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On April 3, 2019, the plastic chairs that lined the Broadway Room of Lerner were dotted with students ready to talk about the challenges of having a disability at Columbia. Dierdre Radigan, a senior in General Studies, opened the town hall by speaking about her experience as an undergrad at Georgetown 12 years earlier. “I sat there facing all these problems that I had no idea how to solve and couldn’t have any perspective on. I felt like my life was falling apart, and I didn’t know who to talk to,” she said.

When I ask professor Edward Mendelson, a veteran English literature professor and longtime Literature Humanities instructor, what he hopes his students take away from his Lit Hum class, he pauses mid-thought. A moment later, he reaches over to the overflowing bookshelf along one wall of his office. His eyes quickly bounce from left to right, scanning through the titles until—The English Auden, an early 20th century collection of writings by W.H. Auden. Instinctually, he flips to page 371 and reads the words of Auden: “I’m quite certain [the arts] makes us more difficult to deceive.”

One day last fall, Jeff walked into Lerner Hall and turned left into Café East, heading past the security desk on the bottom floor, past the neon blue “We Are Columbia” sign, and past the small white tables populated by packs of Columbia and Barnard students. He was here to meet his tutor, and though Columbia’s Morningside campus is contained by just 10 or so city blocks, Jeff had come a long way from home.

Sitting at a rickety white table in Joe with her white earbuds in and her red hair falling over her face as she pores over a neatly organized but well-used notebook, Silvie Schlein looks like any other Barnard student. But Silvie wouldn’t spend her day migrating through campus attending classes, racing to club meetings, and tackling piles of homework in Butler Library. Instead, after attending Introduction to African History in the Diana Center, Silvie leaves the boundaries of Morningside Heights and heads to her home downtown. There, she resumes her day-to-day as a homeschooled high school senior: studying for AP exams, taking online classes, and writing college applications.

While the typical undergraduate can only grasp the Cold War era through textbooks, Rose Gibbs, who graduated from the School of General Studies last spring, has been to the Soviet satellite state of East Germany herself. It was there, almost 40 years ago, that she paid $3 for a full seven-course, soup-to-nuts Russian meal.

In her time working at the Visitor’s Center, Alex Parkhurst, CC ’19, has rubbed shoulders with director Steven Spielberg, White Chicks actor Marlon Wayans, and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. “You don’t know who’s gonna come through that door,” she tells me.

“I’m a visual arts major, and I never did arts before I came here three years ago.”

This summer, Alani Sumako Fujii will be growing her own food at home in Maryland. Her decision, she explains, stems from a belief in “self-sustenance,” a key trait she’ll need before she starts working for the Peace Corps. In just a few months’ time, Fujii will be in the Kingdom of Tonga, in the South Pacific, teaching English.

Aaron Smithson, CC ’19, is heading to Columbus—but not the avenue. Columbus, Indiana, is a 47,000-person town that sits halfway between Indianapolis and Louisville, which might seem like an odd vacation destination. But for Smithson, who was raised on the Upper West Side, it’s actually a pretty natural choice.

Take a look at that syllabus your teacher handed out at the start of this year. If your professor teaches at one of the 12 schools, departments, or locations that have been certified through the Sustainable Leaders Network’s Workplace Certification, that syllabus is most likely printed on 100 percent recycled paper. And that business card you got from a professor in the School of Nursing? It’s probably made up of at least 30 percent postconsumer waste content.