Exuberant and maybe a little tipsy, Nathan Miller, JTS/GS ’11, says it feels good to kick back with a beer on Low Steps, 40 days before he’ll march across them in a cap and gown.
“I’ve put four years in… I tried to stay out of that building as much as I could,” he says, pointing across Low Plaza to Butler Library. “It’s nice to know that I went all the way, and at the end of it I get to have a beer and I get a piece of paper that says I went here. And maybe in 40 years, I’ll be standing here again, remembering this.”
Last night, the senior classes of four undergraduate schools convened on Low Steps to continue the storied tradition of “40’s on 40,” an event that celebrates 40 days until graduation.
Ismail Muhammad’s friends laugh as he explains that he was shy as a freshman and probably would’ve been in his room on a night like this. His friend interjects that he was “slightly overweight,” and Muhammad, chuckles, punches him in the arm, and adds, “Yes, I was shy and maybe a little overweight.”
“This is probably the first time I’ve actually participated in a Columbia tradition like this, so it’s nice to feel part of a community… I’m thinking I’m really going to miss Columbia,” Muhammad, CC '11, said, looking out at the hundreds of seniors toasting bottles covered in brown paper bags. A group near Alma Mater starts belting out a shaky version of Roar, Lion, Roar.
“This is why I’m here,” he says.
Marisa McKenna, BC ’11, and Rosa Sabel, BC ’11, say they haven’t changed much since their freshman year, when they were roommates in the Quad.
“Maybe we’re a little wiser,” McKenna says, giggling. “Honestly I feel like we haven’t actually known each other for four years.”
Callie Wilson, BC ’11, cheers as another Columbia fight song starts up somewhere on the other side of Alma Mater.
“It’s nice to look and be like, ‘Yeah. We’re in this together,’” she says.
Her friend Evan Tamura, BC ’11, says “I feel like someone should give a speech.” Her friends jostle her to start and she clears her throat and then breaks out of it, laughing.
Wilson, Tamura and their other three friends will each live in different cities next year, something that doesn’t seem to faze them quite yet.
Rose Kenerson, BC ’11, says four years goes by fast.
“It’ll just never be as fun as this,” she says. Her friend jumps in and says the days of playing Nintendo and eating cereal all afternoon are over.
Kenerson says she’ll most likely work at a law firm next year.
“It’ll be a good experience,” she says, shrugging. “But not like this was.”
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