Happy Wednesday. We’re officially deep into reading week, which means you’re deep into finding ways to procrastinate on your papers. We’ve got an Actual Wisdom to help you out with that. Today, John Kender talks about onions. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer: Sir Thomas More: Why not be a teacher? You’d be […]

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: Actual Wisdom time. Take a well-deserved study break to enrich your brain with some erudite knowledge, passed down from Columbia’s very best and brightest. We’ll be sharing some real wisdom every day for the rest of finals, so you can count on your daily dose of smarts and clever […]

Our last  Actual Wisdom takes a radical leap from professors to other really cool people at Columbia. Dean Peter Awn discusses the merits of monasteries, socks, and gives you your daily dose of soul (music). 1. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. Solon claims you’re not counted happy until you’re in an urn. […]

In our penultimate Actual Wisdom (look out tomorrow night for a super special Dean Wisdom), Nathan Pilkington casually drops his language prowess, explicitly mentions his Southerness, and eschews Columbia lions in favor of another savanna animal. 1. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. To remind Columbia freshmen that they have reached the start […]

1. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. I don’t need to justify my existence–I wasn’t responsible for it. But since I’m here, I hope that by the time I’m gone I’ve written a few things and loved a few people well. 2. Your claim to fame (what makes you special?): Oh man — […]

In tonight’s Actual Wisdom, Cris Beam is a synchronized swimming rock star and resists anxiety and frustration. 1. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. Wow, you’re really hitting on a core anxiety for your first question; you really ask people to justify their very existence? Well, I guess I’d say that aside from […]

Tonight’s Actual Wisdom has proof of blatant plagiarism, how unsophisticated Columbia students are, and a defiance of question 5. Meet Nancy Workman: 1. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. I’m quite possibly one of the bestest Core instructors you’ve never heard of. 2. Your claim to fame (what makes you special?): I’ve been […]

Tonight’s Actual Wisdom proves that you don’t have to have any grey hair to be wise. Jason Fitzgerald laments about metrocard prices and celebrates waffles with us.  1. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. I am here to learn, to grow, and to encourage intellectual risk in myself and others. More than that, […]

Today’s Actual Wisdom: Shamus Khan, expert on farm to table food, authenticity, and not being an asshole.  1. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. I teach. Every year I have a chance to influence how hundreds of young people understand the world and themselves. Cheesy? Yes. But I love it (most of the time). […]

Tonight’s Actual Wisdom brings you a little bit of international wisdom with the words of Reyes Llopis-García, who discusses Finding Nemo and all of the awkward Spanish slip-ups. And makes you feel really good with the last question. 1. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) does […]

Tonight’s Actual Wisdom offers sage advice on the relative values of cheeses, more weird clubs professors are part of, and the sinister side of artichokes. 1. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. I exist to help undergraduates acquire a credential that this society seems to value. 2. Your claim to fame (what makes […]

Tonight’s Actual Wisdom: Gary Okihiro, Comparative Ethnics professor and expert on the Department of Social Formations, humility, and how many times a person can die.  1. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. Throughout my over thirty-year career, I’ve had to justify my field of study, comparative ethnic studies, repeatedly. Now I’ve got to […]

As final papers and exams loom on the horizon, so comes the return of another, happier Columbia tradition: that week where you get to read about your professors’ preferences on cheese and oral sex. Actual Wisdom is back in all its elegant, awkward glory, and kicking it off is Barnard’s own Anne Prescott. Let her […]

In today’s installment of Actual Wisdom, meet film professor Richard Peña. Besides teaching at Columbia, he is Program Director of the Film Society at Lincoln Center and Director at the New York Film Festival (see OldBwog’s first and second interviews about that, from before we even knew what theory was). It’s fair to say that […]

Sam Moyn, a professor of intellectual history, does not like smart phones, and is not down to chat about cheese. He claims to be neither famous, special, nor wise, but we beg to differ. Here is his Actual Wisdom:  Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer: I teach existentialism in my classes, so I find it […]