General Studies Lounge - ARCHIVE 2006-2011

Welcome to the General Studies Lounge, a student-run website for the students of the School of General Studies at Columbia University. The content of this website is produced entirely by students in the Student Council and by the student body. The goal of this website is simple: to provide the building blocks for solid communication between current students, the administration, prospective students (and their families) as well as alumni. 

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Welcome to the start of orientation! This is said to be the best part of a GS student’s experience here at Columbia. So, embrace it!

If there is one piece of advice I can give you, it would be to make the most of your relatively short time here. Beyond learning as much as you can while at Columbia, you should get to know as many people as possible. In other words, I don’t want to see you for the first time on graduation day. It’s about who you know as much as what you know.

The good news is that Columbia has such a rich community and offers so much to explore during your time here. I beg you, please, do not graduate having only visited Butler. Historically, GS students have not been the most active participants of on-campus activities. This year, as president of GSSC, my goal is to devote 100% of our energy on improving student life and encouraging GS students’ participation around campus.

To make this happen, we need GS students with initiative to take the lead and become organizers of events. There are two ways to become leaders. Firstly, if you are willing to make a commitment to join our student council, you will have the opportunity to drive the agenda of meetings, to plan and promote events, and to connect people. However, if that is too much of a commitment, I would encourage you to take advantage of the GS Fund, a program we started last year to fund big ideas submitted by you. We will fund up to $1,000 per winning idea. On top of that, you will be named special delegate to GSSC once you successfully make your big idea happen. This will allow you to do something awesome, without committing to council for the entire year.