Civility and nobility

Columbia transforms into a different campus when midterms roll around. Students abandon fashionable garb for sweatpants, forgo showering for Febreze, and forget the manners our mothers have taught us. At the risk of sounding like grouchy old men: There are certain standards for courteous behavior that we should not ditch as easily as we shrug off our oversized sweatshirts.

Behavior in class is of crucial importance, mainly because we spend the majority of our day sitting in lectures and discussion sections. But equally important is how we get to class. Fighting our way past a Hamilton elevator line of 10 or 15 people deep tends to rob us of our dignity. We’ve said this before, but apparently, it bears repeating: Unless you’re going to the sixth or seventh floors, just take the stairs. We are all out of shape, but unless you’re disabled, it won’t hurt to get your blood pumping a little.

Speaking of being out of shape and generally unhealthy, please do not bring a three-course meal to class. Watching you slice your roast chicken with a plastic knife and fork is certainly amusing, but also off-putting and distracting.

If you do bring said roast chicken to class, don’t leave it under your seat when you depart. Neither your TAs, your professors, nor the facilities employees are paid to be your mother. And also, you really shouldn’t treat your mother like that either.

If you are sitting in an Intro to Philosophy course chewing gum and come to the conclusion that, five minutes after having been introduced to it, you know how to disprove some theory of Thomas Aquinas or Descartes, do us all a favor and keep it to yourself. We doubt the greatest thinkers in Western history would have attained their lofty posts if their ideas could be summarily disproven by someone whose Facebook “favorite quotations” consist entirely of snippets from the Jersey Shore.

But transgressions of courtesy happen outside of the classroom as well. We often leave lecture ravenous, with only a few minutes to grab a meal before our next classes. So please decide what you want before you reach the counter. It’s discourteous to both the staff and those behind you to have an argument with yourself over whether you want mozzarella on that sandwich. And while we’re on it, we don’t care where you come from, who you think you are, or who your parents are: You have no right to be rude to the people who are serving you.

If at the end of the day, you leave campus, do not put your backpack or purse on the subway seat next to you. Your bag doesn’t need a seat. Put it on the ground and let someone sit next to you and stop being such a rude misanthropic jerk.

Perhaps midterms are making us a bit edgy too. But please, fellow Columbia students, do not forget that you were not raised in a lion’s den.