Columbia University

My journey began very early in the morning as I bribed a friend with money for coffee and fudge brownies I had made the night before…I think advertising to my friends that they will end up with some sort of baked good if they drive me places is really the way to go… I spent another morning at the airport, as my flight was delayed in this month of terrible weather. I arrived in La Guardia at about 3:30, and my introduction to the Burroughs began. I took the M60 bus (M stands for Manhattan) through Queens, Harlem, and finally down Broadway to 116th, the cross street at the main gate to Columbia. Unlike NYU, there is actually a sizeable campus, and they are looking to expand from 116th to 168th (from Main Campus to the medical school). This is actually a pretty big deal: there are signs up all over wanting Columbia to stay away: their move into the 130s would continue the substantial gentrification already beginning in much of Harlem, and for the most part, residents want to avoid their homes being bought and demolished by Columbia, an institution which owns the second-most land on the island of Manhattan. [the first = the Vatican.] I walked around for a bit, given that it actually wasn’t too chilly outside: the campus is quite lovely, and the library is beautiful (it was used as the science building when they filmed Spiderman).



Next, I took the 1 downtown to 79th street. The whole “downtown” being a direction thing was also new, because in Minnesota, downtown is in the center, but in Manhattan, downtown is south. I walked a few blocks south to my hotel, the Milburn. This area is officially the Upper West Side, and it is a few blocks west of Central Park. Mostly families and couples live in the apartment buildings here, and I have a feeling it’d be pretty expensive. There are lots of cute shops and restaurants in the area, and it seems like it’d be a fun place to get to know better.



I checked into the hotel, put down my luggage, and decided that it was definitely time to eat. I walked across the street to a Greek restaurant called Nikos. I eat alone fairly often, but this alone is usually in my room, not in the presence of others, so it was kind of odd to be hit on by the cute waiter bemoaning the fact that he was working on Valentine’s Day, or the fact that I got the entire basket of bread to myself (there were six different kinds…yup, definitely ate them all). My grandpa also made a surprise appearance in the talks I had with two gentleman sitting across from me: for those of you who don’t know my grandfather, he prided himself on his ability to talk to people and find a connection between them in ten minutes or less. He passed away about five years ago, and I try every day to emulate his sunny outlook and passionate love for mankind. He flew in the Navy, raised four children and nine grandchildren, traveled, wrote, lived through five hip replacements, and worked and excelled as a counselor in a middle school…he was a great man. And I wish he was here to be a part of my life.

Anyway, the three of us talked about everything from ABBA and socialism to math to philosophy to music…they were quite the pair of citizens of the world. One grew up for a few years in France, but then he was forced to move to Cuba with his parents when Franco took over in the 1930s (they were Communist sympathizers, although according to him, his mother was more of a Bourgeoisie with a taste for fashion). He grew up knowing Fidel Castro, and spent his teenage years in Russia. His accent was an amalgam of Spanish and Russian, which made his comments even more difficult to understand over the din of the restaurant. He is now a mathematician at Columbia, and his friend asked him out to dinner to talk about Cuba, since his work in linguistics has taken him to a position in a non-profit that works with Cuban immigrants. He asked a very probing question of me, and it took me a long time to come up with the answer: “What does it mean to be interviewing at Columbia?” [warning: introspective thoughts ahead]

I thought about my high school track record, how my parents pushed me towards excellence in academics, my struggles trying to be a different person on the stage, speech or music (I know, so much teenage angst!) and I realized that my definition of success has evolved through my time in college. My own grades are immaterial compared to learning and understanding. Helping other students along the way means more to me than ever before, to the point where I want to make my career a job where what I do every day is talk about science to all different kinds of people. Music has become my love and distraction, not a stressful experience. Columbia to me means I have been successful in my collegiate pursuits, in the terms in which I define them. No one else can judge or decide what Columbia (or any other school) “means” except me.

It’s funny, because he’s the first person to ever call me a philosopher. I don’t really think I deserve that label, but it’s flattering that someone privy to my thoughts for the first time thinks I came up with a well-reasoned argument for my career and how education is one of the most important ways to improve quality of life worldwide.

After sharing an amazing Greek pastry-cream-deliciousness concoction with my globe-trotting friends, I headed back to the Milburn, where I met my roommate, Emily. Because of a scheduling error, we were assigned a suite, and I slept on a cot in the other room the whole time (not a big deal…after dorm beds, anything works). Emily is a biology major from Loyola New Orleans, and spent her Katrina semester in Chicago. She is interested in virology, and we both spent a great deal of studying this weekend for our respective midterms (she had microbiology, I had biochemistry). You know you’re cool when you say goodnight to New York City by 11:30 and study in a hotel room until 3 am…classy, that’s for sure.

We woke up early the next morning to make sure we would arrive on time on the Medical School Campus (168th). We took the 1 uptown, and walked past the newly-remodeled Armory Track and Field Center (which is just what it sounds like…an armory was redone a couple of years ago, so now the Medical School campus swarms with crazy running-types, even in the winter when it is freezing!). The labs for Microbiology are located in the Hammer Health Sciences Center, and on the 15th floor, you can see the Hudson River, the buildings of the Financial District downtown, and you used to be able to see Yankee Stadium before the new cancer center was built.

Since it was an alternate interview weekend, there were only four students visiting (something that allowed for a very personal experience), and our day began with a short introduction to the program. The graduate school is undergoing a bit of restructuring, and the way classes will work next year is still a bit under to be determined, but there are the requisite biochemistry and molecular biology courses to take, as well as a seminar course, and three rotations spread throughout the first year. The stipend for next year will be $29,000, and living in New York City (even in subsidized housing) means that this won’t go very far. The general feeling I got from graduate students was that you’ll definitely be able to live, but you won’t be able to save. Insurance is excellent, and graduate student housing isn’t bad. One of the buildings is a dorm (ouch), but the others are apartments which are decent (nothing outstanding) but a four bedroom for $850 a person isn’t bad for the city. There is also a free shuttle which goes to Fairway Market on 74th three times a week, but there is also a smaller market up near the medical school.

Next was a bit of a tour around the labs, as well as a seminar by two different post-docs. One worked with the Schuman lab and legionella, while the other worked with virus latency in chicken pox and shingles. I still feel like I don’t have a strong enough background to completely understand the entirety of these talks, but it is still so cool to come away from these weekends with a whole new appreciation for areas of research I didn’t know existed. It’s not that IWU hasn’t prepared me well enough: it’s just that there is such a jump in knowledge expected between the undergraduate and graduate level.

Our day continued with lunch at the Faculty Club, which is located within the medical school maze (and goes right past a bacteria lab…you can smell the ecoli…). It was really swanky, and it was nice to get a chance to talk to three different graduate students personally about their route to graduate school. One was from Costa Rica, and said that one of the hardest decisions she made was to move away from all of her family and go to graduate school after working in science for a few years. She said they were so angry that she was “deserting” them, especially in regards to her nieces and nephews. She stood her ground, still talks to her parents and brothers every day, and they all know that she did what she had to do. She also emphasized that it’s graduate school: as long as I work hard and put in the time, going home is not a problem (she visits twice a year). Another spent a lot of time working in a lab before going to graduate school, and says he regrets most of it: “Did I really need it? No…if you know you want your PhD, go for it.”

After our meal, we made the trek back to HHSC for interviews. My day began with Dr. Schindler, who works on cytokines and extracellular signaling. Cell surfaces have specialized molecules called glycoproteins (glyco = sugar) that are made up of carbohydrates and proteins which allow for recognition. For example, a person’s blood type is determined by the glycoproteins present on their blood cells…they act as a sort of name tag to tell the body that “I am SELF – do not destroy!” He didn’t talk much about his research, instead focusing on minute details of virus pathology of the adenovirus I worked with last summer at MIT. I did read a few papers on this construct, but I do not have a virologist’s knowledge or expertise in the subject: that is why I’m going to graduate school. I don’t know this stuff yet.

My next interview was with Dr. Vincent Racaniello: his work deals mainly with virus pathogenicity and how a virus enters a cell. I talked with him a lot about the dickcissel project I’m doing here at school, and he had almost an odd fascination with the entire process and results. I think in many ways, professors really enjoy interviewing students since it gives them a bit of perspective on science and other experiences and topics. Sure, the wet lab work I do is very simple (compared to many other procedures), but the complexity of the relationships and ecology that go along with it make the project full of nuances that make it rather exciting.

Dr. Max Gottesman is a veritable giant of virology, and did much of the work on lambda phages (viruses that infect bacteria). He talked with me about five minutes on my research at MIT, and then chatted with me about life in New York City, as well as my dorky science dreams.

Dr. David Fidock works with almost all facets of malaria, from the proteins that actually cause damage to the plasmodium organism, to interactions with vectors to the disease and vaccinations. [a picture of his work is below] I love his varied approach to a complicated problem, as well as learning about his collaborators and the travel he does in conjunction to learn more about the worldwide effects of malaria. We talked extensively about the gap between academia and those who are not traditionally involved in science and different avenues to remedy this problem, as well as the benefits of well-rounded research.



The day ended with a wine and cheese reception with professors and graduate students from the microbiology department: the fresh mozzarella soaked in olive oil and basil was my personal favorite.

Three graduate students took us out to dinner at Bondi Road, an Australian restaurant on the lower east side (http://www.bondiroad.com/start/). We shared calamari, tuna tartare, and baby scallops to start, and I had this amazing beet/pumpkin seed concoction with grilled sea bass for my meal. This is me, spoiled rotten. Emily and I went home early, studying before finally heading to bed.

The next morning, we both went to H and H Bagels on 80th Street and Broadway: it’s a smallish room with an enormous bagel oven: no tables or places to eat…it’s just about the bagels (which are $1.20 and delicious). I should also mention that Emily and I had to have a whole intervention process to make sure I could say the word bagel correctly. My Minnesotan accent (=bayg-llll, where bayg rhymes with hag) had to be fixed into the more appropriate bay-gull (I still have to think extremely hard about how to pronounce it). We met Todd Kumler, a friend of mine from IWU, at the bagel place, and we went back to our hotel room thanks to the lack of seating to chat about Columbia and living in New York City. Todd is a graduate student in the economics department, and has all sorts of excellent stories to share.

Next, we met the other prospective student in the lobby to walk to brunch with a graduate student (the final candidate had fallen ill and went home). We walked to a cute place called Sarabeth, a brunch haven for families and twenty-somethings treating themselves to a good meal (http://www.sarabethsbakery.com/restaurants/). The girls had Four Flower Mimosas, and I had this amazing almond French toast with cranberry cherry sauce. So good! I feel like walking all of New York City couldn’t get rid of the calories I have consumed this weekend.

I was surprised this weekend by a visit from a certain Bostonian gentleman, who came into New York to stay with cousin, a law student at Columbia. We tried to meet up in Chelsea at a gallery opening for another of his cousins, but I ended up getting lost in the Village, and my cell phone died on me. I know it seems wussy, but it feels a lot more dangerous to be in a city alone without a phone. They just seem to afford so much more security. I finally caught up with him on the Upper West Side, and we spent a little bit of time walking around before I went back to the hotel to get some homework done before dinner.

The three visiting students and I met some graduate students in the lobby for dinner, and we walked to Haru, a sushi place on 80th Street and Amsterdam. One of our hosts, Pallav, grew up in Sweden, so we talked a lot all evening about Sweden. The first words I said in Swedish (strawberry ice cream) resulted in a grimace and the same words repeated back completely different, but after that, things improved (hedgehog, thank you, Gotland, etc…). It was fun to talk about the island and my trip there after sixth grade: I would love to go back sometime soon.

From there, we went downtown to Max Brenner’s, a modern Willy Wonka extravaganza. (http://www.maxbrenner.com/). The moment you walk in the store, it feels like your pores are saturating with chocolate. We ordered some of the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had (with Sara’s cocomotion currently in second place) while we waited about 45 minutes for a table (it’s quite a popular destination on Saturday nights). After salivating over the menus, we ordered an obscene amount of chocolate and proceeded to all end up with amazing sugar highs…quite the perfect way to end the evening! It is slightly expensive, but completely worth it if you are a chocolate lover.

Photo (L-R): Me, Pallav, PJ and Emily

We all arrived back at the hotel around midnight, and I studied a bit before heading to bed. The next morning, Emily and I took a cab to La Guardia around 8am, checked in, and had coffee before heading off to our respective gates. Due to bad weather in Chicago, we made it out of New York City extremely late, and I had to wait almost four hours in the bus terminal at O’Hare…but, I made it back to Bloomington at about 10:30 pm…just in time to study and then collapse for my midterm the next day.