Please move faster, I have places to be.

I have to say it: Everyone here walks so slowly. I swear I’m not the stereotypical cold, cutthroat Columbia student scowling and marching across campus. I’m just a girl trying to get to class. I only have 10 minutes to walk from my seminar on 121st to my lecture in Hamilton—except there’s a crowd of students milling around in front of the gates and I have to step into the street to circumvent them and now the line isn’t moving and no one has their IDs out and oh my god there’s a family of seven trying to QR scan in.

Every day I’m forced to zigzag my way across campus. Must you stop to watch an Instagram reel in the middle of the staircase? Why are you and your five friends walking in a horizontal line? And can you transport your body in a way more efficient than mindlessly shuffling forward? Please, I’m begging, let me through. Fine, you want to stop and talk to your friends—but I wonder if you could do it slightly to the side of pedestrian traffic.

It’s even harder at Barnard. I get it, it’s a feminine paradise over there and you guys all like each other. But I can’t walk two feet without a conversation circle materializing in front of me. The very worst is under the scaffolding between Milstein and Milbank, where there’s always someone serenely strolling along and chatting with a professor. They occupy the whole walkway whilst I’m fighting for my life to get to class, weaving around and crawling under the railing in attempts to surpass them.

Don’t you guys have class? Jobs? Internships? I thought everyone here was hustling to check off a very prestigious to-do list, but it seems they’re actually all just hanging out in the middle of the sidewalk. All I want is to get from point A to point B without other students continually underfoot. I know you guys are capable of greater ambulatory skills than this. You live in New York! So come on and move your feet just a little bit faster—or else get out of the way.

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