Name, Hometown, School: Hans E Hyttinen, Earth, SEAS

Claim to fame: Helping create a tech community at Columbia with the Application Development Initiative. Some other stuff.

Where are you going? I’ll be working downtown at a startup called Turntable.

Three things you learned at Columbia:

1. No one is looking out for you all the time. Anticipate the best and the worst, so fewer things come as a surprise. But don’t pretend to know exactly all the things. (That said, there are many people on campus whose job, in some capacity, is to help you… if you ask them.)
2. It’s easier to ask forgiveness than get permission. Make great things and people will pretend it was their idea instead of blaming you for causing trouble. Generalizing this, every human system can be defeated. Don’t assume you can’t do something just because someone said “no” or “that’s how business is done” or “it’s always been that way”.
3. No one appreciates small caps. I took this to mean that anything can be misunderstood and that effective communication takes effort.

“Back in my day…” …you only had bwog.net and you liked it!

Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. I was once convinced I was Canadian. I had to be told, “You aren’t; sorry“. Sometimes, I remember my rhetorical devices; watch out for some litotes.

Is the War on Fun over? Who won? Any war stories? Right now, Fun is losing—but the war isn’t over, and there actually haven’t been that many battles recently. No stories; I haven’t been on the front lines all that much.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? I’m inexperienced with cheese.

Advice for the class of 2016:

• Join a club or start one! For everyone’s sake, find one thing to do on the side that’s fun or meaningful (or both!) and do your best to ensure it’ll still be here after you leave.
• Go out there and do fun things with fun people… on campus and off. Go downtown (or even to Brooklyn!) and explore as often as you can.
• Be nice to people, especially in anonymous comments. When it comes to online bickering, remember: all this has happened before and will happen again.
• Take Fencing and learn to admire Columbia’s fencing team.
• Take a computer science class, no matter what school or major you’re in. At the very least, learn how to program!
• If you can’t change something, make something.
• Subscribe to the Columbia subreddit!

Any regrets? Joining too many clubs and doing too many Spec Photo assignments my freshman year. Not going to more student performances. Not TAing. Specific to CS: skipping 1004.