Don’t NSOP Believin’
The following is an excerpt from an e-mail I recently received:
Hello,
We sincerely apologize for the delay in notifying you of our decision. Thank you for making time in your schedules to meet with the NSOP Committee interviewers this past week. We were lucky to have such a talented candidate pool of almost 400 applicants for 175 positions this year, but that has also made the decision process very difficult.
Despite the amount of skill and experience demonstrated in your application and interview, we are unable to offer you a position as NSOP Orientation Leader at this time.
So it looks like I will not be an OL for the class of 2012. It’s a shame, really, because I had big plans for my orientation group. I would have taught it much about Columbia, about New York City, about the globalized world in which we live.
Here are seven lessons I would have imparted to my soft and impressionable young orientees:
1. All those free water bottles you get during orientation contain toxins. I don’t remember what these toxins are called, but I did read an article about this issue in the newspaper.
2. It is funny to make jokes about how “Columbia” sounds like the name of a country in South America. For example, you can tell a story about how you told someone that you were going to Columbia for college, and they were like, “Wow, do you speak Spanish?” This will never get old.
3. If you are really lazy and live on a low floor, you can avoid walking and the ire of your classmates by taking the elevator up to the top floor and then back down to your own floor. I have never done this, but it would work perfectly well I imagine.
4. Even though I can’t say it, that kid in our orientation group is a total herb. I pray that he has volcanic intestinal dysfunction all of fall semester.
5. Herodotus once wrote these immortal words: “Tomyris filled a wineskin with human blood and searched among the Persian corpses for Cyrus’ body. When she found it, she shoved his head into the wineskin, and in her rage addressed his body as follows: ‘Although I have come through the battle alive and victorious, you have destroyed me by capturing my son with a trick. But I warned you that I would quench your thirst for blood, and so I shall.’” That is the most awesome thing you will ever experience at Columbia. I don’t necessarily mean that you will get to shove a dead guy’s head into a bag of blood but rather that you will get to read Herodotus. Also, if you have any luck, you will get to shove a dead guy’s head into a bag of blood.
6. NSOP stands for New Students Orientation Program. However, in England, it stands for New Students Orientation Programme. As you will learn here, the distinction may sound meaningless, but it also is meaningless.
7. You are the future of Columbia. You are the future of America. You are the greatest. Do not let anyone tell you that you are not the greatest. Your acceptance rate makes other acceptance rates look arbitrarily, but also slightly, higher. If you do not use this orientation to become one with Columbia, you will perish, and darkness shall fall upon this University. At the very least, don’t wear socks with flip-flops.
Well kids, that’s all the lessons for today. Have a safe summer, and if you happen to encounter the NSOP Committee, feel free to ask them why they rejected my application. Otherwise, I’ll see you in September. \\\