💬 From the Columbia Connect Community

With an overwhelming number of sign-ups in just a few days, Columbia Connect is on 🔥 and ready to start the party. Our team has been hard at work matching you and creating groups based on your preferences. We hope you’re as excited as we are for the upcoming year, filled with bonding sessions and virtual happy hours! 🥳

If you haven’t signed up yet, don’t worry! There is still plenty of time. Our matching form will be open till the end of September. We’ve already matched the first 100 students and group bonding is underway. Hang tight and we promise we’ll get to every one of you.

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✅ Our Tip of the Week

As if your first year in a brand new environment wasn’t daunting enough, a global pandemic in the mix doesn’t really make things better. Fear not! Us upperclassmen will give you some real advice for life at Columbia each week. Look out for tips on decoding slang at CU, which dining hall is the best at which hour (it varies!), secret spots on campus that will make you an expert in no time - even if you’re attending college virtually - and more!

Tip #01: [Academic 📚] We know, you’re excited to register for classes and are envisioning how your first ever college lecture will be like. Have you heard of CULPA yet? It’s a platform where students post candid reviews about the professors they’ve taken classes with. CULPA will soon be an essential when you’re picking classes next time. Go ahead and check it out at culpa.info. Keep an eye out for profs that have gold/silver nuggets on the platform

Bonus tip: [Social 💖] Our favorite study spot on campus is the library affectionately referred to as “Noco” (North Campus). It’s officially called the “Science and Engineering Library” but no one, literally NO ONE, calls it that. So if you want to blend in and sound like a you’ve been at CU for longer than one week, call it Noco. Oh, and study spots fill up quickly here because of the beautiful natural light - the best time to go is in the early morning/during dinner hours.

📅 Upcoming Events

Look out for our Happy Hour events here. We’re planning on having movie nights, themed conversations, game nights (but, like, actual fun games to learn more about each other), and more. More to come in next week’s newsletter!

🥂Our first SOCIAL is THIS SUNDAY, August 16th - so mark your calendars! If you’re an incoming first year who has filled out the matching form, look out from an invitation from us in a few days! We’ll be in touch with the exact time, the link and the secret code. If you’re not a first year… well, we hope to eventually expand to other years too.

If you have an event that you would like to host and that you think our community would love, share it with us! Write to us at columbiaconnects@gmail.com with the subject line “Event Suggestion” and a description of what you have in mind.

🌟 Student Spotlight

Columbia Connect has one aim: to bring you closer to each other and to make sure that the coming academic year is actually FUN for you guys. Every week, we will feature one student, some fun facts about them, and how you can connect with them. Go ahead and message them if you want to grab a meal with them, go on a walk together, or just say hi! Want to be featured next? Send us a blurb that’s roughly in the format below (feel free to be creative) to columbiaconnects@gmail.com with the subject line “Student Spotlight”.

Meet Wangechi (pronounced wa-nge-shi, pronouns: she/her), an incoming freshman at SEAS hoping to major in Computer Science.

Yes, our first student spotlight is a member of our team. We really couldn’t have done this without her and we think that she’s great; we’re sure that you guys will too.

• Find her on: Instagram | LinkedIn

• Aspirations: Software developer at the Silicon Savannah and Rich Auntie

• Motivations: Mobile web and android development, tech community involvement, natural hair enthusiasts, and chocolate and junk food

• Frustrations: Refreshes her Twitter timeline way too many times in a day and has a vast collection of unused hair masques and oils

• Random tidbit: Religiously (almost) drinks her 8 glasses of water daily

• Currently on repeat: Jaguar - Victoria Monet

🎶 Certified Chünes

(GIF credit: tenor)

Every week, we’ll add your current favorite songs to our Spotify playlist. We don’t know about you, but we’re bored with our music and would love to hear what you guys are loving to listen to at the moment. It’s collaborative, so feel free to add to it!

📢 Announcements

We’re recruiting for our team!

1. Columbia Connect Ambassadors

   We’re looking for outgoing students (regardless of class year) interested in leading group bonding sessions. The time commitment would be around one to three hours per week. Let us know if you’re free to chat with one of our team members for 15 minutes sometime this week. If you’re interested, write to us with the subject line “Columbia Connect Ambassador” with your preferred time commitment and motivation for joining!

2. Happy Hour Host

   Have an instrument you play? A topic you’re passionate about? An essay or trend you want to discuss? A pet you want to show off? A painting you painted? A dish you prepared? ANYTHING? Please write to us! We’re planning to launch Happy Hour soon and are looking for students interested in hosting a themed evening. We’re honestly open to all kinds of ideas, no matter how wacky/niche they might be. If you’re interested, fill out the form below!

Happy Hour Interest Form

If you liked our newsletter, feel free to share it with your wisest/most-respected friends.

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For any questions or feedback (we would also love to know about any additional segments you’d like to see in our newsletter) contact us here or write to us at columbiaconnects@gmail.com