Name, school: Zach Dyer, CC

Claim to fame: I was a Public Safety officer in the 114th Varsity Show, Managing Editor of The Eye, Spectrum daily and deputy editor, a COHOP leader, and a member of CAVA. But I’m most known as that guy with the highly acclaimed beard who asks for biscotti blended into his frappuccino at Starbucks.

Where are you going? Immediately, I will be substitute “teaching” for the prestigious Worcester Public School system. After that, I’m headed to Boston to study Maternal & Child Public Health at BU.

Three things you learned at Columbia:

1. Being well spoken can get you out of nearly anything whether it be a deadline or library fines, especially at the hospitality desk. Unless of course Advising gets involved, in which case bureaucracy can and will screw you over.

2. Time with friends is always, ALWAYS more well spent than time chasing girls/guys. If they’re worth it, there wont be a chase to speak of.

3. People really care about spelling and grammar on campus blogs, and the anonymity of the internet allows people to be way shittier than they are in real life.

“Back in my day…” Swiping into a building meant physically swiping your card through some little card reader–none of this tapping business, Vine was the equally confusingly named “Caffe Swish,” and flex was a strictly on-campus commodity.

Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer: Freshman year, they cut down the trees in front of Earl. I stole a slice of one, brought it to MA, sanded it, polyurethaned it, and dated it to 1897.

Is the War on Fun over? Who won? Any war stories? I’ve had one run-in with one RA my entire time in Columbia/Barnard housing and that was when my RA junior year asked me to turn down the Justin Bieber. Other than that, my friends and I have climbed trees, mounted statues, snuck onto roofs and into tunnels, drank in public, and had dance parties in the stacks without any protests from The Man. In fact, I’m not even sure there was a war for us to win.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? Only one of those makes me gag consistently and it happens to be the same one that can ruin a perfectly delicious hamburger.

Advice for the class of 2015

-If you have the time, walk instead of taking the subway. You’ll see way more of the city that way, and even if it’s just from 72nd home, there’s a lot more in that stretch than you think! On the same note, if you take the subway downtown, you can take the bus back up within 2 hours for free!

-Study off campus, your brain will thank you.

-Look to upperclassmen in your classes and clubs for advice and support, they’re way more reliable than the systems Columbia has in place, but never shy away from using those either. CPS helped me realize how much my mother’s approval means to me! Now I’m a Creative Writing major.

-Getting CAVA’d is not that bad. You can do it as many times as you want (or need) and it will always be free.

-Go on COOP and Write for The Eye.

Any regrets? I should never have come here expecting anything specific. While I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything, there was a while where I had to reconcile my expectations of college with what it was actually offering. Once I got over that, I enjoyed myself way more and did better academically too.

Oh and some serious unrequited love for a XC runner whom I have never met but have pined after for sub-four years.