Archive for the
‘Opinion’ Category
To the columnist who wrote to the class of 2012
Dear Bret Stephens,
Thank you for your non-congratulations to the members of the class of 2012. Since you asked me to, I will indeed spare you self-pity about graduating. And I will tell you why I can spare you:
You wrote that we will be moving in with our parents after graduation. You wrote, based on an experience you once had giving one (1) interview, that knowledge counts, and we, the Class of 2012, don’t even know who the President of the United States was in 1956. You wrote that we’re in worse shape than our peers “in places like Ireland, France, India and Spain,” where people speak several languages—”Unlike you,” you wrote. You wrote that our resumés are endless advertisements for ourselves with things like “internships” and “school papers” (I think you and I may have a different opinion of what a CV is, but I digress). You wrote that our “generation has an especially bad case” of comforming “because your mass conformism is masked by the appearance of mass nonconformism.”
Here is what I have to write to you: More »
Administration should embrace @students
I’m so glad @LEE_BOLLINGER, is on Twitter. His poignant and candid remarks on his day-to-day life have truly opened up students’ eyes to an entire world about our president.
Wait, that’s not PrezBo? Well that’s disappointing…
Almost all of our professors are instantly accessibly through seeing them in class or email afterwards. Why can’t the same be said for our school’s administrators?
Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger is online, taking questions, concerns, and suggestions from students, and instantly available. Ditto for Dean of Community Development and Multicultural Affairs Terry Martinez.
There are other organizations like CU Student Affairs, Alice!, and the Columbia Alumni Association that have done a solid job of getting the word out about their events and programs, but granted, they don’t have the personal charm of an individual face or name.
But what about the rest of the administration? More »
Life imitates Lemon
30 Rock had a live episode last night. Maybe it’s just because of my well-documented admiration for Tina Fey, or because I once wore a hat with a piece of masking tape that said “Night Cheese” on it to her book signing, or because most people I meet here seem to harbor a secret or overt crush on Alec Baldwin, but a lot of the lines struck me as especially relevant to this moment in Columbia’s history.
“Glamour, excitement, what we today would call alcoholism.”
To the senior class. This one’s pretty self-explanatory.
“Nine out of ten doctors surveyed said, ‘Who is this? Why are you calling so late?’”
To everyone who works for the Senior Fund. Again, this one is fairly obvious. Let’s move on. More »
Back to the start(up)
Yesterday, Caroline wrote a moving post pointing to the recent undergraduate solidarity regarding the GS Class Day controversy as proof that after years of division and contention between our schools, there is finally unity. It is the culmination of much of what Caroline spent her time writing about, and it’s a result that we can all appreciate.
In the same vein, I’d like to point to a positive sea-change that I have seen this past year, namely the noticeable increase in non-traditional post-graduation employment for the class of 2012. Back in November, I published a lengthy article discussing a problem that many had identified: a disproportionately large amount of Columbia grads have been going into consulting and banking and not other professions. I made the case that startups were a perfect fit for our core-educated minds and that there should be more of an effort on the institutional level to promote this career path.
Two things strike me as I head out the door: More »
On the tail end of things
The letter to President Bollinger published yesterday contains a moment so remarkable and extraordinary, that I’m going to repeat it for you just to make sure you don’t miss it. It was written:
Representatives and members from all of the undergraduate schools stand in solidarity with graduating seniors of the School of General Studies. Though there are four separate undergraduate schools, we stand as one undergraduate student body—celebrating the experiences and perspectives that every group and individuals add to this community. We wish to move past the animosity that has been presented toward various groups and remind students that we are here to support each other and wish that every member of our community feel included and welcomed.
Since this is an opinion post, here is my opinion of this paragraph: YES!!!!!! More »
Just Ask Emily: One final piece of advice
I was thinking about what advice I should give in this, my last advice column ever (unless, like, Dear Prudence mysteriously vanishes and everyone’s like, “Quick, we’d better get a recent college graduate with minimal blogging and very little life experience!”). And so I was thinking back over the questions that were submitted over the course of the past year. And I realized that the best piece of advice that I can give you—or that anyone can give anyone, for that matter—doesn’t even come from me. More »
Fear the ‘peer’
Listen up, people.
I only have a few of these opportunities left to rant to what is the online equivalent of a captive audience. I guess after I graduate you could always follow my tumblr, but honestly, just writing that sentence made me want to cry/vomit. We are approaching the end of the days when you get to read my words and then look at an artist’s rendition of my shockingly receding hairline at the bottom of the post.
But for today, I’ma let you in on one of my irrational, but completely legitimate, hatreds: the phrase “peer institutions.” Why do I hate this piece of the Columbia lexicon? Because it’s obnoxious while trying to sound un-obnoxious, and it confuses more than it reveals. More »
My major is better than yours
In light of all the stories this week concerning changing compsci requirements, the creation of a new interdisciplinary major, and how the linguistics major has no department at all, we asked our Opinion writers: What is the best major and why?
Jim Pagels, Blogger: Defense Against the Dark Arts—I honestly don’t see how in these troubling times, anything else could be any more pertinent. Especially when all the courses are personally taught by Provost John Coatsworth.
Noel Duan, Columnist: I’m not a Classics or Classical Studies major, but once I met a faculty member at a party who told me (while inebriated, I believe) that they have the best-looking professors. More »
Delbanco for Dean
The deadline for nominating professors for Dean of Columbia College has passed, and the Selection Committee is now starting to sift through the internal candidates in the hope of choosing a new dean by the end of the semester (only a month away!).
I’m excited that this process is taking place with three student representatives (including the CCSC President-elect, Karishma Habbu) and alumni representation—factors that will ensure some of the interests that have been marginalized in recent events are represented in this search.
As for me, I hope they select Professor Andrew Delbanco, the director of Columbia’s Center for American Studies and recipient of the National Humanities Medal.
Though his name is less recognizable than our interim dean Prof. James Valentini, I think Delbanco is precisely the person for this job. More »