The quick takeaway from James Piereson’s recent WSJ op-ed (excerpted from a longer piece in The New Criterion), “Where Columbia Beats Harvard”: our Core Curriculum is far superior to Harvard’s set of abstruse distribution requirements. So that’s neat! In fact, add to this upset CU’s recent jump up those knuckleheaded US News rankings, and Columbia […]

Tomorrow, there will be no more advice. So relish it today. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get out of the Foreign Language requirement! Deans don’t like to enlighten frosh on how it can be done, but The Blue and White cornered one administrator and he spilled the beans. Apparently, to […]

Due to the change in the Navigating Health Services theme, Bwog was briefly under the alarming impression that consent was no longer sexy. To our great relief we confirmed today that consent is, in fact, sexy. Still. And… exhale! Proving that the Health Services team is an upbeat, if maybe not particularly creative bunch, today’s […]

Upperclassmen, you’ve seen this one before. Peter Sterne, CC’14, writes from the Health Services Skit. NSOP is a strange time when normally impersonal and bureaucratic instruments of the administration try to humorously (and cornily) appeal to incoming, naïve freshmen. Every department does things differently: the Division of Student Affairs gives us Dean Shollenberger, who has […]

Class of 2014: among your many distinctive traits (you got 2400’s on your SATs! You got 2380 on your SATs!) you will also be the first Columbia class to see physical proof of our new campus, just a few blocks uptown in Manhattanville. You’ll hear a lot about Manhattanville in the next few weeks and […]

In CC taking UW in IAB after NSOP and COBOP? NP! Alright freshpeople, we know you’ve just been thrust into a world where 3/4 of the rest of the population seems to speak in just letters. Here’s a quick little guide to campus acronyms and initialisms we’ve put together to help you out: The Schools […]

Hurricane Earl is ready to spew some nasty moderate rain over Manhattan.  Barnard Director of Public Safety Dianna Pennetti sent out a rather alarmist email to students this afternoon and here’s the takeaway: There’s a Tropical Storm Watch in effect for Manhattan this evening.  So it might rain and be windy like Claremont Ave. in […]

Each May, Bwog invites outgoing seniors—campus leaders, academic stars, and other Columbians eager to answer the question, “Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese?”—to reminisce, voice their petty grievances, and give their advice to incoming first-years. Here are our favorites: the funniest, the truest, and the most useful. The Academics A good title […]

The Columbia EcoReps are hosting their semi-annual “Reduce, Reuse, Save” Green sale starting today. That’s for you, fridge-less freshman! From noon to 4 pm in John Jay Lounge, the EcoReps will be peddling used dorm essentials– lamps, furniture, etc– for cheap. The sale will also continue from September 7-9 in Broadway Lounge from 3-7 PM […]

Zoe Camp, BC ’14, was on a boat last night. This year’s New York City Event started off with a heavy dose of déjà vu. 2014ers strolling—or in the case of the many high-heel-clad girls, clopping—onto the flight deck of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum were greeted by a clapping, whooping sea of […]

Advice: Drinking Alcohol Edition Carman Hall’s unwritten pillars of social wisdom (Now, written!) Residents of Carman floors 1-5 are restricted from using Carman’s “slow-ass” elevators to descend. Exceptions may be granted for laundry purposes. If a resident plays music at a volume sufficient to penetrate Carman’s foot-wide cinder block walls, other residents must retaliate. A […]

We hear Campo has been a real shitshow (always the fresh-person word of choice to describe anything) the last few nights. Explore your other options, limited as they may be, with bar trading cards, originally posted in last year’s Orientation Blue & White. Have fun post-gaming your Intrepid party! Illustrations by Stephen Davan. Click to […]

Hey 2014, in the next few weeks you will be introduced to a dizzying array of organizations, acronyms, slang, and food carts. Bwog knows it can be difficult to keep track, so here to ease your bureaucracy-induced agita is Bwog’s CCSC correspondent to untangle the web that is Columbia’s undergraduate student government. F@CU – Funding […]

Dear Bwog, I’m the Forgetful Jones of names. Help! Love, Elephant Envy Dear Elephant Envy, You’re meeting hundreds of people, so it’s natural to forget some names. One Bwogger recalls a ten minute long conversation with a complete stranger, who slightly resembled someone she had met earlier.  Oops. Bwog finds that facial hair can be […]

Orientation can be fun, provided you’re drunk or Kenneth the page. Columbia is very nice to you during NSOP (relish it!) and rents out the Met and everyone smiles and tells you where Pupin is when you ask them. There is, however, the underlying problem that you don’t know any of these people, and there’s […]