Sara Barbour

When it comes to celebrating the end of another school year, there’s nothing quite like a feast with friends. Maybe it’s the visions of banqueting Trojans in Carthage I’ve been having since reading the Aeneid—or maybe it’s my lingering mental picture of Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the Great Hall after another magical Hogwarts year—but there’s something about good friends, a lively atmosphere, and an inexhaustible supply of delicious food that come together to create the perfect dining experience. No, I’m not talking about John Jay.

The morning after my family and I arrived in New York City for the first time, we had barely finished breakfast before getting quickly down to the tricky business of deciding how to spend the rest of our day. My parents launched into elaborate plans for possible museum trips, bus tours, and sightseeing excursions, but my sister and I, nodding and smiling along, had other plans. The Met, Central Park, and the Statue of Liberty could wait—we just wanted to go shopping.

The many wonders and landmarks of New York City are well known. Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, and Times Square exist as a source of pride for New York natives and of excitement for the frenzied tourists. Still, despite my awe in seeing these truly “New York” sites, following my first week in the city I had discovered one New York wonder that outstripped them all in every aspect but size—the MetroCard.

As someone who looks for easy ways to save money every week, I know that as students in New York City our budgets are always tighter than we’d wish. But this week, to truly appreciate what we have, I thought it might help to see how penny-pinching tips can help not just to save your wallet, but to save the world as well.

As students in the city, we enjoy certain advantages that I like to pretend lend us the status of enviable New Yorkers. We have our very own neighborhood, enclosed street, and subway stop—plus the added advantage of our home being the largest privately owned space in the city. Yet there is one perk in particular which I feel even the most seasoned New Yorker would be truly jealous—free museum admission.

Opening my campus mailbox is rarely an exciting occasion. Still, following my week-long hiatus from the mail center while on spring break, my hopes were high for at least a postcard. At first glance, I was again disappointed. Pulling a thin magazine that appeared to be nothing more than cheesy advertisements from my otherwise empty box, I prepared to make a beeline for the recycling bin.

There comes a time for every college freshman when the first-year meal plan becomes nothing short of unbearable. For me, that time was somewhere between my first and third meal in John Jay.

As endlessly exciting as our city may be, sometimes nothing is better than the prospect of escaping it.

Walk down almost any block in New York City and you will, without fail, find the same businesses—a Starbucks, a Duane Reade, and a nail salon.

When paying a visit to New York City, there are certain activities—such as a visit to Times Square or shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue—that are touted as cultural necessities. The foremost of these is attending a Broadway show, and whether you’re a musical enthusiast who has seen The Phantom of the Opera 12 times, an occasional theatergoer who lets friends choose the show du jour, or a reluctant audience member practically dragged to your seat by an enthusiastic parent, you will no doubt have gone to at least one production of a Broadway sensation by the time you head home for the summer.

Saturday morning several weeks ago, a friend and I were wandering down a busy street in Little Italy when an elderly gentleman fell in step with us. He wore a worn suit and a brown felt hat with a yellow feather in the band, and as we all paused at the street corner, he leaned toward us with an air of secrecy and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “You young ladies have got to try that bakery.”

Whether it's by going to the club meeting solely for the cupcakes, attending the town hall gathering for a better-quality dinner, or waiting in line for hours to get a ticket to a Broadway show during Urban New York, we all pay homage to the same magic word: free. As a student in New York City, the only thing better than spending a little money is spending nothing at all.

It begins to fall irritatingly into your eyes. It becomes increasingly harder to brush through. The ends look as though they accidentally got caught in a food processor. Whatever the signs, there comes a point after several months of even the strictest denial that a haircut is inevitable, and for me that time corresponded providentially with the week I discovered the Jean Louis David salon on 75th and Broadway.

This week in Fix-It we turn to a source of much frustration and many lost quarters—the Carman Hall basement dryers.

The controversial Fakhruddin Ahmed, Chief Advisor of the Non-Party Caretaker Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, wrapped up the intensive week-long World Leaders Forum with a speech in the Rotunda of Low Library Friday.