A wink RBG would be proud of

The senior wisdoms keep rolling in, giving us sage advice and tales of a time before SweetGreen. Next up is Lily Liu-Krason, who delivers on both fronts (and gives us some great Columbia hacks.)

Name, School, Major, Hometown: Lily Liu-Krason, Columbia College, Mathematics & Creative Writing, St.Paul, MN/ Boston, MA

Claim to fame: (Facebook) Famous in Columbia groups for being barely a step above those WINAFREEIPAD bots and spamming you with cool events, initiating that period where everyone kept winning free open bars, swiping 150+ people into the dining halls this year, and being that girl who “accidentally” treats you like her best friend even if she’s only met you once (or never).

Where are you going? I’m traveling to 12 countries on a grant documenting cross-cultural and cross-generational tourism! Then I’ll be working as a consultant and hopefully going back to school in a few years.

What are 3 things you learned at Columbia and would like to share with the Class of 2020?

1) Give everyone the benefit of the doubt. People say and do things they don’t mean all the time, especially when they’re stressed by family, work, school, friends, etc. Be generous–yourself included in this. Don’t be that guy or girl in class who scoffs when someone says something. No matter how stupid it might sound, take a minute to think about why they’re wrong. OR come up with a better way to articulate what that person is trying to say. You’ll learn and understand more that way. The infamous RBG said Scalia’s challenges made her majority opinion stronger. There’s always something to learn!

2) It’s been said many times: there’s no war on fun. Go out there! Fun is everywhere. When you find it, please clean up after yourself. (eg. don’t break bottles all over low for public safety to clean up)

3) Some of my favorite Columbia hacks: core office will let you keep adding and dropping music hum sections until you get one you reasonably like if it’s your senior spring, rush urbanNY shows for free, stalk Bagelpalooza, get a Butler locker through the lottery (then you can keep packages there/other ~stuff~ before senior night), take a P/D/F class every semester, Give and Go Green gives you extra housing and access to amazing stuff, and stopdrunktexting is a VERY USEFUL app that lets you select up to 6 contacts to remove from your phonebook from the night.

“Back in my day…” You could cheat the CUIT quota system, Havana was for seniors, and The Dam had $4 glasses of wine on Wednesdays.

Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. I’m sick of justifying my existence in this patriarchy so I’m gonna have Columbia Admirer’s Keanu Ross-Cabrera do it for me.

What was your favorite class at Columbia? There are so many! I’d have to say it’s between Senior Fiction Workshop with Heidi Julavits, Linear Algebra with David Bayer (made me change my major), and British Literature with Edward Mendelson.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? “It’s not about the pleasure, it’s about the power.” – Jessie, my roommate. Cheese is about both.

One thing to do before graduating: Last slice of Koronets and first Absolute Bagel in one night.

Any regrets? Not reading the core requirements carefully enough before taking 4 different classes in SEAS and finding out that only one of them counted for the science requirements, not taking a class with Gareth Williams or Eric Foner, and every time I didn’t do question 4 part 1 from above.

Ready for her first Absolute Bagel! via Lily Liu-Krason