A tale of two semesters

Studying at college is a lot like those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books from elementary school. Your choices while reading greatly affects your outcome. But the devil is always in the details—the choices are less exciting, and you frequently don’t even realize that you’re actually making a life-altering decision and that one incorrect choice can genuinely lead to tragedy.

At the very least, we have to divide our guide for finishing the semester into two tracks: one for the grade-grubber and one for the grade-indifferent. To maintain the children’s literature theme, we’ll call our theoretical tracks the “Goofus track” and the “Gallant track,” secure in the assumption that if Highlights magazine does still exist and pursues infringement action, we at Columbia have better lawyers.

Those on the Goofus track began this spring knowing that “Cs get degrees” and subsequently ensured that not one single minute more than necessary would be allocated to studying. Goofus values his free time highly. Of course, since making a study schedule would be dangerously close to being wastefully studious, any allocation process amounts to simply putting off any and all assignments until they are actually mentioned by a professor or fellow student as being imminently due. What could be more efficient? After all, you can crank out five pages of passable hogwash on virtually any topic in 48 hours—how else did you make it to the Ivies in the first place? Even math symbols and variables can only be arranged in so many combinations. And besides, New York City can’t be the most fabulous city on Earth all by itself. It needs folks like you out there partying hard to maintain that reputation. At the very least, you could be draped over the chairs in front of some cafe, looking cool. And let’s face it: at a school like Columbia, networking is what it’s all about.

We’ll follow our “Goofus track” as the spring semester reaches its conclusion and the familiar, inevitable panic sets in. Since our Goofuses would only respond with bewilderment or indignation to any suggestions related to studying, we’ll focus on some nice, recreational ways to kill time as you wander around Morningside Heights swimming in anxiety and remorse for the next month.

Meanwhile, Gallant stays ready to condense the nonsense. Those on this track are reading through eyes of highly motivating shame and guilt for not being immersed in assigned text this very minute. You Gallants began this semester the same way you begin everything: promptly and sharply after feverishly planning for every possible contingency. Reading Spectator is a luxury bordering on the unacceptably frivolous—the Butler stacks are beckoning, always beckoning. Never mind the dorm, goodness no. Who could get anything done in that room, around those ... people? You genuinely savor the feeling of being nestled 2,500 feet below a massive library, surrounded by books above, below, and on all sides, lifting your gaze from a dusty page only long enough to silently recite some idea back into your own memory.

We’ll chronicle the Gallant’s confident and relaxed journey right through finals week, and though it seems presumptuous to offer study tips to the kind of person who will likely be determining the fates of millions in a few decades, we’ll discuss academic pursuits anyway. We don’t want to antagonize a Gallant.

Presented below are this installment’s respective recommendations for Goofus-style slackers and Gallant Butler-stackers.

Slackers: You’ve spent a long semester hard at play, so you know almost all the usual spots. Here’s a joint you might not have tried: Patrick Ryan’s at 3155 Broadway (between 123rd and 124t streets). It’s a dive bar deluxe with couches, a pool table, and digital jukebox upstairs, and another full bar with disc jockeys and live music downstairs (and more couches). It’s a nice mix of students and locals. It’s kind of like O’Connell’s Pub, except you can hear yourself think and most of the people actually look like they can legally drink.

Stackers: Again, it seems presumptuous to offer academic advice to the most studious among us. Who knows what timeless knowledge is being rediscovered by the diligent even as we speak? But I hope this will make life a little easier: OttoBib. One of those hidden-in-plain-sight tips offered during the New Student Orientation Program (orientation week for lay folks), OttoBib is a software application that makes citations, especially from web sources, much easier. You can enter an ISBN and automatically generate a full citation in various formats. Hey—it’s the little things, right? But you knew that already.

The author is a student in the School of General Studies.