Have you ever looked at something and say to yourself, “Damn, that’s SO Columbia!”? Do you ever feel like something completely unrelated to Columbia should be somehow associated with our university? Well, fear not! Today, Staff Writer Victoria Borlando decided that she 100% totally has the power to make that happen!

Half the year of Columbia University is almost over, and now it’s time for some of us to be thinking about the next step: graduation. Yes, that moment is arriving very soon! You all should be very proud of yourselves for this achievement!

Some people (or things) unfortunately don’t have a Columbia University diploma. Though a tragedy, these same people (or things) became integral to Columbia culture, advancing student life every single day….So, let’s just give them a diploma. They totally deserve it.

Thus, today on the 19th of November 2019, with the power invested in Bwog, we hereby bestow upon these esteemed people with honorary diplomas from Columbia University:

FOR FURTHER ADVANCING OR MAINTAINING THE COLUMBIA CULTURE:

  • Homer – For a guy with no diploma at all (which is wack), we sure like to hold him to a higher esteem than all the people with Ph.D.’s teaching us about him. He was just a funky dude who wrote really long poems about violently stabbing people; now those poems take up a fourth of our first semester at Columbia. Give the guy a Bachelor’s, honestly; it’s the least we can do.
  • Nicotine – Butler is already built on a foundation made of cigarette butts and discarded Juul pods. It’s only logical at this point.
  • Jean-Paul Sartre – We’ve all been personally victimized by the philosophy dudebro who thinks the whole world depends on his actions and his actions alone. Get existential! But, more importantly, get that Bachelor’s! Go, Jean-Paul!
  • Tik Tok – From the water fountain station in John Jay, to the Sundial, to even the middle of a fucking narrow hallway, Tik Tok makes the whole campus your stage. And boy, do you all really take that to heart. Show Tik Tok your appreciation and give it a diploma already!
  • Lorde – Who else is going to tell you the next phase in your life? Yourself? Absolutely not. Lorde knows all, so she should be rewarded.
  • THE Canada Goose – All Canada Goose jackets are simply an imitation of the One, the Divine, the Original Canada Goose. He is the Truth in its rawest form; we simply demonstrate our love by wearing warm, puffy jackets in his honor. Diploma him!

FOR JUST ‘GETTING IT’

  • Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle – What defines stress culture more than dying your hair the opposite of your natural hair color to ‘hide’ your ‘dark past’? Moreover, freaking out because you’re having a bad hair day? That’s just how it be, man – I don’t know what else to tell you. He just gets it!
  • Balto – this dog leads a dogsled expedition from Anchorage to Gnome in the middle of an Alaskan blizzard just to deliver medicine. Tell me that’s not the same thing as walking from the warm, comfy dorms to Wien in November to pick up your weekly impulse buy from Amazon. Balto gets it!
  • Michael Cera – I don’t need to give a reason; he’s Michael Cera. He gets it.
  • Tobey Maguire – Don’t tell me you don’t groove to the music coming through your AirPods. Don’t tell me you haven’t finger-gunned a person instead of actually saying “hi” before. We are all Tobey, and Tobey is a man that gets Columbia.
  • The Tooth Statue – It just…sits there. Might as well give it a bigger purpose in life.

FOR BEING LISTED AS “FAMOUS ALUMNI” EVEN THOUGH THEY DROPPED OUT:

  • Alicia Keys – Her Wikipedia page is longer than the unabridged version of Les Mis, so she’s definitely doing something right. Let’s be more than a small paragraph, Columbia. Let’s add a bachelor’s degree to her long list of accomplishments.
  • Jake Gyllenhaal – He did promise to finish his degree when he dropped out; let’s meet him halfway and make it easier for him!
  • Joseph Gordon-Levitt – 500 Days of Summer? More like 500 days at Columbia University. Still, we should give him a diploma – mainly because he looks like your high school English teacher who thinks he’s the real-life version of Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society.
  • Kesha – Those three months at Barnard are definitely enough to get a degree. She’s Kesha; she doesn’t deserve to endure four, full years of college to get a degree.
  • Federico García Lorca – Though a famous Spanish poet from the 1900s and famous John Jay resident, he’s most notable for being one of my mom’s favorite writers. So, if my mom, who’s really cool, likes him, so should Columbia.

And, of course, we must also recognize the people, though not directly influencing the culture and growth of Columbia University (no diploma, unfortunately), who deserve an honorable mention for making the world a more interesting place:

  • Tonya Harding
  • Alanis Morissette
  • Paul Blart
  • The My Chemical Romance reunion concert
  • Kevin Jonas
  • Joe Jonas
  • Nick Jonas
  • Jack Black (aka JablinskiGames)
  • Those who died during the Dancing Plague of 1518

Diplomas are an honor, and they are only granted to the honorable. So, let’s just claim these things as our own. After all, we can’t just have Vampire Weekend be the most notable alumni (…okay, President Obama and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are up there too). We’re better than this! Let’s give these people diplomas, baby!

If Andy Warhol Went to Columbia via Public Domain Pictures