Ye Olde Libraries of Columbia

Good morning again, everyone! On this sunny Sunday in Morningside Heights, I woke up early (yet again…) to walk down to Trader Joes with a friend. Nothing like an 8am grocery run to liven one up, eh?


Barnard Library in Lehman Hall

But I thought I’d get a head start on this first. I can see in your (virtual, imaginary) eyes that you all are simply dying to know about the libraries here. Actually though, I may sound sarcastic, but I consider this no small matter: libraries are the source of your research, they set the intellectual tone on campus, provide space to study, and offer you limitless opportunities to increase your knowledge. Hence comes my undying love of them! So, without further ado:

(Some of) the Libraries of Columbia University

Barnard Library
Obviously, as our home library, this is going to make the top of the list! (Although, to be perfectly honest, I’m not ranking them here). It is conveniently located right in the middle of campus, across from the Diana and between Barnard Hall (general classrooms) and Altschul (the science building). It has, obviously, lots of books (including many that are unavailable in the Butler stacks), but it also has a fabulous Zine library, a ton of periodicals (including fun ones, like the Ballet Review), and top-notch study spaces. If you want a relatively calm place to work, this is the place to be!

Butler Library


Butler Library Reference Room

This is the major undergraduate library at Columbia, centrally located opposite Low Library (which is no longer a library!), and I personally rather like it. For one thing, it has a very wide range of study spaces, from the big, elegant Reference Room to an assortment of carrels, to balcony alcoves with tables and armchairs. For another, you can always find fellow sufferers there when the going gets tough—even on Friday nights, you can count on seeing plenty of students there, plugging away. Another major plus: it’s open 24/7, which matters a lot more than you might now imagine…

Avery Library
You need to be in the mood for hanging out around hard-core artsy, sophisticated grad students to enjoy Avery, but if you are, it’s the best. Technically, it is the art and architecture library, but anyone can go in there as long as you are quiet and don’t try to eat. The upstairs is gorgeous—lined with books and quaint mezzanine walkways—and the downstairs, though considerably less gorgeous, has tons of workspace. It doesn’t have great hours, but to make up for that, it is connected to Brownies, one of the less-expensive independent cafes on campus (also, where you can imagine that your proximity to grad students will make you cool like them…).

Avery Library

Science and Engineering Library
This is one of my recent discoveries, and I am a big fan! Being a history kid, I always feel like a bit of a poser working in there, but the fantastic lighting and open, modern architecture makes it worth it. It’s located in the Northwest Corner building (“NoCo”), right above Joe Coffee (see my earlier post for an explanation of my undying love for Joe). It’s ideal for late nights studying because a) the lighting so is cheerful, which you really can’t say of Butler, b) it’s only open until 3am, so you can’t get sucked into working ALL night, and c) it’s directly across the street from Barnard, so the walk home is painless.

Once again, this list is not inclusive, but it gives you a sense of the library options available on campus. No matter what sort of study environment you are looking for, you can find a library that will cater to it, and exploring the options is a fun activity on it own (the nerd just came out full force…busted!).

I hope your decision-making process is going well (especially given the impending date!). This may be my last post, but I will continue thinking of you all, and I look forward to seeing you around campus next semester! Enjoy the rest of your senior year!

Chloe

 

What does NSOP stand for?

Good very, very early morning, everyone! I just got up to squeeze in a trip to the gym before getting down to work, so this will be short and sweet. (No point in getting up at 6am after only 5 hours of sleep if I don’t get work done, right?)

Today, we’re going to talk about NSOP, the New Student Orientation Program. Two things: 

1) You pronounce it “Enn-Sahp.” I don’t know whose idea this was, but so it goes :) 

2) You may be thinking that you’re not going to choose a school based on its orientation program. And I think you’ve got a pretty solid point there. But do remember that little things like this—how schools run big, non-academic programs—say a lot about the atmosphere of the school. I’m sure that by now you all grasp how important that is.

So about this NSOP. How about a list? Those are good, right? Quick to write, quick to read, so you can get back to studying for looming APs? Yes? Ok, onwards!

1. NSOP is a University-wide program, so you get your first taste of the oft-discussed Barnard-Columbia relationship. In general, it is a little more separated than real life, but it does offer a decent approximation: we have our own groups, but they are analogous to those of the CC (Columbia College) students, and we meet up for lots of events on the other side of the street.
2. You will be busy! Everyone’s big fear, once it finally comes down to moving in, is that you will find yourself lonely and homesick, suddenly not quite the grown-up you felt yourself to be. Don’t worry: you are very, very unlikely to have the kind of time necessary to cultivate those unpleasant feelings. NSOP is a whirlwind of mandatory meetings—this is how program filing (class registration) works! this is how you reach Public Safety!—and super fun outings and events, ranging from group dinners to book discussions to Broadway plays.
3. You will be assigned to a couple of groups (led by Orientation Leaders, your RA, etc.), so you will have plenty of organized opportunities to bond. Go forth and make friends! They come in handy later.
4. There are outings. Go on them. These are trips to various cool places/ neighborhoods around New York, and they are an amazing opportunity. Not only are they tons of fun—friends, food, your last days of sun!—but they are a fabulous chance to actually get to learn about NYC. It gets very difficult, after the semester is under way, to make time to venture downtown, so now is your chance! The leader will give you lots of information about the history/ current reputation, but you will also have a lot of time to explore on your own. Also, this way, when family comes to visit and you panic, thinking the only neighborhood you know is Butler Library, you can draw on these outings for inspiration.

NSOP seems long, but it flies by. Before you know it, you will have learned the Barnard basics, and you will be free to join my giant pile of unread books and me in the library. I’ll be in the Reference Room, 301.

Ok, gym. Latin. History…I must go now, but please be in touch!

Chloe

A Very Busy Day in the Life of a Barnard Student

Hey, everybody! Greetings from Butler library, where I am mulling over an infinite number of amazing classes for next semester, trying to reading a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by my history prof (Eric Foner; look him up!), and eating pecan pie stolen from the dining hall. Not too shabby, eh?

So, today I thought I’d give you the scoop on… my day. (A little self-centered, I know. Bear with me; it might prove helpful!). Specifically, my day on Tuesday, which is my busiest day of the week. So here's how it went this past week:

7:00—My alarm went off, and I obediently dragged myself out of bed and into the kitchen to cook myself some pumpkin oatmeal. The dining halls are pretty cool (I have a post on that coming up!), but for financial and health (physical and emotional) reasons, sometimes it’s nice to cook for yourself. I actually only have 30 meal swipes this semester, so I’m getting to play grown-up and buy my own groceries!

7:15—I settled down in our floor lounge to tackle a few articles that I couldn’t quite finish last night. They were about Abstract Expressionism and were for a seminar, American Cultural Criticism, that I’m taking at Columbia.

8:40—I headed over to Barnard Hall for Ballet 5. It is normally taught by a wonderfully enthusiastic New York City Ballet soloist, Antonio Carmena, but he was absent this week, as the company is on tour. So…Wendy Whelan was teaching our class. Those of you who dance know what a big deal this is—she is one of the very top dancers at one of the (if not the single) best companies in the country. One of the absolutely incredible things about being in New York is that things like this can happen. (Check out this link to see her in action.)

10:10—After that mind-blowing experience, I speed-changed, and walked across the Barnard campus to my Electromagnetic Physics class. My professor, Janna Levin, is so cool (read: way more brilliant and way more stylish than the rest of us combined), which manages to make a rather challenging class completely worth it. I’m taking this to satisfy one of the Nine Ways of Knowing, and even though I’m having to work my…rear…off, there are people here to help, and it is all working out just fine. Plus, we get to talk about things like her research on black holes and her friendship with Neil deGrasse Tyson. 

My walk to class today.

11:40—Tuesdays are long ones, I’ll admit. Immediately after physics, I head across Broadway to my Latin class at Columbia. While I absolutely love being a Barnard student, I have also loved my classes at Columbia, and some classes, like Latin, are only offered there.  

1:00—In my hour off, I rush back to my room to make lunch and finish off some reading.

2:00—I grab a coffee from Joe (the best coffee on campus—take note!) and head back to Columbia for the aforementioned seminar. It was hard today—I’m not really an art person, so a lot of it went over my head—but my professor is truly wonderful (think hardcore-academic-wonderful), and my classmates are so intelligent. It is beyond exciting to be able to feel like you are in the middle of such a hotbed of serious critical thought.

3:40—My prof gave a classmate and me permission to leave early to go to a talk entitled Ebony and Ivy (about slavery and the foundation of America’s elite universities) in Low Library at Columbia. It was hosted by the president of Columbia (Lee Bollinger) and one of my professors (Foner, see above) was on the panel. So many amazing opportunities here!

5:30—Napped, snacked, called my dad to exclaim over housing for next year (good news!) and Wendy Whelan.

7:30—Met my roommate (a visiting student from China) and my friend at John Jay dining hall at Columbia. On the menu tonight (for me anyhow): salad, gnocchi, jerk chicken, and that pecan pie. And I helped myself to rather a lot of fruit…

8:00—Set myself up in Butler to get down to work!

Want to tell me how cool your day was? Wondering about my classes, or that never-ending reading? Leave me a comment! I love them all!

All the best,

Chloe

Discovering Barnard

Name: Sarah Kim
Class Year: 2017 (First-Year)
Hometown: Manalapan, NJ
Major: Economics and Social History
Jobs/Clubs/Organizations: BSAR, SGA (First-Year Class VP), Emerging Leaders Program

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Congratulations on your acceptance to Barnard College! This is such an incredible achievement and you should all be very proud of yourselves. You can breathe now… no more SATs/ACT, applications, supplements, etc. You can do your happy dance; come on, I know you all have one!

 

Now, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sarah Kim, a first-year student and the class vice president. I always describe my discovery of Barnard as one of those things that is highly unexpected but you can’t imagine life without it now. During the summer before my junior year, I was granted the opportunity to attend a summer enrichment program for high school students at Columbia. There, I befriended a Barnard professor who introduced me to the College. As I walked through the black iron gates for the first time, I immediately fell in love with the school and I could vividly picture myself as a Barnard woman. I visited dozens of colleges afterwards, but none of them gave me the warm, fuzzy feeling inside that I had when I set my feet on Barnard’s campus.

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That summer, I developed a tangible goal, and I cannot be happier to have the honor to say that I achieved it. December 14, 2012 was definitely one of my greatest days of my life; it was the day when I realized dreams really do come true and the acceptance letter was a testimony of it.

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Looking back at my first year at Barnard, I honestly could not have asked for anything more. Sure, I have had my fair share of hard times, like pulling an all-nighter at Butler Library and completing what seemed like an impossible amount of work. But those can’t measure up to the amazing friends I have made, important lessons I have learned (both in and outside of class), and doors that have opened before me. I cannot wait to see you all embark on this incredible journey and be with you through this blog for the next couple of weeks. Please, feel free to ask me anything in the comment section below!

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Cheers,
Sarah