The half-finished commencement bleachers say it all: it’s time for the Class of 2014 to start bidding their fair Columbia adieu. In honor of this year’s graduating class, Bwog is starting our 2014 round of Senior Wisdom. If you have a senior you’re dying to nominate, send their name and why they deserve to share their wisdom to wisdom@bwog.com; we’re accepting nominations until 5 pm on Sunday. We’re kicking off the series with Evelyn, bandie extraordinaire.

Evelyn 

Name, Hometown, School, Major: Evvie, Edgemont, NY, CC’14, Evolutionary Biology of the Human Species

Claim to fame: Once performed with CUMB at a birthday party for LeBron James’ best friend. LeBron is a surprisingly awkward dancer. Read the script at Orgo Night Fall 2011, crowd surfed for 15 seconds at Bacchanal this year, VP of CU Dems when Obama was elected—so that was basically all me.

Where are you going? University of Cambridge for a one-year Masters in Biological Anthropological Science, which is basically the study of human evolution, or as my friend Karl calls it, “creative writing.”

What are 3 things you learned at Columbia and would like to share with the Class of 2018?

1. Don’t compare yourself to your Columbia classmates. You be you, don’t stress if you’ve never had an internship feeding grapes to Kristin Gilibrand, created a foundation that makes shoes out of used chewing gum, or given a tour to Sasha Obama from the cockpit of Air Force One. This place can make you feel average; don’t let it.

2. Don’t sweat the small stuff. For example, my freshman floor got into a huge fight over housing groups even though WE WERE ALL PICKING INTO THE SAME FLOOR OF MCBAIN. That was dumb, don’t do that.

3. Always look up. Take a second to look at the world around you. You’ll be surprised to see the beautiful Columbia blue sky, the new restaurant you’ve never tried, or the dude you’re about to walk into.

“Back in my day…” Snoop Dogg performed at Bacchanal. At one point, he got everybody to chant “Smoke weed, get drunk, and fuck!” Being the innocent freshwoman I was, I misheard and instead shouted “Smoke weed, get drunk, have fun!” But hey, two out of three ain’t bad.

Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer: 3.5 billion years of evolution have conspired to put me (and every one of us) here today. Don’t blow it.

Write your most memorable note from the field: Well, I was Spirit Manager of CUMB so this is really an infinite list but here’s one of the best: once we were walking down Amsterdam to our first rehearsal of the semester shouting “join the Marching Band!!” at random passerbys when this 30-something East Asian man (Columbia affiliation still unclear) who spoke didn’t speak English well and probably didn’t know what we were talking about decided to come with us. He stayed for the whole rehearsal and then came back to the Bandsuite™ where he took and empty bottle of Bombay Sapphire, filled it with water, and preceded to pretend to chug liquor all night…pretty entertaining to watch.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? I grew up in a kosher home so I’m used to not having pork in my mouth.

One thing to do before graduating: Find out the true meaning of G(tb)^2.

Any regrets? I wish I had taken more advantage of the amazing speakers to which Columbia gives students access. I’ve never been to a World Leaders Forum, for example, and I think that was dumb of me.

I also wish that I had gone to one or two meetings of a lot of different clubs. When I came here I pretty quickly identified the two clubs to which I wanted to devote time and never even experienced most others. There are so many interesting and passionate people on this campus and I regret not seeing more of them in action.

I once had the chance to touch Prezbo’s hair and I did not take it. I will live with this pain for the rest of my life.