Adding tap dancing on Low to my bucket list.

Name, School, Major, Hometown: Andrea Patella, Barnard College, Economics, Cranbury, New Jersey

Claim to fame: Tap dancing on low steps, choreographing The 125th Annual Varsity Show, getting canceled by Swifties on TikTok, falling victim to appendicitis on pi day, being a Cool Girl?

Where are you going? Currently? On a walk in Riverside. In life? Hopefully on many more walks in Riverside.

What are 3 things you learned at Columbia and would like to share with the Class of 2025?

  1. No matter how much work you think you have to do, you always have time for a dining hall brunch with your friends. Sunday mornings in Johnathan Jay are some of my most treasured memories. Bananas and coffee to go. 
  2. You can squeeze so much out of your NYC college experience while being economical. Babysitting is the best side hustle. Buy street fruit. Befriend a bartender at 1020. Stuff your pockets on the way out of JJs. Sometimes the hottest club in NYC is a suite with your besties. Pret coffee membership. Get student rush tickets. The Met is free. Parks are free. 
  3. In the best way possible, you think about yourself way more than people think about you. Be bold, dance in public, DM your crush. Life is not as embarrassing as we think it is!!

“Back in my day…” 

School was real, hot sandwich man still worked at Diana, we could sit in theatres, it was called Nussbaum and Wu not Wu and Nussbaum, no Milstein aka no Peet’s, you couldn’t use a swipe for Diana lunch, and in a far off kingdom lived a fair maiden, a sad young lad, and a childless baker with his wife (musical theatre reference).

Favorite Columbia controversy? It’s gotta be the milk.

What was your favorite class at Columbia? 

A few…

Tap as an American Art Form with Margaret Morrison.

Intermediate Microeconomics with Susan Elmes (random).

Athena Senior Seminar with Sylvie Honig.

Modern IV with Caroline Fermin.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese?

In game theory, the Ellsberg Paradox is taken as evidence for ambiguity aversion, in which people’s choices are inconsistent with subjective expected utility. For example, people might choose cheese over oral sex, even though oral sex could give them a higher utility, because they KNOW the outcome of cheese, whereas the probability of having oral sex that is better than cheese may be unknown. So maybe that’s why people say they’d give up oral sex. Anyways, I’d give up cheese.

Whom would you like to thank?

My parents, my sister, my professors, MTA, all my roomies, the dance department, Scarlett, Milano’s employees, The Plimpton Chickens, The Varsity Show, UnTapped, CMTS, Latenite, CATS (2019), Miss Claudia, Ariana Grande, The Athena Center, Jeff Probst, FFF, oral sex, and cheese.

Any regrets?

Only regret the things I didn’t do. I wish I saw more bad art. I wish I partied in Lerner Party Space. I wish I talked to more strangers. I wish I took a film class. Oh well. More life.

Class of 2021 Cool Girl via Andrea