Brighten up your Monday with some much needed wisdom. Our next Senior Wisdom is from Grace Rosen, who, according to multiple nominations, once dressed up as the Patriarchy for Halloween. Respect.

Grace Rosen

Name, Hometown, School, Major: Grace Rosen, proud townie from Princeton, New Jersey, Columbia College, English

Claim to fame: I was on CIRCAs EBoard for far too long as Secretary General of this thing called CMUNCE and then as a concerned citizen. I also wrote approximately one article each for Spec, Bwog, The Blue and White, and The Lion, and then many, many more for The Fed.

I was in the New York Times for Skypeing while dressed as a nun and I spend a lot of time on Facebook.

Where are you going? Home, for a few weeks of DIYing and buying weed behind the high school (future employers/mom, I promise that is a joke), then to sleep on a couch in Western Massachusetts and going hiking every day, then, finally, to the far away land of “any neighborhood in Manhattan, Queens, or Brooklyn that isn’t MoHi” to find one of them jobs that everyone keeps talking about.

What are 3 things you learned at Columbia and would like to share with the Class of 2018?

1. The SGO is the room of requirement of Columbia University. It’s been cleaned up now, but in the old days, you could find anything you needed. Things I have found in (and taken from) the SGO: a great cable knit sweater, an automatic bubble machine, alcohol (don’t worry we already wrote an apology), friends, candy, computer cables, a swiffer, a Pope costume, spanish language pornographic graphic novels, stickers, and a can of spotted dick.

2. Join clubs to make friends. Other than your freshman floor its really the only way. You’ll meet people who are passionate about what you’re passionate and spends hours upon hours being passionate about things with them. But when a club starts to make you lose friends, step back and reevaluate why you joined in the first place. With very few exceptions, in college, people are more important than passion.

3. Finally, I want to steal one from a Bwog senior wisdom I read when I was deep in my Sophomore Slump that kind of changed my life. Class of 2012’s Zach Levine wrote: “If after two years you haven’t met the soulmate-friends some propaganda promised you, hold tight. It probably means you’re a more complex person than the kind NSOP wants you to be for their photoshoot.”

“Back in my day…” Your mom called you on your ROLM phone to ask about Operation Ivy League but on your way to pick it up you tripped over your ethernet cable and sprained your ankle so had to skip a night out at Campo and settled for a watery milkshake* at JJs.

Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer: Ramona from RHoNY once looked at me and demanded a snack, so I gave her the brownie I had been saving for my own snack. #selfless

Write your most memorable note from the field: So this isn’t something that happened to me, but everyone should know about the greatest Columbia story ever. Back in the day when everyone had landlines and messages could be forwarded, a message from one student’s mom circulated around the entire campus. Takeaways? Always return your books, your jewish mother isn’t *this* bad, and you and the little mermaid can go fuck yourselves. Listen to act 1.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? Ok, so my favorite thing too cook is to take an single egg, scramble it in a bowl, and then add a heaping handful of shredded cheese (preferably taco blend). You stir it up and believe it or not if you stir hard enough it begins to take on a consistency similar to pancake batter. Now add more cheese. Keep adding and stirring until it resembles brownie batter, only cheesy. It requires literally like a full cup of shredded cheese. Take a small sauce pan and melt a tablespoon of butter. Get the pan pretty hot and then add your batter. Let it fry up until it begins to bubble. Flip it over to reveal this gloriously crispy, crusted, oozing egg-cheese pancake. Then, while it’s still in the pan, delicately sprinkle even more shredded cheese on top of it. Once it’s done, serve with sour cream and quac and potentially more shredded cheese. It’s the most delicious, gluten free, quasi-quesadilla masterpiece that will ever touch your tongue. I eat it like once a day, you can ask my roommate. I can’t imagine a more delicious food.

But I could live without it.

One thing to do before graduating: I’m going to spend the next few weeks ignoring course evals, debating library fines, and writing thank you cards to all the Columbia professors, administrators, and staff who went out of their way to prove the stereotype of inhuman Columbia machine wrong. Shout out to Lora Doleh, Zuleica Lopez, Carol Arnold, Rodney Mirabal, and all of the building managers and staff who dealt with 1000 people running around Lerner and a very exhausted me every MLK Jr weekend for the last three years.

Any regrets? Loads: I regret taking club stuff too seriously, not taking some classes seriously enough. I regret not keeping in touch with professors and never going to V Show, Orchesis, Fed Bash, or Late Night (seriously, I’m the worst). I think I regret taking 5 classes while working 20 hours a week, but what does not kill you makes you stronger and all that. I regret waiting to take 2 global cores, gym, and music hum all my last semester. I do regret not joining the Band but also regret almost every band party I ever attended, so that one’s a wash.