New-year

It is hard to believe that spring break is just around the corner. For many of us, spring break is the time to see family and friends and to take a break from school and work. For some, it might be a chance to catch up on missed lectures. But for others, spring break is also the perfect time to put academics on hold and focus on preparing for your professional life. If that sounds exciting to you, here are some productive things you can do over spring break to prepare for life after college.

The small black box is swaddled in thin drapes, streaked with watercolor branches. The fabric winds its way toward the ceiling, where it hangs like acoustic panels for an orchestra or a Milky Way made out of linen.

“The play was about breath before we all started losing ours.”

As I return to Columbia from a semester off, I am confronted with the same jarring culture shock I experienced my first year—the experience of existing in a predominately white and wealthy institution while coming from a predominantly Black and poor community. Unlike many of my peers and many Black students who attend Columbia and other elite institutions, I didn’t attend a wealthy and white school nor was I raised in white picket-fenced suburbia. After spending my summer and fall in the predominantly Black and lower-income community of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, I return to Columbia with the same anxiety and feeling of foreignness.

I had just finished packing my bags and was ready to board a plane to New York City. It was mid-August, and I was scrolling through my social media feed, filled with fresh faces that I had followed from the class of 2024 Instagram page. I remember telling myself, “Some of these people might even become your closest friends,” which made me feel excited and nauseated at the same time. Overall, however, I was looking forward to being able to meet these people on campus—in real life—even if it was going to be socially-distanced.

Spectrum’s back with its newest batch of monthly playlists. Discover new songs and artists or rediscover old favorites you might have forgotten!

As students head into another semester which will have an all-virtual component,  many are again faced with the question of where to spend it. Time zones, convenience, community, and finances all factor into the decision. For some students in the fall, neither staying at home nor living near campus was ideal, so instead, they chose to live in new areas. A few gave insight into how their semesters went.

As the fall 2020 semester comes to an end, we’re all looking forward to enjoying our winter break. However, as much as we are excited for next semester, many of us are still questioning whether it is safe to return to campus and the city. Although it is ultimately your own decision, here are some questions to consider while you prepare for next semester.