Casual Fridays: The end

This is the way the semester ends—not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a messy, breathless, and desperate sprint to the finish. One might think that Columbia would work to accommodate its students as they drag themselves through the final lap, but one would be very, very wrong (and generally ignorant about all things Columbia). From the Steps to move-out day, from free food lines to the lawns (wait, not the lawns... don’t go to the lawns!), students are forced to jump over hurdle after hurdle in a feeble attempt to get to sweet, sweet summer. Some of this jumping is physical. After months of taking the same route to our classes, we now must alter our course, navigating once more within these stormy collegiate waters, to get to that early-morning course we stupidly thought we could handle back when we registered late last fall. We did not spend week after week perfecting how to get to class in five minutes flat only to be thwarted at the very end of the semester by a stack of chairs and some poles. Except we did, apparently. But this is our fault. We should have known that Columbia would set up Commencement seating weeks in advance. Why set everything up efficiently and conveniently when you could use the blue chairs as a way to force seniors to face their impending future doom, or to torment underclassmen just trying to get by? Or underclassmen trying to stay in their dorms, for that matter. First-years, sophomores, and juniors have 24 hours after their last final to move out. What’s that? You haven’t packed yet? It’s a hard knock life, kids. Or maybe not. The actual stipulations are that students have 24 hours after that last final and no later than noon on Saturday, May 15—which could be contradictory, or just hard to understand. Kind of like how all of us simultaneously got two Italian cousin friends, Val and Sal. Everyone references them. Seriously—who are these people? We wish you luck, fellow Columbians. We wish you luck as you stand for 45 minutes in line for free food (clearly the maxim “time is money” is not meant to apply here). We wish you luck as you wonder why Barnard has a Spirit Day and Columbia does not. We wish you all the best as you spend half an hour looking for a seat in Butler. And we wish you happiness as you decide whether to brave the damp, soon-to-be-closed-off lawns or the somewhat uncomfortable, now-very-hard-to-navigate Steps. Have a wonderful summer, but before you do—let’s just all try to (somehow) cross that finish line.