taking-root-branching-out

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.

On March 16, I saw a Barnard Alumnae Instagram post which asked alumnae to donate to help students in the current crisis. However, at that time, no announcements had been made about how students could obtain emergency funds to cover the costs students incurred due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The next day, after the post received many comments from other Barnard students and myself, where we expressed concerns for low-income and housing-insecure students, it was updated to give information about how students could allegedly obtain emergency funds.

Somewhere between hour four and hour six of the journey, I lost all sense of time and space. We were either in Ohio or Pennsylvania. It wasn’t quite day anymore, but it definitely wasn’t night. The lingering smell of the movie-theater-flavored cold microwave popcorn we ate earlier was both comforting and sickening.

Shortly before the spring semester started in January, I met a guy on the 7 train. We hit it off right away. I liked how he listened to me, and how he genuinely cared about the answers I gave to the questions he asked. We both got off at the next stop, exchanged numbers, and hugged goodbye.

Before my first class at 10:10, campus was empty.

The Food Pantry at Columbia will begin receiving $5,000 in annual funds through a new partnership between Columbia Dining and the national nonprofit Swipe Out Hunger.

April marks the beginning of the end of the school year. As summer comes closer, so does the dread of the tedious move-out process. It’s hard enough to be a college student juggling the onslaught of classes, jobs, and clubs, and figuring out how to have a half-decent social life without the pressure of studying for your final exams—let alone packing up your entire life at college. Like all things, the key is to plan ahead so you’re not stressed out about moving during finals. Spectrum has come up with a step-by-step list on how to plan and prepare to make this process manageable and efficient.

With summer quickly approaching, it’s time to start thinking about moving out of your dorm room, especially as move out for Barnard happens on May 17, and Columbia on May 18. To avoid having to stress about packing during finals, you should start thinking about your summer storage options as early as possible.

We talk a lot on this campus about “selling out,” but it’s almost always presented as a binary: Either you’re going the corporate route because you’re willing to overlook whatever crimes and/or human rights abuses your desired company is allegedly involved in, or you’re going to pursue some far nobler, but probably less lucrative passion because you’re a good person™ with morals or whatever. But this binary wrongfully assumes an equal playing field where we all grew up with wealth and the knowledge of how to manage said wealth, so we’re able to choose a job based on beliefs or passions rather than financial necessity.

As a women’s college with a marked commitment to feminist issues, it isn’t surprising that Barnard students don’t hesitate to call people out. After all, we’re supposedly majoring in the vague, yet promising, ideal of being “unafraid.” That’s not to say that instigating conversations with our problematic faves isn’t extremely difficult. Telling someone that they’re uninformed is especially toilsome terrain on this campus, where a supposed commitment to activist causes is often seen as a type of social currency.