots of delicious TV (aka, my childhood babysitter). Just make sure that no matter how overcommitted you get, you still have time to chill and check that you’re okay as a human being.
• Stress is a useful fuel and often a necessary element of what we do, but it can’t, it shouldn’t be allowed to eat you up and define who you are… although, if you are going to use TV like I did, I highly recommend that you do not overdose on the Sorkin—that is not the stuff of chill introspection, my friends.
• College, in my really normative and preachy conception, should not be an affirmation of who you are when you come in, nor a dispassionate tool used to turn out degrees that greenlight us into prescribed and proscribed lives.
• This is a place to be uncomfortable—not by doing stupid things and winding up in bad situations, but by jarring yourself out of your comfort zone.
• I’m gonna go ahead and dare every student in 2016 to try to argue a counterintuitive point in their first paper, convincingly play devil’s advocate to themselves in class, and seriously question their involvements and friends. If you’re not uncomfortable and questioning yourself, then what’s the point of this four year daycare center for the shiftless and young?

Any regrets?

Innumerable. But few I’d ever admit to publicly. Most regrets are silly and/or pointless. Best to learn a lesson, internalize it truly, and move on if you can.

But I suppose … I could have been braver when I first came to Columbia. I was absolutely intimidated for about my first full year here. I felt really small. I let it stop me from branching out and digging in because, you know, who the hell was I? If I’d been braver back then, what might I have gained in that extra year?

Name, Hometown, School: Hans E Hyttinen, Earth, SEAS

Claim to fame: Helping create a tech community at Columbia with the Application Development Initiative. Some other stuff.

Where are you going? I’ll be working downtown at a startup called Turntable.

Three things you learned at Columbia:

1. No one is looking out for you all the time. Anticipate the best and the worst, so fewer things come as a surprise. But don’t pretend to know exactly all the things. (That said, there are many people on campus whose job, in some capacity, is to help you… if you ask them.)
2. It’s easier to ask forgiveness than get permission. Make great things and people will pretend it was their idea instead of blaming you for causing trouble. Generalizing this, every human system can be defeated. Don’t assume you can’t do something just because someone said “no” or “that’s how business is done” or “it’s always been that way”.
3. No one appreciates small caps. I took this to mean that anything can be misunderstood and that effective communication takes effort.

“Back in my day…” …you only had bwog.net and you liked it!

Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. I was once convinced I was Canadian. I had to be told, “You aren’t; sorry“. Sometimes, I remember my rhetorical devices; watch out for some litotes.

Is the War on Fun over? Who won? Any war stories? Right now, Fun is losing—but the war isn’t over, and there actually haven’t been that many battles recently. No stories; I haven’t been on the front lines all that much.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? I’m inexperienced with cheese.

Advice for the class of 2016:

• Join a club or start one! For everyone’s sake, find one thing to do on the side that’s fun or meaningful (or both!) and do your best to ensure it’ll still be here after you leave.
• Go out there and do fun things with fun people… on campus and off. Go downtown (or even to Brooklyn!) and explore as often as you can.
• Be nice to people, especially in anonymous comments. When it comes to online bickering, remember: all this has happened before and will happen again.
• Take Fencing and learn to admire Columbia’s fencing team.
• Take a computer science class, no matter what school or major you’re in. At the very least, learn how to program!
• If you can’t change something, make something.
• Subscribe to the Columbia subreddit!

Any regrets? Joining too many clubs and doing too many Spec Photo assignments my freshman year. Not going to more student performances. Not TAing. Specific to CS: skipping 1004.

Name, Hometown, School: Eliza Shapiro, New York City, Columbia College

Claim to fame: Bwog Editor 2010 (Operation Ivy League, Boringside Heights, BwogWeather, posting the video for “Welcome Back” by Ma$e too much, the “Eliza” that asked you what exactly you were so upset about in the comments at 3 AM), “Morningside Shtetl Royalty”, fact brat extraordinaire, enthusiasm (!)

Where are you going? UWS → Newsweek/Daily Beast to report about criminal justice → Brooklyn.

Three things you learned at Columbia:

1. The upper middle class is amorphous
2. You might need to go all the way to Cape Town for a professor to call bullshit on your use of the term “agentive”
3. Not to leave New York City, probably ever

“Back in my day…” You don’t even know from the movie theater on 107th, Columbia Bagels, the actual West End, 40s in Riverside Park.

Justify your existence in 30 words or less: Didn’t check my grades for four semesters; got broken up with (over the phone, don’t worry!) in the Butler 6 stairwell freshman year; had my bat mitzvah in Lerner 555.

Is the War on Fun over? To the delightful boys of EC H606: can you please turn the fucking subwoofer down?

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? I’ve read too many mediocre answers to this question over the last four years to answer it. I think it’s over, Bwog!

Advice for the class of 2016:

• In To the Lighthouse, the spectrum of human thought is described as a series of piano keys — Mr. Ramsay, a vaguely successful philosopher, realizes that he’s plunked down all the piano keys of thought from A to Q — an impressive feat! — but that he’ll never get past Q to R. That idea has stuck with me for a long time — be able to recognize and appreciate your limitations so you don’t go completely insane. Embrace the beauty of getting to Q — your brain just simply stopping somewhere is not a failure as much as it’s an opportunity. This happened to me with academia sophomore year and that’s when I actually started to figure things out.
• If you’re seriously competitive and ambitious (and I’ll just bet you are!) don’t make it a weird simmering WASPy secret like Harvard kids do. Be honest and elbows-out; it’s not gauche or embarrassing to tell your friends that you want to take over the world and/or make it a better place. Took me until like last week to realize that.
• You’re supposed to figure out a lot about who you are, what your values are, and what you like about other humans in college, and the best way to do these things and to handle the relentless emotional onslaught of growing up is to fall in love.
• Pre-emptive nostalgia is a waste of time.
• For your money’s worth: Delbanco, Katznelson, Anderer, Foner.
• Your friends are more important than anything; be nice to each other on the Internet and in real life.
• Borrowing a line from my high school graduation: remember that education is the quest for wonder.

Regrets? I should have been an American Studies major, but then again everyone probably should. I never got to use the outdoor shower on the roof of PrezBo’s mansion. And I shouldn’t have been such a reactionary against idealism for my first seven semesters of college. Otherwise, I did okay.

Columbia: in spite of so much, I’ll love you always.