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