The life of a second-semester senior is usually pretty relaxed—we’re nearing the time of year when you realize that you’ve wrapped up your major requirements and now are pursuing a concentration in 1020. But alas, these hazy, lazy days will soon come to an end, and there’s no better wake up call than an alarming email from the straight-outta-the-nineties-named Student Affairs Graduation Zone with the all-caps title “ARE YOU PLANNING TO GRADUATE THIS MAY? If so read this!” Yep, they realize that after seven semesters here you only read about 4% of your emails anymore. But there is useful information to be had here, and in order to prevent you from having that awkward conversation with your folks about how you forgot to actually “Apply for the Degree” and can’t leave, we’ve pasted the email below. Hey, it may be useful, and then you can get back to your daydrinking.

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Raid those snacks like the seasoned pro you've become

Seniors, if you plan on graduating in May you need to apply for the degree now. The Division of Student Affairs is currently facilitating and celebrating this bureaucratic rite of passage with free food in Roon Arledge Auditorium from 10 am to 2 pm. Drop by, put your uni on some dotted lines, and eat a cheese cube. Soon, you’ll be in the real world and geometrically shaped cheese will be harder to come by. Live it up while you can.

Overheard: “This is like being at your best friend’s wedding.”

Snacks on snacks via wikimedia.

A tipster sent along this photo of what appears to be a pretty big rager in IAB by the Class of 2011:

While it seemed like all fun and games, shortly after, the party (technically not supposed to be there, or whatever) got broken up by a dozen or so Public Safety officers, the fire alarm got pulled, and the NYPD have now been called. In the words of a tipster, “drunken shitshow.”

Apparently, the War on Fun doesn’t stop for degrees. Here’s to ya, 2011!

Update: Baby-faced grads pouring out of IAB. And apparently they didn’t go down without a fight first: during the process, Public Safety was met with some resistance, and partiers began spontaneously singing the national anthem. Bwog is just tickled at this point.

Truly a deplorable place...you will be missed

After responding to a fire alarm in McBain, a firefighter gets in a firetruck and announces over the loudspeaker:
“It’s disgusting in there. I hope you guys aren’t going to leave that place like this.”

Outside HamDel, in the wee hours of the morning:
“If anyone asks, the 99 out of 100 was on my organic chemistry exam.”

Uris Pool, where a gaggle of seniors attempt to finish their swim tests:
Girl 1: Does Barnard have to take a swim test–
Girl 2: I don’t know.
Girl 1: –Or do they just let them drown?

Don't miss out on all the fun!

If you are over the age of three, and want to go to Commencement, you need a ticket. Graduating students are only allowed to claim four, and you have to pick them up in person. How surprising that Student Affairs has a centralized and sensible allocation process! Anyway, back in 2008, ESC set up this handy site to exchange Commencement tickets, if you need more than four, were unable to pick them up, or want to give away tickets you’re not going to use. Essentially a customized Craigslist, the site enables you to post extra tickets if you have ‘em, or get in touch with those people if you need ‘em.

Now would also be an expedient time to remind Ye Olde Seniors that tomorrow is the last day to pick up your tickets! They will be available from 4:30 to 7:30 pm in 401 Lerner.

Photo by Hans Hyttinen

Seniors! Time is running out, and bleachers are going up! We know you’re feeling nostalgic, sitting on the steps, and soaking up the sun. Senior Wisdom is imminent, but we thought we’d give some you advice as well as receive it. Bwog once again presents (hyperlinks) the shenanigans we highly recommend getting under your belt before you leave.

• Visit every roof
• Explore the tunnels
• Take the public safety shuttle
• Get CAVAed
• Hook up with a TA
• Do a touristy NY thing
• Camp out for a night on the lawns
• Have sex in Butler
• Go downtown
• Eat a Crack Del spicy special
• Pass the swim test
• Find the Alma Mater owl
• Finally hang out with the people you’ve been making fake plans with for four years
• Watch the sun set over Riverside Park
• And/or watch the sun set from a roof or the Schapiro sky lounge
• Graduate
• Rate you professors on CULPA! Think of the children.

Lookie here! It’s a certain group of students doing a thing together, and singing the fight song! Bwog thinks they are great. And that’s all for tonight, folks.

Look at how we caught your eye with that headline!

Remember that sub-plot in V116 about Dean “Double D” Denburg’s Big Bear/Little Bear initiative? The one where DD matched Barnard first-years and upperclassmen in a binding friendship contract and Jenny couldn’t sneak out and meet Yonatan at 1020? That sucked for both of them, but then (SPOILER ALERT) everything worked out OK in the end.

The 2011 Class Council, is doing something eerily similar in real life, but they didn’t plagiarize anything and we were just making a little nod to current events. The council is launching an initiative: “Senior Pals.” Here’s how it will work: CC 11ers will be paired up with incoming CC 14ers so that our new fresh-friends will have someone to ask questions like “should I buy the grapes at Cafe 212?” (no!) or “EC, Heights, or Campo?” (rap about it!) or “where is the 9 train?” (it doesn’t exist anymore!) What’s in it for you, wizened, tough guy CC senior? Free lunch! There will be a welcome luncheon in the fall for Big Pals and Little Pals.

Pals will be matched according to residence hall (if you lived in John Jay, you’ll be paired with a current JJ resident) and hometown, althouh Udell acknowledged that it will be difficult to get both those matches for all Pals. Udell, who started the initiative, explained its existence to Bwog: “during the campaign I had a lot of people lament the ‘cold’ nature of Columbia, and this seems one way to warm things up a bit.”

Udell and Learned Foote, CCSC President, will send out an email in July to the incoming 14ers saying hi and explaining the project, and they expect that about 500 eager-beaver first-years will sign up to be Little Pals, so that means they need about 500 Big Pals by July. Sign up here, and cross your fingers for those chocolate-chip brownies (and not those grilled veggie wraps) at the Pal Luncheon.

Update, 2 pm: Although it’s a CC initiaitve, SEAS and BC seniors are also eligible/encouraged to become Senior Pals.

two“>Who cares if you don’t have a job? You know that four years at Columbia was worth every penny cuz being a CC senior entitles you to not one but two free t-shirts: a senior class shirt, and a 40 Days shirt!

If you haven’t yet, you can pick yours up on the Lerner ramps from 12-5pm.

With only a month of school left, this is a sad time for many seniors, who look around them and can’t help but feel waves of nostalgia issuing from all corners of this revered, and remarkably architecturally homogeneous campus. Soon-to-be graduate David Roche sent us this gem, and we were so touched that we thought we would send out a call for any and all nostalgic photos of the Columbia campus, the best of which will be posted closer to the time of graduation. Please send photos to tips@bwog.net. Happy (sad) snapping!

A copy of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker at Columbia

Overheard on 115th and Broadway

Columbia senior: “I don’t want to leave college, but if I don’t, my gravestone will read, ‘Nearly Graduated.’”

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Photo via Wikipedia. They probably won't look like this.

Seniors, your time is nigh! Expect regular reminders from here on out that, yes, you’ll be leaving soon. Tonight, that means t-shirts: CCSC 2010 will be giving out class t-shirts tonight at 8:00pm in the East Campus courtyard. Make sure you’ve got your ID–all the information is here.

DSpar preaches about the mandatory meal plan against a backdrop of free food.

If you wandered past Barnard’s new Events Oval last night, the first thing you might have noticed at the Meal Plan Forum, even before the presence of the forty or so mostly angry attendees, would have been the two tables of catered food. Ironic, yes, but it did placate the hordes of meal plan-protesters, at least for the first half hour of the event. Here’s our recap of the the long, passive aggressive battle that was the Meal Plan Forum of ‘010.

Seniors v _?

A number of seniors showed up to voice their disapproval. Given that the meal plan is not in effect until next fall, no one quite understood what the seniors were one doing there, though one senior took the floor to violently express her dissatisfaction with the controversial Barnard graduation-room change.

Hand-Raisers v Other Hand-Raisers

Instead of instructing questioning students to form a line, the event’s organizers distributed approximately three microphones, all switched to “on,” among the first shift of hand-raisers, whose own questions initiated further hand-raising and general mic-fueled chaos. This disorder persisted until a full-scale mic war had broken out on the floor, with students straining to raise their hands the highest and gain entry into the next round of question-asking.

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For all you forward-looking seniors- the Center for Career Education is extending an invitation to “launch the academic year and your job search” at their first career fair of the semester. It runs until 12 today in Low Library. (So Days on Campus isn’t the only time you’re allowed up there after all…)

According to the CCE website, the event will provide networking opportunities with Columbia alumni in a variety of fields. Will it provide breakfast as well?

Dress code is “business formal,” but underclassmen need not iron their slacks just yet- the event is open only to CC, SEAS, and GS seniors, along with this year’s graduating students in GSAS and the Schools of Architecture, the Arts, and Continuing Education.

Photo via rics.org

What’s the worst thing about being unemployed in Morningside? That sinking, defeated feeling of utter despair that comes with craving a mood boosting, delicious nutritious meal at, well, almost any sit-down restaurant, and then realizing you can’t come close to affording it. 

Lucky for those still unemployed seniors, Thai Market now officially recognizes your pain and extends its helping hand with a whopping 30% discount on all in house meals for the unemployed! The discount will run through the end of May, and is expected to do a world of good for those seniors who have been subsisting on naught but ramen, nail bitings, and CCSC’s bread and circuses.

All you’ve got to do to get the deal is produce some proof of your joblessness. An unemployment slip is ideal, but breaking down in tears might also be enough. Happy noodling!