Dear Readers,

Before I came to Columbia, I wrote on medieval love poetry. Now I write on power—and its detractors.

Andersen Gu, a Columbia College sophomore, knows what it means to navigate New York as a Chinese American. Growing up in a predominantly Chinese-immigrant community in Queens, surrounded by people who looked like him, Gu found comfort in the community in the city; hearing people around him speak different languages made him accustomed to diversity and attending Chinese school connected him to his origins and community...

Say it too early and people freak out. Wait too long and people wonder why you’re hiding information. There’s a sweet spot, after you’ve made a connection, laughed over a shared experience, and that’s when you want to say it. The conversation doesn’t arrive there naturally, so you have to steer it there: Oh, I’m in GS. You don’t consciously analyze these decisions; rather, as an adult, a sensitivity to the comfort level of others has become second nature. Run water over stone long enough and it softens in recognition of the current...

Dear readers,

This past summer, I attempted to learn how to skate and immerse myself in the surprisingly exclusive New York City skating community. Since Alexis Sablone, a 2008 Barnard graduate and one of the best professional female skateboarders in the United States, developed her professional-level skating while at Columbia, I assumed that I could at least learn some basic skating skills and perhaps find a skate community to be a part of on campus...

Although students often spend Sunday nights alone, working on next week’s homework to make up for a weekend spent with friends, Matthew Wang, Columbia College junior and president of the Columbia eSports team, spends the night on Discord with more than 200 other members. At first glance, the server may seem quiet—nobody is constantly chatting or playing music when in fact, everyone is immersed in gaming as shown in their profiles: League of Legends and Overwatch scrimmages, or their nightly game of Minecraft or Hearthstone...

Over the past week or so, with a stomach full of warm dread and a numb mind, I’ve looked several times at a photo on my phone from the night of November 8, 2016: Three friends and I pose, smiling (it was early in the night) somewhere in the middle of a Westin in downtown Denver, the site of several Democratic watch parties...