Orientation Day One is hardly over yet—there’s still Class Act to see, Gates to run through, and high fives not to give. Here are some scenes from the first eight hours of this long trek of a day. 2014, you kids look good out there. Welcome!
Pictures and video of Day One to come. Send us your first night stories and pictures!
- We caught up with some Sex is Sexy coordinators, who showed us their shirts (black and red!) and their badges. Each Sex is Sexy group has a name. Some of our favorites: Consent Builders, No Means No, Yes Means Yes, (VAMPIRE WEEKEND) and Consensual Seduction.
- Convocation was what it always is: hot, too long, and actually pretty sweet. Kevin “Kev” Shollenberger began his speech by telling the audience they should “be grateful you don’t have to wear a black polyester robe today.”
- We learned that there were 159 flags represented at the Convocation march, and that the Class of 2014 comes from 48 different states, and 52 different countries.
- Cliff Massey Kevin Magos, CC ’12 and NSOP maestro, took the stage next, and talked about Columbia as home. Borrowing our favorite 7th grade strategy for rushed papers, he quoted the Merriam Webster dictionary’s definition of home to give us a better sense of what Columbia as home means. Then he quoted Ms. Frizzle and redeemed himself: “it’s time to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy.”
- The alum speaker, president of the SEAS Alumni Foundation, brandished his original Columbia ID card during his speech.
- Feniosky Peña-Mora and MiMoo were both truly adorable as usual. Peña-Mora introducing MiMoo: “you might say this marks the beginning of our sophomore year together.”
- MiMoo and PrezBo both gave genuinely good speeches, rare for Convocation. It’s the first time Bwog has heard Columbia administrators talk about ideas like learning for the simple joy of learning, and using college as a time, as PrezBo said, when you can be “single-minded about learning.” Another PrezBo gem, speaking for the old folk: “For us, it’s not ‘been there, done that,’ it’s been there, and would do it again in a heartbeat.”
- Overheard on the line to the cookout on Low Plaza: An OL to his group: “Do you want to keep consent sexy?” Fresh-person with foreign accent: “Oh, I’m bringing sexy back!”
- A parent asked an OL if there were bedbugs in Columbia dorms, because she read it about it “in the news.”
20 Comments
@Still bitter that PrezBo didn’t show at convocation two years ago.
@Mirela Ciperiani Take my Linear Algebra class…..and die.
@Anonymous fact.
@$15 can go a long way
@Anonymous ur bitching about a 15 dollar id? I hate the extremely poor people at Columbia
@anonymous The convocation speeches are the first signs that Columbia is not at all what you had hoped.
@Survivor 1) I don’t have my original Columbia ID. When I came back for grad school they demanded that I turn in my old one or pay the $15 replacement fee for having “lost it.” It was right around that moment I remembered why I’d hated the administration so much the first time around.
2) Cute convocation speeches? Neat. I happened to be around campus and watched convocation my junior year. All I remember is that none of the speakers actually said welcome to Columbia, or anything of that sort, at any point.
@Just curious... which 2 states weren’t represented by students?
@Mechatronics it is made of win
@Intro to Java was epic, hard, but just go to the office hours
@anal CS major You probably mean “Intro to Computer Science / Programming in Java” (a legit class), not “Programming Languages: Java” (a silly class).
But yes, definitely take it.
@Intro to Java Yea, the one with Canon and the comsci theory and the lectures and the hard work, it was fun having a working program after suffering. Well worth it, one of my best experiences in my short time here.
@Best classes? What are the best classes to take at Columbia? Is there a good top 10 or 20 classes that people rave about in their 4 years here?
Curious Freshie
@MMM -Econ with Gulati
-American Presidency with Eisenbach (Hasn’t been taught since Spring 08, but could always make a return…)
-American Studies with Spielgel and Blake
-Intro to FIlm with Regan
-Free Speech with Prezbo
-Shakespeare with Shapiro
@Free Speech Prezbo is not teaching that this year
@uhm macro with xavier sala-i-martin
@Anonymous All of the literature classes in the Slavic Languages dept are excellent
@Anonymous Also, you won’t have had a real Columbia experience without taking a class with one of the 101 Most Dangerous Professors in the US http://www.nysun.com/new-york/nine-professors-at-columbia-are-deemed-dangerous/27850/
@must take Betts’ War Peace and Strategy, but set aside a big chunk of reading time
@Anonymous modern poetry with stephen massimilla for sure