We must take a moment to acknowledge the efforts of our Barnard Bloggers, who somehow found time within their very busy schedules to share their thoughts and lives with us. Each of them fully lives up to the famous title of “Strong, Beautiful Barnard Woman”! We are proud to have them as members of our community.

And we can’t wait to meet those of you who will be joining us on campus this fall! You are busy these days, too. You’re getting ready for final exams of your own, and looking forward to a well-earned rest before you prepare to start your first year of college. We hope that reading about the experiences and activities of our students has helped give you a sense of real life at Barnard College.

Our Enrolling Students Website will answer many questions about what comes next, including Residence Life, Health Services, New Student Orientation, and much more. It also provides essential forms that need to be submitted throughout the summer (the first of which is due May 30!) and the site gives you a handy timeline to follow. Please visit the site soon and regularly: http://www.barnard.edu/admiss/matric_new/index.html

Good luck with the end of your semester, and have a wonderful summer!

Barnard College Admissions

Both of my internships were unpaid from the organization. The internship grant is a great way for me to be able to dedicate myself fully to my work at my organization, get great experience, and good references. And the organization liked me so much, they asked me to recruit other Barnard students for the organization too! I’ve actually been reaching out to students in my Higher Education Inequities class to see if any of them are interested. I know that the organization would basically take anyone I sent them. Just another proof that Barnard students do support each other.

I thought I would take a moment to offer you all some final thoughts on the Barnard experience. May 1 (Friday) is decision day!

For me, Barnard was the best college decision I could have possibly made. As a women’s college, I have reaped the benefits of Barnard’s strong support of women. The classmates and alumnae that I have met here are truly an inspiration and it’s wonderful to belong to a sisterhood that extends across continents. While being in the city is certainly not for everyone, it made my college experience very unique and exciting. The city really is your playground and your classroom. But I’ve never felt lost in the “big, bad” city because Barnard has such a strong community. The fact that we are only a College (no graduate schools) means that the administration, faculty and staff are all devoted to our growth and development. And they all love Barnard, too!

Today, Dean Denburg – the Dean of the College and class of ’70 – told me that we have 97 Barnard alumnae who currently work for the college as professors, administrators or staff. Considering that our college is so small, I think that speaks volumes. Women love it here, and many decide to spend their lives helping nurture tomorrow’s lawers, activists, novelists, artists, anthropologists, or neuroscientists. I hope that you all will make the best choice for yourselves, and hopefully that is my beloved Barnard!

I just wanted to put up a few pictures of last weekend’s concert, which was part of the Bacchanal Spring Festival.  Bacchanal is a weeklong celebration, complete with an awesome free concert, among lots of food, frivolity, and other festivities.

BACCHANAL

I had a fabulous time on the steps watching Vampire Weekend and Talib Kweli get down.  Beautiful weather, fun music, a street fair on Broadway, and good Barnard friends- I couldn’t ask for anything more!

VAMPIRE WEEKEND

A peppy indie-ish band composed of Columbia alums! Check out their tunes: http://www.myspace.com/vampireweekend

Then Talib Kweli tore down the proverbial house! Suffice to  say we threw our hands in the air and waved them like we just didn’t care.

On days like these I feel unbelievably lucky to be part of the Barnard community.  We are truly spoiled here in the city.

BARNARD FAMILY

 Hope your weekend is wonderful!

-Alicia, BC 2010

                As I grew older, I moved to the U.S. and forgot all about beading and jewelry making. I became seriously preoccupied with adjusting to my new life and new school. Then in college, I became incredibly focused with becoming politically active, majoring in political science, getting all the requirements done, changing the world with my idealistic political criticisms…you get the idea. Basically, I became so engrossed in my studies that I never had time to look back and take some time off with the little things I enjoyed in life, like beading.

                It has been nearly 8 years and I finally took out the long-forgotten pile of beads that I put away. I am into jewelry making again, this time seriously, with a jewelry making class here at Barnard. They offered it for free and I was able to take out some time to forget about work and pursue my long forgotten little-girl hobby. It is a small sort of delight, but it is the everyday small things in life that makes one happy. Yes, I am living for four years in a challenging academic institution, sister college and Ivy League and everything that goes along with it. But I also want to take some time for myself. My perfectionism often gets in the way, but there are student services here that help me realize that there is more to life that politics and academics.  These student services organize community events like the jewelry-making class that make Barnard also a fun, comfortable place to be. We take time off to do everyday things in life, other than studying all the time. Now I like taking the time off to reflect that I am not only studying all the time but also spending a large chuck of my life here. Little fun things like these make this place a home for students like me.

Yes, I go to my real home in Brooklyn, roam about the city, and hang out with friends, but the dorms are where I essentially live. So, collaborative community events on campus become important. It is really good to know that my institution realizes the importance of community and makes the effort to be that comfortable space for me. Beading for fun for an hour a week is only one example, and it may not be your thing but it works for me. There are so many events that makes Barnard a close-knit community which might appeal to you: we share a dining hall and a cafe, have numerous fun events like cupcake decorating and (Barnard) Spirit Day (a themed fair where we celebrate being “Strong, beautiful, Barnard women”). Just to give you a number, there were 1,500 events on campus last year.

Community building events are very important in a rigorous academic institution to ensure that student life here is healthy. An institution like Barnard needs to be a space for appreciating those little things in life as well as being part of the world’s largest ‘academic acropolis’ that is Morningside Heights. Barnard provides this community life for me and my friends here and we couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. As my friend as Columbia College says, “depend on Barnard to put so much effort into organizing so many events for its students’ well being .” J

Welcome to Barnard College! I hope you will be as happy here as I have been. If you see me on campus next year, please say hi!

My suitemates and I recently started discussing all of the things you must do at Barnard before you graduate after seeing a similar list from another school.  I started compiling a list of “100 things to do at Barnard before you graduate” for you all so you can get a taste of many Barnard experiences over 4 years.  Since you may not know about some of the things I reference in the list, feel free to ask questions in the comments or send me an email! 

Note: I have not done all 100.  I can’t study abroad now, but I hope I can squeeze in a few more in my last few weeks!  

1. Attend Convocation on your first night at Barnard
2. Buy a class ring
3. Attend Midnight Breakfast and have Anna Quindlen serve you eggs
4. Wake up super early to sign up for free tickets through Urban New York
5. Have Dessert at President Spar’s apartment in your Senior year
6. Attend a Fireside Chat
7. Honor a Professor at the annual Emily Gregory Dinner
8. Run into a professor in Morningside Heights or at the gym
9. Attend a vendor fair
10. Spend a day wandering through Central Park
11. Pull an all-nighter
12. Stop by a Professor’s office hours
13. Get an excellent housing lottery number
14. Get a less-than-excellent housing lottery number
15. Get lost in the Butler stacks
16. Eat a piece of the Big Sub
17. Study abroad
18. Have a Broadway milkshake at Tom’s Restaurant
19. Spend a night in the summer/spring on the Columbia steps with friends
20. See the Varsity Show
21. Go to the Halloween Parade in the Village
22. Do the crossword or sudoku in the Columbia Spectator
23. Knit with Dean Denburg
24. Eat brunch at kitchenette
25. See a tv show or movie filming on campus
26. Serendipitously meet at Barnard alumna
27. Spend an afternoon reading on Lehman Lawn
28. Attend the Christmas Tree Lighting in Rockefeller Center
29. Fall in love with the cookies in Hewitt
30. Get into a museum for free with your Barnard ID
31. Forget to transfer to the 1 train from the 2/3 at 96^th street
32. Do a mock interview with the Office of Career Development
33. Babysit through the Barnard Babysitting Service
34. Read a CULPA rating of a Professor before taking their class…realize later the review was inaccurate!
35. Attend a club’s event only for free food
36. Make s’mores and drink hot chocolate in the Quad
37. Attend Orgo Night
38. Spend a semester taking classes and interning off campus
39. Read the Barnard Bulletin
40. Visit a Barnard friend in her home town
41. Be woken up by a fire alarm
42. Attend a lecture on campus
43. Vote in an SGA election
44. Get tickets to something in NYC for free (movie premiere, lecture, event, etc.)
45. Sit under the magnolia tree on Lehman Lawn
46. Take a dance class
47. Feel like a New Yorker when your parents or friends from home come to visit you
48. Discover the 5^th floor of Milbank
49. Go to the greenhouse on the top of Milbank
50. Attend a class dinner
51. Go apple picking and outlet shopping with the College Activities Office
52. Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
53. Build a Barnard Bear with McAC
54. Take the security van home when you’re too tired/lazy to walk home
55. Rowboat in Central Park
56. Attend a Columbia Varsity sports event
57. Get tickets to TV show taping (The Daily Show, Letterman, The View, etc.)
58. Buy an “I <3 BC” spirit day shirt
59. Drink tea with Susan Quinby in the Office of Disability Services
60. Order delivery in the middle of the night
61. See African dancers on the lawn
62. Attend Barnard Block Party BBQ on the first day of classes
63. Wait in line at Columbia Bookstore/Book Culture on first week of classes
64. Eat at Hewitt on a themed night (e.g. Valentines Day, Mardi Gras)
65. Explore all five boroughs of New York City
66. Change your major
67. Have your cell phone ring in class
68. See the annual Barnard Dance Department show at Dance Theater Workshop
69. March in Take Back the Night
70. Subscribe to Time Out New York or New York Magazine
71. “Bling” something at McAC’s bling night
72. Get your senior thesis bound minutes before it’s due
73. Buy discounted tickets to movies and Broadway shows in the College Activities Office
74. Be “killed” or “exiled” in historical reenactments in “Reacting to the Past”
75. Eat a giant slice of Pizza at Koronet’s
76. Decide to Pass/D/Fail a class on the PDF deadline day
77. Try cupcakes at Crumbs Bakery, Magnolia Bakery, and Buttercup Bake Shop.  Pick your NYC Cupcake allegiance. 
78. Go to a museum for a class assignment
79. Stay in NYC for the summer and do all the things you didn’t have time for during the school year
80. See an opera at the Met
81. Learn the words to the alma mater, even though you rarely hear it outside of Convocation and Graduation
82. Rock out at the WBAR BBQ in the Spring
83. Be an Orientation Leader
84. Win front row tickets to a Broadway show in a student rush lottery
85. Go to a Well Woman program
86. Find the 2^nd floor of Altschul
87. See a rat in a subway station or on the streets (sorry ladies, it’s bound to happen)
88. Lose your Barnard ID
89. Discover that the stairs are the best way to navigate Lerner, NOT the ramps!
90. Use up your printing quota
91. Go to a reception in the James Room
92. While living in the Quad, be served breakfast in bed by SGA
93. Go to a nice restaurant over Restaurant Week
94. Explore 18 miles of books at the Strand bookstore
95. Go to a lecture sponsored by BCRW (Barnard Center for Research on Women)
96. Visit President Spar during her office hours
97. Find your favorite library to study in that isn’t Barnard’s or Butler
98. Get shamelessly hooked on a tv show set in New York City (e.g. Sex and the City, Gossip Girl)
99. Host a prospective student
100. Leave Barnard with the memories of a lifetime 

Last night was the Tow Foundation Dinner, where students who’ve received generous grants from the Tow family for summer thesis-related study or internships gather together to talk about their experiences.  My internship grant for my work at the Met is from the Tow Foundation.

Last night I sat with Dean Runsdorf, Prof. of Anthropology Leslie Sharp, and two of the Foundation board members.  The function was held at the Terrace in the Sky restaurant, a little-known but highly-rated venue on the roof of one of Columbia’s buildings.  I spoke about my work at the Museum and my plans after graduation, and even got to talk a little bit about Cairo with President Spar.  It was absolutely lovely!

As a senior, things are wrapping up and there is no time to feel nostalgic!! This past weekend was full of events! On Sunday evening, I stayed in and had a mellow evening with some old but good friends I had made through the Muslim Student’s Association from Barnard and Columbia in our Sulzberger Tower kitchen. We made breakfast (pancakes) for dinner (walnuts, strawberries, chocolate chips) and hung out at home–although there was a lot going on around campus, we decided to take a break from it all.

On Saturday morning, I woke up early to tutor the SATs to my students through DDC, the Double Discovery Center, that Professor Lehecka, a Columbia Alumni (CC’66) started back when he was in college here. I take his class, Higher Education Inequities, and part of the class is to tutor through DDC for four hours a week–there are a variety of subjects that the center provides tutoring in, and the nice thing is that DDC is right on campus in Lerner Hall. Since we spend four hours a week tutoring for Professor Lehecka and Professor Delbanco’s jointly taught seminar (once a week, two hours), we only write (4) two page reflections for the semester and are expected to come to class having read the assigned material. I personally think the class is a great way of engaging in what you are learning, and a great way to stay active as a volunteer during college.

Later in the afternoon, there was a street fair going on, so half of broadway was shut down and fair type food (think gyros, fries, funnel cake, smoothies, lemonade) etc were available among vendors hawking all sorts of wares, make-up, socks, fine crafts, summer dresses and clothing, sunglasses, bags, etc covered the street. It was a beautiful day, so a lot of Barnard and Columbia students had come out to eat and shop.
Even better though, right on campus, Bacchanal (a group that organizes HUGE events on campus) had organized a concert with Vampires Weekend, and the steps were filled with students hanging out on the steps and all over the lawns, enjoying the music.

Finally, on Sunday, was Hungama, OPS’s (Organization of Pakistani Students) mock wedding that it puts on every year. The groom comes from NYU, and arrives on a real horse, and the bride is carried in a palanquin up the steps to where the bride and groom sit and pose for pictures while at least 7 performance groups do dances. There was lots of food around, including chicken and rice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ykRe_BtKTM.
It was traditional Pakistani mayhem on the Columbia steps, with music, dancing, food, and a fun chance to get dressed in your bollywood finest!

Actually, that might be putting it a little gently. More accurately: I had very explicit plans of NOT attending a women’s college. Two of my older sisters went to Smith, and they frequently tried to convince me of the plus-sides of a women’s college education, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I wanted to go to a co-ed school, have the typical college experience, have male friends, etc. etc.

And then senior year rolled around, and I applied to Barnard as kind of a back-up–I had visited it and I had liked it pretty well, but the women’s college thing kept me from embracing it full-heartedly. And then in April, I discovered that I had a wonderful gift for getting wait-listed, so I ended up at Barnard. I was by no means disappointed to come to Barnard–just apprehensive, considering that I’d always gone to co-ed schools, always had guy friends, and had always felt the acute lack of guyness when I visited Smith. Plus, did I really want to prove my sisters right about that women’s college thing?

Now, three years later, I admit that my sisters were, in fact, right, and I’ve never been happier to be wrong. I think that something that gets emphasized a lot is how Barnard is NOT a typical women’s college–and that’s true. I love being close to Columbia, I love that I still get to have guy friends, etc. But what I want to emphasize is how great the “typical” sides of the women’s college environment can be, too.

When I started classes at Barnard, I had no reason to believe that the gender make-up of my classes would, in any way, impact my behavior in them. In high school, I’d always been vocal (ha. That’s putting it nicely) and I was rarely afraid to voice my opinion. But what I noticed almost immediately in my first semester–my first-year seminar, the first all-female class I’d ever taken–was that I was more willing to speak off the cuff, and to say my actual opinion, regardless of how popular it was. That was a really empowering experience–truly speaking my mind without worrying what some guy was going to think of it–and it’s also something I’ve been able to carry over into my co-ed classes (this semester, the only class I have that’s all girls is Cardio Mix, and I’m usually too out of breath in there to say anything).

Additionally, I think that it’s great that Barnard encourages us to think about gender within our society and our world, and to not be afraid to say “the F-word” (Feminist! What’d you think I was talking about?)–something I’d rarely thought about before I got here. There’s often a stigma against feminism, and gender is a somewhat taboo topic. To be able to think and speak freely about gender roles is fantastic. Like today, in my Gender and Migration seminar, we talked about the feminist movement of the ’60s and on–and how for those feminists, work is a means of fulfillment and empowerment, whereas for most other people in the world, work is a tool of repression, something to be avoided. So–not only do we talk about feminism, but we’re encouraged to think critically about it. (I’m using a lot of italics today.)

The sense of freedom and empowerment that I’ve gained since coming to Barnard is something I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life (well after my urban studies degree is obsolete because we’re all living in pods in the sky, and people don’t know what cities are)–and it’s something that I never expected to, or wanted, to get from a college. But I guess that every once in awhile, older sisters are, in fact, correct.