Albert Tai has some useful reminders: you probably owe him five bucks, and you should go do your laundry. 

Name, School, Major, Hometown:
Albert Tai, SEAS, Mechanical Engineering, New York City. 

Claim to fame:
I once spent the night sleeping on a couch in Mudd to finish an aerodynamics lab report. I felt like Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness. In March I got 13,000 likes on a meme in the Facebook group “Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens.” 

Where are you going?
Right now, I’ll limit my answer to the living room, kitchen, and bathroom out of respect for Doctor Anthony Fauci. 

What are 3 things you learned at Columbia and would like to share with the Class of 2024?

1. Make sure to reach out to other people in your major. Even if you’re not the type to work and study with other people, just knowing that there are other pickles stuck in the same pickle jar as you can be super comforting. I have no idea why that’s the analogy I decided to use. 
2. Take the time to practice self-care. Eat right, exercise regularly, do laundry routinely—it’ll remind yourself that you’re a human with feelings and needs and not just some work machine. I wish I knew this sooner; maybe I would’ve made it onto a student brochure or even Columbia Crushes 2.0. I’m telling you, whenever the opportunity presents itself, take the stairs—it’s only your birthday one day a year, but if you climb up to Hamilton 7 every Tuesday and Thursday you’ll be having cake on the other 364 as well. 
3. Everything’s going to turn out okay. Yeah, Columbia has a notorious stress culture for a reason: classes can be demanding, and at times it feels like everybody’s at each other’s throats. You definitely won’t be taking Ws a hundred percent of the time. But it’s important to remember that after your time here you’ll have an Ivy League diploma from one of the greatest universities in the world. No matter who you are and where you end up in life that’s your unique achievement and nobody can take that away from you. Well, unless you copy and paste a paragraph from Encyclopedia Britannica into your Global Core essay. Don’t do that.  

“Back in my day…”
…I sat in my childhood bedroom dreaming of one day setting foot on Columbia’s campus as a student. It took me 15 minutes to find my lecture hall in the International Affairs Building. I paid respects to my boy Bernie for putting up a tough fight against an establishment-backed candidate in the primaries. I wasted my time browsing an app with ~10 second long clips of teenagers doing dumb skits. Everyone was talking about the mistreatment of noble jungle mammals by a zoo in middle America. I just realized all these things still apply in 2020 and I totally missed the point of this question.

Favorite Columbia controversy?
Ferris pizza is some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. Don’t @ me. 

What was your favorite class at Columbia?
I loved Fundamentals of Computer Systems with Daniel Rubenstein. For anybody out there who isn’t a nerd or doesn’t follow @p_b_and_jae on Instagram, it’s basically about how you can use simple electrical components to make more complex gizmos like calculators and data storage devices. Every lecture Professor Rubenstein came in with the manic fervor of a man who had downed five cups of coffee over an all-nighter and would occasionally drop hints about how much he could bench. If that’s not the kind of energy I aspire to I don’t know what is. Also Fundies is basically just Minecraft redstone in real life but that’s a discussion that can and should be held offline.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese?
I could never give up anything that will perpetually titillate my levels of existence and elevate me to the highest stages of epicurean ecstasy. I’m talking about cheese by the way.

Whom would you like to thank?
– From the five-star chefs who run the pasta station at Ferris to the security guards who never judged me whenever I stepped into Carman just to use the first-floor bathroom, I have to thank all the Columbia dining, housing, and facilities workers who make student life so great. We really need to appreciate the men and women who truly run the show.

– Thanks to all my professors, but especially the ones who gave me A’s.

– Jessica Marinaccio and the whole admissions team for letting me in here in the first place! 

– Everyone involved in my MechE journey. The loyal members of Formula SAE and Robotics Club; you are all my children. My fellow researchers in the Creative Machines Lab. Bob, Andrei, and Amanda from the machine shop. Bill and Mo from the Makerspace.

– Of course, there are all the dear friends who made this thing we call life bearable. You know who you are. 

– And finally, anybody who’s ever attempted to establish eye contact with me, even if just for a split second. Small gestures like that really boost a guy’s confidence. 

One thing to do before graduating:
Don’t forget to say goodbye to everyone before you graduate because you never know when you’ll see them again. While we’ve been blessed to have been brought together for the past four years, who knows if we’ll be lucky enough to be in each others’ lives again for a second time. Also, Venmo me five bucks if you came to my Halloween party last fall.

Any regrets?
Not investing in Zoom stock last year.