It’s the end of the year now, and what do you have to show for it? Personally, I am always shocked by how much paper I have accumulated—readings, flashcards, religious and political flyers, and other things I put aside during the week to thoroughly examine during the weekend. Anyone who has stuck around on campus post-graduation knows the mayhem that follows our year of academic accumulation. Move-out exposes our material consumerism, one of many dark underbellies that is rev

A freshman’s first solo flight, a 48 hour journey back to NYC after spring break By Willow Bradford Illustration by Jiaying Geng As what feels like the only Type A person in my family, embarking on my first solo trip was a stroke of luck after years of waking up at 4 a.m. for flights from Newark Airport and bickering through hooded eyes and coffee-less hands. My spring break trip from New York to Montreal should have been relaxing and stress-free. Arriving at the airport thre

What is lost and what is found. By Iris Eisenman In 1915, poet Ezra Pound published Cathay, a slim volume of English translations from Classical Chinese poetry. He did not speak a lick of Chinese. On paper, Pound was in no way qualified to tackle the works of Li Bai, often considered the greatest poet in Chinese history. Pound disregarded Chinese poetry’s key formal features like tonal prosody, used secondhand translations, and lacked in-depth historical knowledge of the Tan

By Duda Kovarsky Rotta Carlos Drummond de Andrade is a name every Brazilian child at least vaguely recognizes—most major cities have invariably named a street or a square after him. Some say he was our greatest poet; others, that he just was another rich intellectual brandishing communism and art as sword and shield. Either way, there is a stark contrast between his towering influence and the terribly insufficient translations of his work into English. The poem I chose to tra

By Ava Lattimore I left in the morning with a stain under my skin. You left in the morning to wash it all off. I sat with my legs straddling your hips. Can you feel it now? You asked me if you were my friend. I said you were my friend and I wanted to have sex with you. I don’t think I got it right. Is it under your skin? Let me try again. I sat with my skin pressed against yours, but only the part where I could feel it. I said you were my friend and I am in love with you. I

On today’s agenda: Coming back to the beginning, reiterating that I love making fun of people, and taking something sincere or reflective and ultimately corrupting it. By Rocky Rūb Illustration by Isabelle Oh I bet no one thought they’d see the day that I shut my computer and stop emphatically punching away at the keyboard whenever a Columbia College Student Council member mentioned their shoe size or said a slur—OFF THE RECORD, of course. To be honest, I’ve outgrown student

By Lucia Dec-Prat and Maccabee Armstrong Across 1. Minecraft villager sound 4. Breath rate measurement 7. Pop Up bread 10. Strait of Hormuz resource 11. Philosophical shaver 13. Song pace 14. “Don’t ___ my yum” 15. Fun-shaped crisps or acrobatics implements 19. Collector’s candy 20. A gentleman’s request at the ball 21. Tolstoy 22. Shirt fastener 23. Star Trek’s Nyota 26. Drawn-out green policy, abbr. 27. God’s role for the first six days 28. Sensitive young man 31. Neutral

The story of the student movement, from Columbia JVP’s biggest diva. By Maya Lerman Illustration by Selin Ho If you’ve been tuned in to Columbia’s activism scene the past two years, you’ve probably seen Cameron Jones. Maybe in person, wearing a brightly colored crop-top and keffiyeh, wielding a megaphone at protests outside the campus gates. Maybe on the news—NBC, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now!—or speaking confidently to the camera on your Instagram feed. Or maybe you’ve seen his

How one of Columbia’s oldest student resources lost the battle for its future. By Chris Brown Illustration by Em Bennett Hello, Nightline, Barnard/Columbia Peer Listening. For four decades, Columbia students have heard those words in hours of need. But for the last four semesters, Nightline has been mostly unavailable, engaged in a fight for its future with the Columbia administration. At the end of this year, its phones will likely go silent forever. Nightline is Columbia

On the oral histories of a Harlem haberdasher. By Magda Lena Griffel Illustration by Iris Pope Tweed, silk, single-breasted, double-breasted, pin-striped, paisley, heather, jewel-toned—each day, Gentleman Jim dons a different hand-made waistcoat. Some days, he’ll have a neat little kerchief tied around his neck, and others, a classic epcot tie. My favorite is a blue-and-silver damask number, layered over a white button-down. He tops it off with a red scarf. He should be this

Quintessential works from a graduating senior. By Cecilia Zuniga Illustration by Ines Alto Why do you think there are no men enrolled in this class? It is a Thursday at 10:10 a.m., and my professor splays this question across on the board as our weekly writing prompt. The class, titled Crime, Race, Sex, and the Politics of Purity, is a graduate level seminar in Barnard’s American Studies department. My classmates trickle into the room, each one pausing in the doorway to rea

By losing your headphones By Marvin Cho Illustration by Selin Ho Take a stroll down Broadway. What do you hear? A conversation among friends walking to lunch, whose precise words escape you, but not the ring of joy they contain? The wail of an ambulance heralding the crisis of a life, a turning point in one person’s story? Birds? The rustle of trees? The earthly tapping of your own shoes against the pavement? Or, do you hear, instead, a curated list of your favorite titles,

By The Class of 2026 Illustration by Em Bennett John Jay Evan Rossi Columbia’s campus is filled with symbols. There are the obvious ones—Alma Mater, Scholar’s Lion, the Crown—and the ones whose meanings need to be teased out. For this senior vignette, I was tempted to find a campus location that would neatly encapsulate these particular four years. I began to take images from daily life and consider what symbols they could become. I thought about transience as I walked across

What I came and left with. By Zayna Jamil Illustration by Ines Alto On Tuesday, March 24, I was selected via lottery to attend dinner at Columbia College Dean Josef Sorett’s apartment through the Undergraduate Community Initiative. I was among about 20 students and 15 alumni faculty members from various fields of study gathered to talk about our experiences in the College thus far. I stepped foot into the apartment feeling a little hesitant. I searched for friends or familia

A Night at the Columbia vs. NYU Law Dean’s Cup. By Ana Sorrentino Illustration by Ines Alto As if this were any usual Columbia basketball game, I smuggled my Chef Mike’s sandwich along with three bags of hot cheetos into my purse as I entered Levien Gym. I took my usual seat on the left, angled for a clear view of the scoreboard. As Columbia has never been known for its abundant school spirit, I expected only thin, uneven waves of baby blue-clad attendants and more empty rows

A Landmark Upper West Side Cinema gets back to its roots. By Liam Curedale Illustration by Isabelle Oh Walking down Broadway, past CVS, Absolute Bagels, and Smoke Jazz Club, you also pass by a piece of New York City history. Squeezed between a beauty parlor and a thirteen-story luxury condo locals call “the spike” sits the ruins of the Metro Theater. A few rusty letters are all that remain of its once-iconic art deco marquee: the “_ET_O” Theater. The Metro’s two-hundred light

Confessions of a graduating digital hoarder. By Erica Lee Illustration by Kathleen Halley-Segal My google drive is color coded, with the spring months in shades of green, fall months in yellow and orange hues, and one miscellaneous folder in mountain gray. That’s nine folders in total, 23.34 gigabytes carrying the weight of my college career. With my impending graduation, I am confronted with a question all seniors must answer: what will I do when CUIT reduces my Google Driv

A study abroad assumption. By Marianna Jocas Illustration by Iris Pope If I recorded and then overlayed each conversation I’ve had about my time abroad, the resulting stream of chaos would eventually synchronize to ask: “You’re keeping a journal of all this, right?” On its surface, the question is benign, which is why it may seem odd that it gives me a pang of anxiety. That’s because the question references a larger, more disconcerting notion that good experiences—and maybe o

Media we think you would enjoy — but likely not as much as The Blue and White Magazine Natalie Buttner, Editor-in-Chief: Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman. “Fish Night,” Love, Death, and Robots, Netflix. “The Other Man”, This American Life. Duda Kovarsky Rotta, Managing Editor: Barbara Fields, “So You Want To Be a Historian.” Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It. Cameron Winter, “Take it With You.” Caio Fernando Abreu, “Carta ao Zézim.” Nnema Épée-Bounya, Deputy Editor: M

On seeing the world through funny glasses. By Rocky Rūb Illustration by Kathleen Halley-Segal Patty Marx is a writer and humorist at The New Yorker, Adjunct Associate Professor in the undergraduate creative writing department, and most recently, my inspiration for all things humor. I met Professor Marx in her highly waitlisted class, How to Write Funny, in which I’ve cultivated, sustained, and have now attempted to transcend a parasocial relationship with her. She is a forme