I hate to lay this on you young striplings like this, but-you missed your chance. The deadline for applying to the School of General Studies mentor program has come and gone, and I'm sorry to say there will be no Lucky Jim mentorship for any of you Columbia College kids next year.
In all seriousness, I was considering becoming a mentor. Hell, I was downright gleeful when I got the e-mail. I figured I'd get fodder for two, maybe three, columns out of doing it. Some poor kid could come with me to work, field my calls, stand in line at the Shake Shack, and I'd write all about it while munching on a cheeseburger with my feet on my desk.
Luckily for you CCsters, cooler heads prevailed. Amy, or Mrs. Lucky Jim, talked me out of it. It would be unethical to do it for a lark, she said. There may very well be youngsters slavering for GSers' regurgitated pap. Who wouldn't want to learn the U.S. Marine Corps' Rules of Gunfighting from a real Marine? That is, assuming last year's hysterics haven't driven them all off campus.
Besides, what advice could I really give them? Columbia's near-perfect graduation rate obviates all my after-school-special advice. No powder drugs on weekdays, perhaps? A good-luck shot of Wild Turkey before the test does more harm than good? Don't cash out your financial aid and go to Vegas? (I know someone at the University of Southern California who actually did this.) You want dating advice? Guys, wash your pits and cut your hair-worked for me. Girls, never forget that you're the one in control.
I could try giving pet-ownership advice, but it would just boil down to four cats in a one-bedroom is two too many. Dorm-dwellers aren't allowed pets, anyway. So that about exhausts my CC-specific skill-set.
In my exalted position as self-appointed voice of the School of General Studies, I am occasionally called upon for advice. But it's my fellow GSers who seek counsel, not the students of CC. There are far more of us GSers silently skulking around campus than boring the lecture halls with our life stories. And that's a bad thing.
I tell my fledglings what I try to tell all of you: we GSers need to embrace our pushy, demanding, whiny selves and extract every bit of usefulness that we can from Columbia. We must stop quivering in Lewisohn Lounge and swoop down to spatter the steps of Low Library with our-
Apparently, my missives have struck a nerve. I got some flack recently for being unrepresentative of our student body, mostly because I don't attend GS-sponsored events. My quibble with GS events is the same as my quibble with all University events. They're announced at the last minute and tend to be very cliquey.
I'm not sure what kind of full-time job would be okay with those of you lumbering in hung-over on a Friday morning after Senior Pub, but it's certainly not one that pays enough to keep my little lion pride in kitty litter. Brunch with my classmates would be great, but have it on a Tuesday, not a Sunday. Who's going to make the hour-and-a-half trek to Morningside Heights from an apartment in Queens for a couple of flapjacks?
Maybe I'm not that representative of GS, but I do try to keep all of our factions in mind while I'm writing. The closest thing to a random sample of GSers I've ever encountered was in my University Writing class. Skewed sample though it was, that is my intended audience.
The class of 12 ranged in age from about 18 to 45. There were three 18-year-old students of the Jewish Theological Seminary, 24-year-old yours truly, two Serrano Scholars in their late 20s and fresh from community college, two pouty, arty 30-somethings, two Eastern European 30-somethings working administrative positions at Columbia, a doctor, and a mom, who was also a Columbia employee. The doctor dropped out.
Our class included two people who ran for student office (only one won), three students who worked full-time for Columbia, and four international students. I'd say only the JTS students, the office-seekers, and, in their weaker moments, maybe the arty kids would ever attend a General Studies Student Council event. So, when I say GS, that's who I'm referring to-a conflation of my old University Writing class. Like it or not, for most of us, it's our only moment of GS collectivity.
For the record, I do not tarry to a GS party line-not even that of our tantalizingly named shadow cabinet. Beyond my nascent exhibitionism, I write this column because, as a GSer, I felt marginalized within the larger Columbia University community. And I came to realize that feeling was largely self-imposed.
More than financial aid, perhaps even more than prestige, what the School of General Studies needs is a self-sustaining identity that we can be proud of-one that fits the multivariate lives of our student body and lets us justify our presence on campus, if only to ourselves.
GSSC has a part in this. But what student government has ever really represented its student body? We need campus heroes and villains, secret societies, weird rituals, clubhouses. Let's turn Lewisohn Lounge into Ali Baba's cave. Let's dig our own tunnels. Roar, Owls, Roar!