While the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented first-year students from experiencing their first club application season on campus, this weekend, Clubs and Organizations from across the Columbia Community gathered to introduce resumé-padding freshmen to the University’s spirit of snobbery and exclusion in a virtual setting.
“Our goal was to recreate the first-year experience as closely as possible,” stated Columbia Undergraduate Student Life, “which means adapting our annual Activities Fair to foster feelings of inadequacy in a remote format.”
In offering first-year students a perfect combination of clubs that pride themselves in elitism with those that closed their application windows weeks ago, the virtual Activities Fair succeeded in inducing intense symptoms of imposter syndrome as it would in a normal year.
Heading into the fifth week of their first semester of college, several freshmen report that the University triumphed in boosting their feelings of worthlessness.
“Speaking one-on-one with club leadership really got me excited,” claimed Dessa Pointment (CC ‘24), “It was really great to see the faces behind the rejection email I’ll receive in my inbox next week.”
Similarly, SEAS freshman Reid Jection describes the Activities Fair as reinvigorating his waning inferiority complex. “I’m really looking forward to this week,” he says, “Filling out endless Google Forms and anxiously sweating in Zoom breakout rooms for interviews will be an amazing outlet to cope with my first wave of college midterms.”
In these unprecedented times, it’s important to appreciate Columbia’s commitment to consistency. Although this year is like no other, Columbia has proved that with proper technology, it’s still possible to expose these young adults to the disappointment that will mark their college years and beyond.
