Megan Trach, master flautist and theater mom extraordinaire, shares her hard-earned wisdom.

Name, School, Major, Hometown: Megan Trach, Barnard College, Music, Thousand Oaks, CA

Claim to fame: Conducting ‘Spring Awakening’ on one day’s notice without having a complete breakdown

Where are you going? New England Conservatory in Boston! (then *immediately* returning to NYC)

What are 3 things you learned at Columbia and would like to share with the Class of 2024?
1. You can steal an indefinite amount of gummy bears from JJ’s in coffee cups. Get your tuition’s worth of gummy bears, folks.
2. Urban NY and B’Scursions will literally give you free tickets to things. Get your tuition’s worth of free tickets, folks.
3. People will go out of their way to help you if you can gather the courage to ask nicely. Get your tuition’s worth of free connections to awesome people, folks.

“Back in my day…” I was going to make a joke about Barnard’s president before Beilock but I straight up can’t remember her name.

Favorite Columbia controversy? Debating with my straight friends about how phallic the Columbia fountains are.

What was your favorite class at Columbia? Academia has slowly sucked my soul from my body. That being said, Columbia University Orchestra technically counted for credit every semester and I love Jeffrey Milarsky with my whole heart, so I’ll go with that.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? As an asexual cheese-lover….well, the rest of that statement is redundant.

Whom would you like to thank? Thank you theater god Dave Malloy, whose musicals I attended a whopping 6 times throughout my 4 years of undergrad. And thank you Riva, with whom I attended all 6 Dave Malloy musicals.

One thing to do before graduating: Get a good night’s sleep. I’m begging you. This campus is so bad at sleeping.

Any regrets? Only that it ended so soon!