Name, school: Vivian Lu, CC

Claim to fame: Carman 10, ROOTEd & Asian American Alliance Political Committee, intellectual intercourse (new group on critical engagement w/the Core), Ethnic Studies stuff, bluegrass, etc.

Where are you going? Colorado/Arizona/NYC for a few years to decide exactly what I want from grad school, or something.

Three things you learned at Columbia:

  1. Activism is in the everyday.
  2. Professors are super awkward people, just like me and you! Also, just because you’re in a huge lecture doesn’t mean they don’t recognize you…
  3. People will always, always surprise you if you give them the time of day (or night) & there is always time to check in with an old friend, an acquaintance, a neighbor, a friend of a friend, or a classmate.

Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer: I think, therefore…

Any war stories from the War on Fun? There is no War on Fun if you get off-campus. Or put a towel under your door.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? The former. Turning down food is often just rude.

Any advice for the Class of 2014?

  1. Talk to people you see every day; dorm security guards, the 114th&bway coffee stand man, Al in JJ’s…they recognize everyone on campus and know whats up.
  2. Take classes whose ideologies/praxes vary radically – if you take a Jeff Sachs class, take a Mamdani class (which will be better). and vice versa. for me, it was Econ & Anthro classes – not that these are complete opposites necessarily, but take classes where one’s premises or “givens” are the other’s explorations.

Any regrets? Arriving here after Edward Said stopped teaching & after Columbia’s West Harlem expansion plan was already towards the end approval stages. Womp womp.