oh-shit

The first week of shopping classes has come to an end. You got to MoHi, raring to go for classes and friends and clubs and all that, only for the first three days to shoot you down and exhaust you.

It's January and 99 cent Snapchat lenses and expensive coffees have eaten up your wallet. You've come to the conclusion that the pizza rat is not only being sketch on the subway, but must also be in your room, stealing your money in your sleep.

As modern-day college students, applications are the new school supplies. They'll help you organize your files, your calendar, your finances, and even your grooves. Check out the ten apps that, as a student at CU, you absolutely must own.

It's your first day at Columbia or Barnard — and it's our first day on Snapchat!

It's that time of year again: The dreaded Barnard housing process is underway! The Bacchanal committee should be happy that students have finally found something new to complain about. Today, Barnard first-years will attempt to jump over Kanye's ego and select their housing for next semester (good luck jumping high enough; you'll probably need a bionic pogo stick).

There is a particular sense of prestige reserved for movies that have achieved the status of being so bad, they're actually good. Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" is perhaps the most legendary example within this class of clumsy cinema, and will, by the way, be screening this weekend on the Lower East Side. Wiseau wrote, directed, single-handedly funded, and starred in the flop-turned-cult-classic. It seems that no other man, however wiry his hair or gloomily loopy his gaze, could match the wholly graceless and skill-less filmic methodology that led Wiseau to create this perfect storm of humor and horror.

For those of you who have a life have been working all night and haven't gotten a chance to look at their Facebook news feeds, Shit. Has. Gotten. Real. Students are upset about Barnard's latest decision to require students to pay full-time tuition for four years even if, uh, they're not full time. more The online petition to repeal this allegedly dastardly act has been circulating since Wednesday, but the grassroots campaign has stepped it up a notch and announced a protest next Thursday, October 13th 12:00-3:00. There's no going back. They're crossed the Rubicon. The die has been cast. They've made a Facebook event. Just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any more real, one of the organizers brought the issue to attention at national level. Hannah Serena Goldstein, BC'13, laid her grievances all on Jezebel, who called:

Earlier this week, Columbia opened registration for two classes through Coursera, an online education startup. Like LeBron's championship season, the occasion was nothing short of miraculous. I'd always thought of Columbia as rigid and traditional in its approach to education. I was, gladly, mistaken. So, while there's still a dialogue about Columbia's approach to education, here's another bold idea for Columbia, borrowed from U.C. Berkeley (go Bears!). Let students teach elective courses.more About two years ago, when I was a news reporter, I covered a push from some students to launch a pilot program for student-initiated courses. The initiative, started by the handsome Isaac Lara, CC '11, was modeled off of Berkeley's DeCal program where students---with the approval of a faculty member---could teach one-point elective classes offered Pass/Fail ranging from 20th century dictators to Rubik's cube solving to the chemistry of cooking. The program had tremendous interest from faculty members, and 85 percent of respondents to a poll CCSC sent out expressed interest, yet the pilot program never launched. What happened? I came to Columbia with the expectation that I would receive an education I would be unable to receive for free. My expectation has been somewhat fulfilled with lively seminars like Humanoid Robotics, yet somewhat unmet with classes like Intro to Physics, which quite frankly, are a waste of my tuition. Student-initiated classes would help achieve that expectation. You get that experience of interacting in a small class setting. You get more course variety. You get to learn and interact with some of the smartest students in the country. If you're brave, you get the unique opportunity of actually teaching a class and with working with faculty. You get, in short, every advantage a private school, ironically, is supposed to have over a public school. Coursera makes the world-class education accessible to the 93 percent that don't get into Columbia (which is great!). Student-initiated classes would add another facet of what defines a world-class education. Mikey Zhong is a Spectrum opinion blogger and former Spectrum Editor. Full disclosure: he's absolutely obsessed with Cal, the center of the universe.

Finals are literally around the corner. You don't want to get started but none of your work is going away. Here's a playlist to get you through the 5 stages of finals: denial, procrastination, bargaining, depression, and finally, the eureka moment at 5 am when you finish your study guide or develop your thesis. 1. "The One Got That Away" - Katy Perry More like that study guide that got away because you didn't save your work. Use Dropbox. 2. "I'll Make a Man Out of You" - "Mulan" You don't need to pick a gender binary to jam to this song. more 3. "I Need a Hero"  - Bonnie Tyler Or heroine. 4. "The Bitch of Living" - "Spring Awakening" Looking for life on Mars is as fruitless as finding life in the Butler ecosystem. 5. "Mr. Know It All" - Kelly Clarkson You know it all! You got this! 6. "Why Don't You Love Me?" - Beyoncé Please resist any urges to send emails like this to your TAs or professors. 7. "How Do You Sleep?" - Jesse McCartney ...in that position in a third floor armchair? 8. "Keep the Car Running" - Arcade Fire Coffee helps. 9.  "All the Above" - Maino feat. T. Pain Stay above the fray. Stay away from Facebook. 10. "Hold On We're Going Home" - Drake Even if the sun is rising, your hair is a mess, and nothing will feel as good as climbing into bed.