Returning Bwog member Sofie Huang considers the new mysteries of Barnard College.

Coming back from study abroad, I have noticed several things have changed at Barnard College. There was a bed bug issue I had not heard about before, and exposed wiring in the tunnels now, which definitely is not a fire hazard. The food has gotten better, but the weather seems to have gotten worse.

Perhaps the most glaring of them all is the large white wall in Barnard Hall, which is supposedly the “Francine A. LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-being.”

What do we think is actually happening back there? I have some ideas.

A candle-making side hustle trying to raise money for the new science building that is supposed to begin construction, like, now: Nothing would be more Barnard than a candle-making side hustle. Plus, for parent’s weekend my freshman year, my parents told me PresBei called us “scrappy,” which was another way of telling parents that we have no money.

Hoarding the Barnard gym equipment (which might actually exist!) and thereby not allowing the Barnard students to find the independence and strength separate from the institution and making them go to grad school: Oh grad school, an idea that as soon as you get to college, seeps into your brain and begins to make you paranoid about your GPA. C’s get degrees, but they certainly don’t get into Med School. Barnard is hiding the gym equipment so no students can conjure up the courage to leave academia and pursue more worthwhile careers like consulting and human resources.

Another location to cook up the awful and disrespectful Milstein boba: Everyone knows the Milstein Boba is awful, so in an effort to avoid the student uprising that will effectively end its derogatory reign on the Barnard campus boba scene, the administration has hidden the Milstein boba in the back of the white wall.

An insane asylum for students who failed Organic Chemistry II: As a Philosophy major, you will not see me in any classes even adjacent to Orgo II, but as an outsider to the Pre-Med game, you guys seem not very mentally stable. Perhaps this is an improvement to Barnard’s mental health services, and I would maybe encourage the students who have to retake it to investigate the white wall too.

Just a group of Columbia freshmen who got lost on the way to Hewitt: Those poor freshmen, lost forever in the walls of Barnard. Hopefully, someone left a pile of Lithum books so they can complain incessantly about The Illiad anyway if they ever make it out.

The class that you have wanted to take since freshman year but have never been able to get off the waitlist for: This class, named maybe something like Abstract Pottery in Times of Environmental Crisis, is never going to let you off the waitlist. The professor will even reject you from the class before the first day of class and tell you not to come at all. I should know, I got rejected from an Art History class three days before class started.

Puppies: Barnard might just be evil enough to deprive us of the last semblance of joy we need to get us through this Spring semester. If there are puppies behind there though, it definitely would be the center for well-being like they are claiming.

Whatever it is back there, I would like the wall gone as soon as possible. I have been deprived of the Barnard gym for too long and I refuse to stoop as low as to endure the humid air of Dodge, which if anyone asks, is the only reason why I don’t go to the gym. If you have time next week, spend some time in front of the white wall to ponder life’s questions. And try the new all-white bathroom, which is very clean, but makes you feel like if you stay for too long you might hear too many of your own thoughts.

Barnard White Wall via Sofie Huang