International-students

Six Columbia Daily Spectator Spectrum team members show us what a day in their life looks like during a remote semester.

Because the upcoming presidential election this year will play a defining role in America’s political future, it’s essential to understand both the election system and the structure of the Electoral College. The American election process is complex, and its intricacies may be unfamiliar to international students who are better versed in the political processes of their home countries.

With most classes and club meetings being held according to Columbia’s East Coast time zone, international students have been left to study or find community during the wee hours of the night. Most first-years and transfers haven’t even had the opportunity to explore campus or experience college life in daylight.

With the University going virtual, most students are studying from home, tuning in to their classes from all across the globe. Although some students never had to adjust to a time zone difference while in New York, many students have been recalibrating their hours to EST since last March. Whether you are living three hours behind Morningside Heights on the West Coast or 11 hours ahead in East Asia, here are some tips to guide you through this tough time.

This semester, with students away from campus due to COVID-19 health and safety restrictions, many are no longer able to access Columbia’s libraries and other resources in person. In response, the University has made plans to accommodate international students through its Columbia Global Centers—traditionally international research outposts—which now provide an option for students who need a safe, communal working space outside of their homes.

When Jenna Gould answers my phone call, it is with an apology. She is holding her baby as we speak, and while she believes that he won’t make too much of a fuss over the course of the next thirty minutes, she’s sorry in advance if he does. I hear a sleepy murmur behind her voice—the hushed kind that only a child nestling into his mother’s arms makes—and then he falls quiet, just as Gould predicted.

Faced with another remote semester, some students have found themselves confronting issues hands-on at home that would have otherwise been left up for theoretical debate and discussion in their classes.

I was sitting in my bedroom in Recife, Brazil, when the video of Columbia’s campus announcing I had gotten in opened on my computer screen. As I jumped up and down and stared incredulously at the image of Alma Mater, I still couldn’t believe it. In just a few months, I would be in New York, meeting people from all over the world and living the college experience I had dreamed of for years.  

Students and faculty erupted in protest this weekend after Columbia announced that it would require graduate students to return to the United States to keep their teaching and research positions regardless of their citizenship status. Following widespread criticism, the University has since announced that it is exploring other options to the policy, though no update has been released.

“Uncertainty is a motif of my life,” Columbia College first-year Derek Ng tells me, one evening over Zoom.