Every November, friends and families gather around the dinner table for meals and remind themselves not to bring up certain taboo topics. Everybody knows the universal no-nos: money, religion, and politics. While these taboos may not apply on campus, where we discuss these subjects in our classes every day, here are some sensitive topics you may want to avoid around your University friends if you’re not sure who might feel strongly about them.

Registration for the spring semester is about to start, and with it begins the familiar task of combing through the course directory for engaging classes while also keeping academic requirements in mind. Though registration can be overwhelming, the fresh influx of new courses  gives students the opportunity to explore relevant and interesting topics. Spectrum has compiled some new spring semester courses that were not offered this fall and fulfill requirements for majors, Barnard’s Foundations Curriculum, or Columbia’s Core Curriculum.

It isn’t always easy to cope with the intensity of Columbia and Barnard. On top of the usual rigor, academic pressure can be especially cumbersome during exam seasons. This year is particularly overwhelming—after months of online midterms and finals that were often open-book and relied on applying, rather than retaining, knowledge. There’s still that final midterm stretch before Thanksgiving, so here are a few ways to navigate your stress during these turbulent weeks.

Spectrum’s Spotify playlists are finally back with a fall playlist ready for your listening enjoyment. This week, our staff picked autumnal songs for studying, walking, and traveling—whether on public transport or for your weekend trips. The playlists will keep coming, so follow Spectrum on Spotify for musical bliss to match your weekly grind.

When it comes to homecoming, many of you probably have deeply-buried memories of trying to work your graduation year into the word “seniors” and failing to make it look good, cheering at football games, or dressing up for high school dances. But every school’s culture is different, and homecoming is an experience specific to each institution; Columbia is no exception.

Welcome back to campus, and if it’s your first time here, an especially warm welcome to you! Whether you’re experiencing fall on campus for the first time or you’ve been doing this for a while now, almost all of us have had to (re)adjust to all that a crowded campus entails: long lines at the dining halls, awkward icebreakers during floor meetings, laundry rooms that never seem to have a free washer or dryer, and, of course, the social roller coaster of those first few days in the dorms—meeting and spending as much time with as many people as humanly possible.

You’re studying for finals, trying your best to concentrate on that psychology lecture you put off for two weeks and now have to watch on CourseWorks at double speed. Your pen is in your hand, your notebook in front of you, but your mind keeps drifting off to more mindless, visually gratifying ways to spend your afternoon: curating a Pinterest board for your picture-perfect summer plans in the city or watching those mesmerizing TikToks made by stunningly attractive friend groups on impossibly cool trips. It’s true that combining social media with your summer daydreams is a dangerous game when you have exams to study for and papers to write. Oh well, a few minutes on Instagram couldn’t possibly hurt, could they? And as long as you’re on your phone, you might as well check your For You page too.

As the weather gets warmer, it is the perfect opportunity to go outdoors—keeping in mind COVID-19 guidelines of course. If you are in the city, you’ll find that a number of events and activities will finally be open and available to the public after almost a year of restrictions, though many familiar events still operate under some alterations. To take full advantage of the spring weather and the extra hour of sunlight we get with daylight saving time, here are some events to look out for.

With the world keenly focused on tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s easy to forget other pressing issues at hand that need to be addressed. A Zoom webinar held by the Center on Global Energy Policy at the School of International and Public Affairs with Bill Gates on Feb. 23 brings our attention back to the climate crisis that is still ever-present.

This year, Columbia’s summer semester will look different from past years. Due to the pandemic, the University decided to shift the academic calendar so that students could make use of up to three semesters.