As you know, Columbia is now in the matrix and you need to arrive by parachute.

As you all know, the day prospies leave campus after DoC is the happiest saddest day of the year. So in an attempt to wish them a proper goodbye and hopefully bring them back in September, we braved the seven seas of Butler and asked the locals for some advice to prospies. Here’s what we got:

• Boy on the 3rd floor: “Become nocturnal.”
• Girl with cute glasses: “Learn to walk faster.”
• Boy with puffy coat: “Don’t think you’re ever going to talk to people you meet during NSOP ever again.”
  
• Boy in 209: “Avoid the dining halls.”
• Boy in 209: “I can’t share—I’m graduating, so I can’t remember.”
• Girl in 209: “Don’t find yourself in the Heights tonight at 1 am. Just don’t. It’s not a good idea.”
• Girl outside Butler: “Holding hands won’t keep you from getting lost.” (Pregnant pause, laughs) “Trust me.”
• Girl with glasses outside bathroom: “Spend a lot of time in Butler; that’s what you’ll be doing when you go here.”
• Guy with backpack: “Pick the school that feels right for you… That’s really cliché.”
• Two smiling girls: “Don’t stay in Butler too late.”
• Texting girl with scarf: “Make sure to major in something that you really like. College is a time to discover what you love; you can specialize in grad school. It’s the last time you’ll be free from bills and taxes ands stuff. Your last chance to be… not a kid, but someone youthful and carefree.”
• Grad student: “Do a lot of outlines before actually writing essays.”
• Girl with black jacket: “Talk to a lot of students about what classes to take, just so you know how to build a schedule and not miss out on classes you need to take for your major.”

You can perceive the wide range of Columbia experiences just from these responses—leave more in the comments!

Good luck with your decisions, prospies; Bwog loves you and hopes you’ll come.

Bwog’s traditional stock photo welcome via Shutterstock

Basically top this

This weekend’s Days On Campus (damn you SEAS for getting the real weekend nights) coincides perfectly with 4/20, some actually slightly spring weather (maybe…) and generally the last weekend before finals start to kick in. What does that mean? That you should be showing your prospie an excellent time, *not* making them sleep on your linoleum floor while you scribble out your sociology paper till 4 a.m. INSTEAD….

You could win eternal fame, wealth (a 6-pack of your choice), and glory throughout all of Morningside Heights for both yourself and the young hopeful lodging with you. How, you ask? By submitting the best photo of yourself and your prospie from Days On Campus. Photos need not be incriminating to be awesome; in fact, it’ll be a nice challenge to see how entertaining you can make the photo without risking arrest for either of you. In fact, the photo doesn’t even have to directly identify anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about. Just — please — no nudity. Unless it’s tasteful.

Go forth, revel, and photograph!

Pit bull with baby, 1892 via Wikimedia Commons

Among the Things We Weren't Supposed to Learn During "Under One Roof"

Bwog remembers all too well how Columbia whored itself to us when we were prospective students. This fine institution would like to think it was the Core, diversity, or financial aid, but it’s fairly obvious what our decision really came down to. A tipster overheard this prospie speaking to her mother as she exited the John Jay gate:

Prospie: They kept feeding us! They just kept feeding us!

 NSOP via Wikimedia Commons

Welcome, 2016!

Greetings, prospective Columbians! Bwog hopes that you’re ready to enjoy an amuse-bouche of college life this weekend. And by a stroke of good fortune, you’ll be experiencing completely typical weather conditions, quality of life, and level of general satisfaction! Right, everyone? Right.

On Thursday, we reposted our beloved and authoritative guide, “How to Scar Your Prospie.” But why should current students have all the fun? Without further ado:

How to Scar Your Host or Making the Most of Days on Campus

For your amusement, tell your host:

• You’re going to the bathroom and then never come back.
• You’re sexiling them.
• You forgot to get off the 1 train and are at the end of the line. What’s Van Cortlandt Park?
• You were stopped by public safety and gave their UNI.
• You’re in Times Square. Everything is bright and loud and you may be having a panic attack.

So much more after the jump.

Your prospie, next year.

A tipster overheard the following at the Amsterdam gates:

Days on Campus Host student: “The kid’s gotta know what college is really like! Which is me, drunk, all weekend!”

Which reminds us, Days on Campus begins this weekend, raising many questions. What will you do with them? What will they do with you? And most importantly, why in the world would Columbia subject the dear prospies to the horrors of Bacchaweekend? Bwog is committed to providing a most excellent coverage of these dilemmas, as well as egregiously prospectivious overheards (as tipped by you), and any opportunities we hear of for you to steal free t-shirts and food from the babies. Tomorrow, we begin our coverage with a guide to how your propsie can/should escape from you. For now, we’ve included a beautiful guide from last year’s DoC, How to Scar Your Prospie.

(more…)

According to several tipsters, hordes of prospective Columbians—whom our super scientific guestimations put somewhere between 4 and 6 years old—have been spotted amassing on and around Low steps, and in front of Butler. They’re tiny. They’re adorable. Pink puffer jackets abound.

One such youngster was overheard making an astute observation outside Butler:

“Every kind of library is for different types of playing. This is a library for playing less.”

Contemplating their own mortalities/bag lunches

In case you were, like Bwog, stunned by the sheer number of tour groups making rounds today, there is an explanation. Today at 11 am, the URC saw the largest tour group in its history.

Just more opportunities to scar those prospies, mirite?

They are legion.

Hänsel und Gretel

They came, they saw, they clung to their nametags. We’re sure we conquered their hearts and minds with our extremely desirable and hip aloofness, sporadically pleasant weather and immaculate study habits… But really though? More likely you did one of the following things, because you were amused by their fresh-faced naïveté, and took a sick pleasure in crushing it.

General purpose

• Physically
• Introduce them to the sketchiest grad student in 1020
• Sexile them
• Ask them if they’ve read it in the original language; scoff
• Neglect to tell them to switch to the 1 from the 2 or 3 at 96th.

Columbia

• Tell them about Frontiers / “FroSci”
• Sign them up for the Earth Institute listserv
• Wake them and stare into their soul with your blood-shot, Red Bull-fueled 4
  am Butler-eyes
• Feed them John Jay’s vegan “riblettes”
• Leave them in Mudd
• Bombard them with acronyms
• Pressure them into smoking their first Butler cigarette

Barnard

• Hand them a flyer that says “go green: use a diva cup!”
• Tell them that boys aren’t allowed in the dorms
• Take them to Lehman instead of Butler
• Make them steal kosher brownies for you at Hewitt; wait for them to get yelled at
• Use the phrase “strong, beautiful barnard woman” more than 5 times in an hour
• Burn your bra in front of them

A cautionary tale via Wikimedia

The good old days before housing and econometrics

Bwog (also incorrectly called “The Bwog“) is an independent news blog run by students of Columbia University.

Since 2006, they’ve been providing students with breaking campus news and a platform for intelligent discourse among their readers.

And tonight at 7 pm in the SGO, you can be a part of it all!

Come meet with a panel of editors boasting the cultural and intellectual diversity of three countries. Talk to them about their posts on the week’s news, as they help find intellectual meaning in everyday occurrences. Discuss Bwog’s hottest issues, and hear contributors relive their experiences about campus wide intellectual discourse from students and professors alike.

Enthused prospies and students are all welcome. Oh, and as always, there will be free food.

Soon to be jaded students via Wikimedia

Does the grid make the perspective or does the perspective make the grid?

Prospies currently attempting to get a perspective into life at Columbia may be flustered as their peers rattle the names of their other college acceptances. But remember—it’s all about perspective. The salutatorian of Bronx Science got into six Ivies and is “just trying to refrain from any hubris,” but an acceptance to Columbia is still an incredible feat in itself. (NYDaily)

One columnist questions commonly held views on “Internet Addiction,” arguing, “if a pastime is not classy, those who love it are ‘addicted.’” (NYTimes)

In a recent episode of All Things Considered, Columbia’s beloved Brian Greene explained how recent findings at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory could change how we look at the universe. (NPR, US LHC)

The outcome of one man’s recent lawsuit is poised to question how employers perceive gender. (NYTimes)

NYMag offers three fascinating perspectives into the mind of post-crash Wall Street. (NYMag)

German via wikimedia.

A sport that demands far more physical aptitude than our PE requirement.

Pay heed, potentials. If there is anything we can abstract from this morning’s news, it’s lessons in survival.

Don’t slack.
While people supposedly seem to like Charlie Sheen because “he barks out the truth as he sees it,” it took the crowd at his latest “aimless and slovenly” show only 20 minutes to start heckling him. “I can testify that if he had actually tried to say something thoughtful or confessional or interesting, even if it had been deadly serious, the crowd would have been with him.” Not necessarily true for your core classes. (Huffington Post, Entertainment Weekly)

Find things that will make you happy.
Like, for instance, the Quidditch World Cup. (International Quidditch Association)

Learn how to communicate.
It’s called University Writing, you have to take it first or second semester, and while it’ll teach you to expand a thought to fill eight double-spaced pages, it’ll destroy your liking for brevity. Brevity may not be the order of the day where your papers are concerned, but otherwise is survival skill. (Time NewsFeed)

Prepare yourself to be surrounded by kids like this.
Especially you, Class of  2019. (Huffington Post)

Athletes via Wikimedia.

Flocks of prospective students clutter campus in celebration of Presidents’ Day. It’s rumored that the Undergraduate Recruitment Committee expects “mega tours” this week. Makes you feel sentimental, don’t it?

Update, 4/19 5:35 pm: To the prospective students featured in this post: The Bwog editors want to apologize for the tone of the comments below. We keep our comment sections as open as possible to encourage discussion and debate, but sometimes people get carried away. Prospies, please do not allow these few, highly vocal opinions to color your view of this university and its affiliates. Our only intention was to welcome you to campus—we’re happy you visited and we hope you stick around for next year. Hope to see you again soon.

–Bwog Editors

Emily Kawai

Where are you from? Madison, Connecticut.

What major(s) are you considering? International Relations and Art History.

What’s your spring style inspiration? I really like Alexa Chung—she has really cute style—so I guess that’s my inspiration.

What’s your favorite dessert? Strawberry shortcake. (more…)