Describe a Columbia/Barnard moment — we’ll pick the 3 meme templates that fit it best and write the joke for each.
Pick a Columbia context (136) — click one to load it
Bacchanal is a spring concert at Columbia that turns campus into a fever dream of headliner rumors, last-minute outfit planning, borgs (alcohol in a milk jug with a silly name that you day-drink with), glitter, and half the student body pretending they’ve known the artist longer than 24 hours. During midterms and finals, Butler(a library) turns into a campsite. students claim prime study spots by leaving their stuff on desks there for 24+ hours so nobody else can take it. It is really hard to find a spot in Butler during exams. For a school charging huge student life fees, we have a really poor gym called Dodge. It sucks. SSOL registration is the Hunger Games: your timeslot hits, you blink once, and every class you need already has a waitlist longer than the actual capacity. Discrete Math at Columbia is basically two different classes depending on the professor: with Tony Dear it’s a full character-building arc, and with Ansaf it’s slow, gentle, and almost meditative. Dear’s problem sets are so hard even he has to think about them, while Ansaf will re-explain the same concept four times in five minutes. NSOP is freshmen's first week on campus. They spend most of the time doing ice breakers and meeting new people. Freshman will meet a ton of people in the elevator and then never speak again. The first two weeks of the semester are known as Shopping Period and is a chaotic battle with Vergil as your beautifully planned schedule collapses into a pile of waitlists and random filler classes just to stay full-time. It's hard to choose classes. Midterms turn campus into a survival zone—Butler Library fills with people camping out for days, brushing their teeth in the bathroom, and claiming entire tables with abandoned belongings. Students who haven’t shown up to lecture all semester suddenly appear, class sizes shift overnight, and everyone deletes social media in a last-ditch effort to pretend they’re focused. Election Day Break gives students one random Tuesday off in November—basically the fall semester’s “mini spring break.” The irony is that registration for next semester often happens the same week, while professors still pack the Monday before with work. For Thanksgiving Break, most students flee campus for home-cooked meals, leaving Morningside eerily empty—so empty that dining halls shut down and anyone staying behind has to hunt for food like it’s an episode of Naked and Afraid. The final stretch of the semester where sleep becomes optional, exams get scheduled at 7 p.m., and everyone becomes terrified of Gradescope notifications. Grades take so long to come out that by the time you see them, you’ve already forgotten what the class was about. The first week back from winter break hits with brutal NYC winds that make even a Canada Goose feel useless. Students slip on black ice, hide in Butler Library just to stay warm, and watch Californians experience snow like a personal attack—all while questioning why they chose a college located this far north. During spring break, there are the people who vacatio and those who stay-cation. Students who travel tend to be part of the wealthy student population People are always taking grad photos at Columbia all times of the year. You pretty much always step outside and you are guaranteed to see at least one student in their blue gown taking photos. Finals week turns campus feral: everyone is wearing the same sweatpants, crying in Butler, and treating optional finals like a divine blessing. Every email starts with “Can I get an extension?” and every assignment is submitted at 11:59 p.m. followed by immediate emotional collapse. The week of the Housing Lottery is you manifesting getting a dorm in EC (building), preparing for Wien Hall, and pretending your assignment is “totally fine” when it absolutely is not. Spring Reading Week is the calm-before-the-storm stretch where everyone turns nocturnal and fights for every last table in any library. Original post: "lerner ramp + wet shoes is a deadly combo holy shit" - Interpretation: Lerner ramps are slippery and dangerous on a rainy day Original post: "its funny how everyone came for some major but is side questing econ😭" - Interpretation: Because of econ's minimal/easy requirements, many choose to minor in econ on top of original majors Original post: "the concept of TAs is kind of weird tbh like wdym you’re deciding my grade in one class and in the next class we're peers" Original post: "I can hear this couple fuck through the walls so i farted aggressively to let them know that i hear them. It worked, they like whispered and slowed down." - Interpretation: Columbia dorms have thin walls, causing tension Original post: "Left: it’s indigenous peoples day!
Right: it’s columbus day!
Columbia: i don’t care what it is you don’t have it off" - Interpretation: Columbia rarely gives holidays off Original post: "it makes me so fucking nervous when people here take a week plus to respond to my texts like wtf u can’t seriously be that popular" - Interpretation: Some people at CU act like they are minor celebrities Fac Shack and Johnny's (Columbia dining halls) always give out Grandma's (brand) Cookies with every meal, they are overwhelmingly mediocre. Whenever it rains at Columbia, the campus literally floods and turns into a lake. The drainage system is really bad. Columbia students receive many Barnard perks (dining dollars, free cross-registration, housing access), while Barnard students don’t get equivalent Columbia perks (no Points access, limited housing, admin covers Columbia classes). It’s really hard to find an outlet sometimes Getting into classes feels like a lottery — popular courses fill up within seconds and waitlists get very long. AP (COMS W3157: Advanced Programming) is where CS majors trauma-bond as prof Jae says “don’t get stressed” before brutal exams; students enter expecting C/Unix basics and leave with war stories and a newfound respect for pass/fail. Somehow, class registration being migrated from SSOL to Vergil made it even worse. CVN Lecture recordings being very low quality. As well as audio randomly cutting out for several minutes. Columbia’s campus is so gated that you’ll need to scan your ID just to get past Public Safety—nothing like proving you belong at the school you already pay thousands to attend. Columbia provides little to no career support or guidance for soon-to-be graduating students. Fac Shack finally switched from Grandma's Cookies to a new kind of cookie because they realized nobody ate them Havemeyer Hall bathroom is so far away and hard to find Grad students have very limited access to any job opportunities - including no access to handshake even though they advertise graduate jobs on handshake. The registration takes forever. Sometimes I get registered 2 weeks after the class has started. Sometimes the lecture quality looks like a webcam feed from 2004. Receiving 100 emails weekly out of which only 2 are relevant. Sometimes recorded lectures capturing every possible sound except the professor’s voice. Men sometimes get constant side eyes walking through Barnard because it's an all women's school. Nothing ever seems to work in the dorms—John Jay in particular has a reputation for random floods and constant maintenance issues. I hate never being able to find a seat in butler when it's too busy or packed.
Every time I see a protest on campus, I cross my fingers an exam gets cancelled. The heater is either not working or working too hard to have excessive noise During finals, the whole campus opens their windows at midnight for a 5-minute collective scream called the Primal Scream. It is an ancient Columbia ritual where stress management meets unhinged community bonding. The Primal Scream is so loud that Morningside residents have been complaining about it since the 1800s, which honestly might be Columbia’s longest-running tradition Dodge is the Columbia gym and it is always full. Sometimes you hike all the way there just for the machine you want to use to be taken. It's annoying when you go to Dodge to run and the treadmills are taken by people walking. Stairmaster is the most popular machine because everyone wants a fat ass but there's only 2 machines so it is always taken. Tour groups often stop directly in front of students trying to work or walk, making you feel a bit like you’re on display like a zoo animal during campus tours. Every day is a gamble on which campus gates are actually open—one minute it’s open, the next you’re rerouted like you’re in an airport security maze. The eternal MTA dilemma: take the 2 or the 3 and deal with the annoying transfer at 96th, or take the 1 and accept that you’ll be crawling uptown forever but at least in peace. Food options near Columbia are quite limited and often expensive. Most of the time, the only affordable and quick options seem to be food trucks along Broadway or Amsterdam. Dining halls can be crowded, so food trucks become the go-to choice for many students. Columbia students pay 90k a year just to be caged up like little rats and have guards yelling at them to scan their IDs and act like they are the NYPD and start physically assaulting you if you use your free speech Columbia selling their students to ICE and kisses ass to Trump Contracting a stomach bug from eating dining hall food is a canon Columbia event for you to get gastroenteritis from eating food on and around campus - particularly in the dining halls, probably JJ's Dodge Gymnasium, worst gym in the ivy league and possibly any other college Dining Halls, very crowded and limited food options that are not good. Campus flooding, whenever it rains the drainage drains get clogged and the campus is hardly walkable The water fountain water bottle refill machines never working There is always The random tours led by students to people that get in the way of people getting to class Dodge is quite possibly the worst gym in the entire world. Walking in feels less like entering a fitness center and more like stepping into a time capsule from 1972. The equipment creaks, the lighting is questionable and the smell is awful. The dryers in student dorms burn clothes, they only run at full heat. Students have reported smoking and melting clothes The radiators in dorms are managed by the building, the result is that dorms are miserably hot during the winter. Some students have AC running all day to offset this. Clubs are overly-competitive for no reason, upperclassmen get an ego boost holding coffee chats. Fire alarms always go off if your dorm building has kitchens, people can’t cook
Early-morning 8:40 a.m. classes are notoriously hard to wake up for, especially during the colder months. In large auditorium-style lecture halls, students usually feel comfortable being on their phones or quietly eating because professors rarely notice. Running or working out with someone much faster can be humbling—your partner holds a full conversation while you can barely get out a single word. Joe Coffee is a campus-famous coffee shop and is really good, but it's at least $7 and is so expensive. A “quick” study break often turns into hours of scrolling on TikTok without even realizing it. JJ’s Place is the go-to late-night spot since it stays open later than most places and has reliable comfort food. John Jay has the best comfort-food options, but the dining room gets loud and chaotic during peak meal times. Chef Mike’s is popular for subs and customizable sandwiches, but the wait times can get long right after classes let out. The Fac Shack food truck is great for faster, more flexible meal options when dining halls are crowded. Dining hall food looks great online, but the food often doesn’t live up to the hype once you’re actually there. The sushi at John Jay is famously disappointing despite how good it looks in photos. Students often argue about whether John Jay is good or terrible, but it consistently sparks strong opinions either way. The food at JJ’s can be very experimental — sometimes you’ll even see unusual creations like waffle mango jalapeño sandwiches. Professor quality varies a lot, so many students rely on CULPA to choose classes. Greek life exists but plays a small role compared to other universities. Most students socialize outside of it. The first week of classes is Rush and it sucks. Students on sports teams tend to find friends much more easily than non-athletes. First-year students often say the meal plan is expensive and dining halls are crowded during peak hours. Class registration can feel chaotic—students constantly adjust schedules during the add/drop period and don’t know their final classes until the last minute. Because partying happens off-campus, students often feel pressure to have a fake ID early on. Before you get here, you think Columbia students have to be so smart because they're Ivy League, but then you realize they're just normal people with their own flaws too. They're not that smart. College admissions kinda feels like a “vibes-based lottery.” Dorm quality at Columbia varies a lot—some buildings are newly renovated while others feel noticeably older. John Jay is the most “generic dorm experience” on campus, where your social life depends entirely on who ends up living on your floor. Living above a dining hall like JJ’s is convenient and you can easily eat a lot. Hartley is suite-style living for Freshmen, which means you either become best friends or silently coexist forever. Carman is a freshmen dorm and has a reputation as the “party dorm”. For seniors, the party dorm is EC. Furnald is known as the quiet dorm for students who want peace and sleep, and it often gets stereotyped as the “anti-social” building on campus. EC is a senior dorm and has some of the best views on campus and some of the wildest parties. It is hard to get into. Sometimes, juniors can get in if they are lucky. Wien rooms have sinks, which is kinda weird, and sometimes I wonder if men ever piss in their sink. Broadway is dependable, quiet, and gives you exactly the dorm experience you expect—nothing more, nothing less. Carlton is so far from campus that students joke they need a pilgrimage just to get to class. Most people who live in Carlton are sophomores or juniors. Avery is a library that doesn’t let you bring drinks inside, which instantly makes half the student body refuse to study there. Butler is the go-to spot for late-night studying, Milstein is for group work and sunlight, and Noco is for people who actually want silence. Having laundry in the building is considered a luxury in NYC, and people brag about it when they have it. Schermerhorn bathrooms are notoriously unfair. The women's bathroom is on the 8th floor while men have easier access on lower floors. AP (Advanced Programming) is infamous for being one of the hardest classes at Columbia — people bond through pointer bugs, memory leaks, and the existential crisis of C. The professor is iconic and goes by the name of Jae. Jae is known for his infamous cheating scandals where he catches you cheating and sends a death email to you where you have to out yourself. Multi (Multivariable Calc) is a SEAS rite of passage — problem sets are brutal and recitation basically becomes group therapy. The professor is Drew Youngren and he is iconic. The water stations at Columbia are almost always broken. Their stream of water is literally so tiny and slow. Dodge (columbia gym) smells really bad. During NSOP, Carman becomes a 200-sq-ft rave, fake IDs flood the Upper West Side, and half the class somehow ends up drinking on Low Steps by day two. After morning classes, students rush to Diana for coffee from Liz’s Place and breakfast sandwiches before the lines explode. When it’s cold or raining, Barnard students use the underground tunnels between Diana and Altschul to avoid going outside. Diana is the go-to spot between classes for burrito bowls, pizza, smoothies, soups, and quick grab-and-go food. Senior Night happens every Wednesday night at Amity (a bar) among Columbia students. It is known for being super crowded, sticky, sweaty, and gross, but also fun. Senior Night is a great excuse to get drunk on a Wednesday though. Barnard students don't have access to Columbia dorms. So, students need to constantly sign in their Barnard baddies for all the parties on campus, which is annoying. Midterm season starts and never ends at Columbia. Columbia classrooms and lecture halls have the tiniest desks ever. It sucks to take an exam on the smallest desk ever made. Students hate classes that take attendance because you actually have to go. Big lecture classes rarely take attendance so students frequently skip classes. Most students at Columbia don't have classes on Fridays. So, Thursdays are our "Fridays". We feel bad for the students who have to wake up early for class on Friday and can't party too late. Going to Butler at 7 am is a weird time because you can't tell who has been there studying all night long and who the early birds are that study willingly in the morning. At Columbia, it is really normal for averages on our exams to be sub 40% in STEM classes. There comes a point in the semester when "read" means "skim" and "skim" means "do not read". Columbia will lead you to believe that you are failing the entire semester just for your grade to turn out fine. Em dashes are a dead giveaway to your professors that you used ChatGPT to write your essay. Students never know what floor they are on when they enter a building on campus level. Sometimes you walk in on the first floor, fourth floor, or sixth floor. We look like lost puppies walking into a building for the first time. The bathrooms in Noco smell like literal piss. It is horrible and has probably never been cleaned. Chef Mike's got rid of their free soup options and moved them next door to Blue Java where you now have to pay for them with real money. It is such a scam. You have to keep an eye on your omelet on the grill at Ferris because they all look the same and if somebody takes your omelet because you couldn't keep track of it, the workers will yell at you. It's like playing a scramble game and trying to keep your eye on the prize. People who don't take their laundry out right away when it is finished and take up the machines are hated. But people who take others' laundry out of the machines are also hated. People leave hair clumps the size of rats in the showers at the dorm halls. Columbia has gone through 5 different presidents in the span of 4 years. That's embarrassing Admin will always park huge pieces of random equipment on the lawns just to stop students from protesting on the lawns. Trump cut $400 million in federal funding from Columbia. Columbia puts up the ugliest tents up all over campus around graduation time and it ruins the aesthetic of Columbia. Columbia football team is so bad. In 2024, they like to celebrate that we got 1st place in the Ivies, but they fail to mention that it was a 3-way tie for 1st place and there are only 7 teams total. Freshmen party literally every night of the week and upperclassmen can no longer keep up with them. They get sleepy early. People are always getting CU EMSed out of parties because they had too much alcohol and they get taken to Mount Sinai on a stretcher. SEAS kids seen as living in Mudd and never leaving, while CC students are seen as pretentious but also drowning in reading assignments There is a water bottle guy who dresses in superhero bodysuits and tries to flip water bottles into the trash cans all day for no reason. He is a big mystery for freshmen who have never heard of him before. People hog the spray bottles you need to clean your machine at Dodge once you're done using it. There's always a wait for the stairmaster because Columbia only has 2 of them and everyone's trying to get a fatter ass. Every once in a while, campus will restart this debate about whether or not Barnard students are Columbia students and it causes a war.