Ta-nehisi-Coates

It’s a week before finals and you are swamped with work: Essays need to be written; tests need preparing for; and labs need to be done. Speaking from personal experience, the hardest part of the week isn’t the excessive coffee-drinking or the all-nighters––it’s the helpless feeling of simply not knowing how to solve a problem or structure an essay. In those moments, the best solution is to reach out and get help. Detailed below is a series of Columbia’s undergraduate resources that one should make the most of.

Although approaching a professor can be intimidating at first, knowing the right thing to say can often help you get what you are looking for. There are many unwritten rules to writing an email, but maintaining a professional tone is one of the most essential. To get you started, Spectrum has outlined a few ways to approach your professors via email below.

With union elections approaching at the end of the month, the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers are faced with a pressing debate: Barnard undergraduate teaching assistants—many of whom teach courses within Columbia departments—still cannot participate in or vote on union decisions.

Panels of renowned journalists and professors discussed the evolving role of journalism in covering and engaging with the current political climate at a Journalism School event entitled Born Free and Equal: A Symposium on Journalism and Human Rights on Monday.

New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined journalist and renowned writer Ta-Nehisi Coates to discuss political activism, the need for urgent advocacy, and the nature of “clapping back” at Twitter followers at an event to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in Riverside Church on Monday afternoon.

If you’ve taken a math class at Columbia, chances are you’re familiar with the wall of mailboxes in Mathematics Hall. They serve as conduits, as a communication system between two distinct but mutually dependent parts of the University: the doers and the graders of homework.

A physics Ph.D. candidate who tore down signs promoting tolerance of LGBTQ people in Pupin Hall was banned from the building and relieved of his teaching assistant duties last week.

We've all been there. You've studied for five hours straight and none of the midterm info is sticking. You're pretty desperate. You have no idea what to do. At this point, you might view getting chummy with your TA as the best way to cop that sought-after A.

Today was the last day to glut yourself on pancakes and other decadences, because starting tomorrow, for 40 days and 40 nights, we must give up all the luxuries Columbia students know and love. Here is Spectrum's guide to what Columbians should give up for Lent.