NSOP 2026 Letter from the Editor

While teaching at Caltech, renowned physicist Richard Feynman (rejected from Columbia College due to strict Jewish student quotas) led his undergraduate students in a thought experiment: If a cataclysm destroyed all scientific knowledge, and only one sentence could be passed along from all of humanity to a new generation of creatures, scrawled on a scrap of paper left drifting in the wind, “what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words”? 

It is an interesting exercise, and one that is particularly well suited to an undergraduate. Amid the abundance of this new knowledge, what is important? If you stick to the books alone, there is too much to study and too little time. If you want to learn about other things—to map the city or your own wandering mind—the day must be contorted and stretched. 

When I experienced this expansive beginning as a freshman, I found it equal parts enlightening and uncomfortable. I contextualized this new experience by picturing myself as a polar explorer. Walking from the Barnard Quad to Ferris, I imagined myself, hood up and a supply sled tethered to my hips, marching across a blinding sheet of ice. I imagined ice as a blank page, the lonely void that was left after the personal cataclysm of a new beginning. 

At the end of my freshman year, my fear of this expanse was eclipsed by the 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampments. During those months, it was impossible to continue as a polar explorer, where my experience as a student could be isolated from the horrific suffering of others. Suffering continues now, in Palestine and elsewhere, but Columbia’s relationship to activism has changed. A student can trek through campus without it entering their mind. 

After this year, few students will have been present for the 2024 Encampments. The Class of 2027 faces our own cataclysm scenario, as we decide what story to tell about the drastic shifts we have seen during our four years at Columbia. The rules and campus culture that define University life may now be inherited detached from the processes that made them our reality. What sentence should be left behind? 

As for the freshman: as you stand on your own expanse of icy potential, look up at the cerulean sky and wait for scraps of paper to fall to you. With any luck, your cataclysm will end, and a blizzard will follow. Already, you have caught the 2026 NSOP edition of The Blue and White in your mittened hand, which may give some guidance in this new landscape. However, breaking from Feynman’s exercise, we’ll use all the words we please. 

Expanding on scraps of paper left by the undergrads of yesteryear, Neda Ravandi resurrects the strangeness of Columbia in the ‘90s in her essay, ‘Columbia Eclectica’.  In her feature, Iris Eisenman traces how the Hadden Investigation has become a canary in a coal mine for shifting power in University governance. Jack Bradner eats at Raising Cane’s and explores the relationship between our campus and the iconic fast-food joint. In her essay, Selma White-Pascual defogs the culture of nudity surrounding the Dodge Sauna. Nnema Épée-Bounya and Duda Kovarsky Rotta argue about the World Cup in our humor column, At Two Swords Length. 

If you’ve read this far, you’re surely literate. If you are a writer or artist interested in the idiosyncrasies of our University, the glorious, the gross, and the overlooked, consider joining The Blue and White. Applications can be found on our website, theblueandwhite.org. 

Natalie Buttner 

Editor-in-Chief