Your CC professor has nothing on Chloë when it comes to explaining “a priori”!

Name, School, Major, Hometown: Chloë Nannestad, GS, Anthropology, Auckland, NZ.

Claim to fame: 
Once played a colander at half-time at a football game, blinding spectators as the sun glanced off the metal.

Where are you going?
Physically, downhill. Mentally, forward into a glowing post-Columbia future. Spiritually, the 6th circle. Emotionally, half perfect happiness, half… Uhh?

What are 3 things you learned at Columbia and would like to share with the Class of 2024?
1. After looking it up every time I saw it, what “a priori” actually means.
2. A priori means knowledge based on theory rather than experience or observation.
3. College is a super short and unique time in your (hopefully) long life, and you don’t have to get it “right.” Nobody ever has it all figured out, and the ability to continue figuring things out is the great gift of being alive. So major in the thing you want to spend the majority of your time here on, and concentrate on the thing that you think will get you a job, if you must. Talk to people. Have fun, and not just in the “blowing off steam because I’m drowning in stress” way. Go downtown. Go uptown. Get to know yourself through experience and observation, and not a theory of how you think you should be. Link back to your introduction in your conclusion. Accept that you’re corny. Corn powers this country.

“Back in my day…”
Linguistics was a secret major, accessible only through a network of whispers (transcribed in IPA).

Favorite Columbia controversy?
Bacchanal-gate. I suppose that’s every Bacchanal, but specifically the one where the headliner was “leaked.”

What was your favorite class at Columbia?
“Living with Animals,” an anthropology class with the great Hannah Chazin; all the readings were so fun and interesting and like every anthro class I’ve taken at Columbia, dramatically expanded my perspective on the world. And I loved “Arts of China, Japan and Korea” because I knew nothing about non-Western art before, and what is the point of college if not to make you a bit more worldly?

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese?
Good times over Gouda. Fun over feta. Romps over… Roquefort?

Whom would you like to thank?
The band, for being the kindest souls on campus, and the powers that be, for one particular snow day in Spring of 2018.

One thing to do before graduating:
Walk around campus, misty-eyed, and look in the windows of all the buildings (now closed) I never had occasion to enter.

Any regrets?
Probably about 85% of my entire life is regrettable, but the other 15% makes up for it.

image via Chloë