Dangerous, Closeted Homophobes

Look at this article about CBS. Clearly the woman who discriminated against him is a lesbian. It's always the closeted self-hating gays who are the most dangerous.

I always hated them...well I shouldn't say "always," but when I was in CA this summer my mom flipped past the CBS news and it was all 85yo men giving really right-wing reports.

VC

McKinsey Doesn't Suck (Columbia Still Does)

I really like this company. It's rare when a place of this size can make you feel so good about them...I mean it's this kind of attitude that made me feel not bad at all about not getting a summer offer!

***

Dear CHUNK,

I hope this message finds you doing well. By way of introduction, I am the new law recruiter for Columbia Law School. We have enjoyed getting to know you and while we were not able to extend you a summer associate offer, we continue to feel strongly that you may be a good fit with McKinsey. With this in mind, we would like to stay in touch with you this summer and extend an early invitation to interview with us again this fall.

Additionally, if you will be working in or near a North American city in which McKinsey has an office, we would like to provide you with an opportunity to meet more McKinsey folks by way of special events we will be hosting this summer. To ensure that we invite you to the event most convenient for you, we'd like to collect some information -- could you send a quick email back with answers to the following questions:

• What company will you spending your summer with?
• What will your role will be (and department, if applicable)?
• Which city/country you will be located?
• Would you be interested in attending a McKinsey & Company event in your summer city?

We hope you remain interested in a full-time opportunity with McKinsey & Company. If there is anything I, or anyone on the APD Law recruiting team, can do for you over the course of the next several months, please do not hesitate to contact me at 212-415-5140. I look forward to hearing a response from you soon!

Warmest regards,

Meegan McDermott

_________________________
Meegan McDermott
McKinsey & Company
Tel: 212.415.5140
www.apd.mckinsey.com

Example of Why Columbia F***ing Sucks

Take a look at this announcement for what sounds like it could be a pretty cool course ("Master Class" lol), which would help not only the students, the business school curriculum, but also African companies, and then look at how, at the bottom, they're like "oh, and you can probably cover part of the cost of the trip to Africa that you HAVE to take, as part of this class, in loans based on your credit."

Like Columbia couldn't even fund one such program.

Dear Student,


Below please find information on a Fall 2007 Business School Master Class that is offering 6 opportunities for upper level SIPA and Law students to join this exciting new class. There is an application deadline of Tuesday, July 10 at 12:00pm so if you are interested, please contact the Business School as soon as possible.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Entrepreneurship in Africa- Murray Low and Paul Tierney

• 30 student limit (24 MBAs / 6 SIPA/Law students)
• 2ND year MBA students or equivalent if SIPA or Law School student
• Permission of professor required to bid on this Master Class – email the following to rls2152@columbia.edu (must be received by 12pm Tuesday, July 10, 2007)
  • 1 page resume
  • 1 page application answering the following four questions:
  
  1)What are your career goals?
  
  2)What is your relevant background and experience for this class?
  
  3)Why do you want to take this class?
  
  4)The final project for the class is a case study of a successful entrepreneurial business in Africa –student representatives of each team will be required to travel to Africa for a two week field study during the winter break (travel to commence after December 20th); these representatives may be able to cover some of the travel costs through credit-based private educational loans (please consult with your School's Financial Aid Office). Are you willing/able to travel to Africa at your own expense?
  
  
  
  Entrepreneurship in Africa (EA) examines how entrepreneurial managers and those who invest in them design, negotiate and execute ventures that make use of resources and opportunities in the challenging environments of sub-Saharan Africa.
  
  Through case studies and guest lecturers students will learn about successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs and financiers. Up to 30 students will conduct consulting assignments with local African companies identified by our African business school partners in Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. Student representatives of each team will be required to travel to Africa for a two week field study during the winter break (travel to commence after December 20th); these representatives may be able to cover some of the travel costs through credit-based private educational loans (please consult with your School's Financial Aid Office).
  
  Students travel to Africa for a two week field study during the winter break. Each team will produce a consulting report and a case study for teaching purposes. The case studies and accompanying teaching materials will be available to other business schools in Africa and the west.

Je m'appelle Baghdad

Watch this with sound, but maybe not where you'll not want to have people see you cry. I found it very moving.

VC

VC is a Foreign Woman

OH MY GOD I'm on the phone with Columbia finaid, because the hold isn't off the system yet, and the woman I'm talking to (I'm still on the phone with her) just gave me the double whammy:

"Hello, MISS? I need you to speak more slowly. You have an accent."

God this place is go ghetto lol.

I can't stand people who think that you are automatically a woman (or foreign lol) if you don't sound exactly how they expect you sound. Usually it only happens when I'm on the phone with a bank rep or something in middle america with no exposure to the outside world, but if you knew the women working at the CU registrar and financial aid office, then you'd know there not much difference as far as exposure/cosmopolitanism is concerned.

VC

If You Only Had 2 Hours to Live

...you probably wouldn't spend your morning the way I did.

BUT, I have been incredibly productive.

I think people think that I don't like to take care of things (and I think I help perpetuate that belief), when in reality I'm someone who, if something gives me anxiety, I totally jump on it.

Anyway, at 9am when everything opened I just ran through my list of undesirable tasks. I had tried to take care of things earlier since I woke up at 4:45am, although I wouldn't say "jet-lagged" since I'm never on a normal sleep schedule anyway.

Baggage Reimbursement

* Called Continental to check up on reimbursement for the stuff I had to buy in Doha while my bag was vacationing in Paris. Continental told me that I had to work with Qatar Airways.

* Called Qatar Airways and was told I needed to get the documents together, write a formal claim latter, and fax it.

* Wrote the letter, assembled the documents, copied them, and faxed it (and I even included my internet charges at the hotel since my fictional wireless card was in my suitcase and I had to use the internet at the Sheraton -- I figure the airline should pay!).

* Went down to Rockefeller Center to H&M to return stuff I'd bought before the trip but couldn't use since it didn't arrive until the last day.

Columbia Hold

* Went to the law school financial aid and met with two people to discuss the hold and was told to go to the center for public interest law to get clarification on the disbursement of my summer funds.

* Went to CPIL and got confirmation that my money will be deposited bi-weekly starting mid-July (aka: way too late to pay my bill and register). They told me to go to the main university financial aid.

* Went to CU financial aid (note: the hall is FILLED with gigantic flat screen tvs with lame messages like "Registration and Financial Services are now integrated into the same office for ease of student access" and then a photo of a fake lawn fades onto the screen -- GLAD my tuition increases are paying for this crap!). I explained that all my summer checks were deposited BY Columbia into my Columbia account and therefore went directly to paying-down the balance I owed Columbia, and I told them that I am a humble serf. They removed the hold :)

Birthday Gift

* Went to the bookstore to get a Chinese reading book for Curie's girlfriend's birthday tonight, but didn't find any I liked, asked Curie if gf had read Wild Swans ("probably not"), and does she read ("not really").

* Went to the Librairie de France in Rockefeller Center and got her a cute TinTin book where TinTin goes to China :) [she's into French stuff...kind of]

GREAT AND USELESS NEWS

Finally, while I was between the French bookstore and H&M, I got a call from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva asking if I still wanted to work there this summer. I told them that I had to take another offer in NYC and that it's too bad because they were my top choice (even though the big human rights guy here at Columbia told me not to work for them, I still would have -- it's a great "in" to the UN, I'd be in my favourite country all summer, the funding is WAY better for CU students who go abroad, AND I'd be with Swissy). The woman on the phone told me that this happens, sometimes, and that she regrets that no one called me sooner, because I was on a list of accepted interns and she doesn't know why no one called (I mean we aren't even in school, anymore, for God's sake! And I sent my application in DECEMBER!).

Anyway, it's a huge compliment since, according to the public interest director, they hadn't taken a Columbia student the last several years.

Pretty productive morning, huh? :)

Now I just need to email the ICTJ to firm-up my arrival on Monday, then relax and prepare for 3pm French Open tennis (since of course stupid US barely covers it, and certainly not live).

VC

Columbia Screwing

I hate (HATE!) how law school is just one anxiety after the next, and many of them are financial.

So I tried to complete my pre-registration for next year and was barred because I had a hold on my account. When I went to check my student account the only balance I had from last term was $28 (which is my most recent electricity bill and which I'll pay before it's due) but for some reason, even though it wasn't counted as a prior term balance and even though only prior term balances of greater than $1000 can lead to a hold, my summer housing was billed and the $4,000+ is already due with my next payment. The thing is, I don't get my summer funding *FROM COLUMBIA* until the end of August and obviously have to register before then.

It's already bad enough that I'm getting paid basically nothing and that, dollar for dollar, it goes STRAIGHT back to Columbia for summer housing, but now I can't register because of the way they've billed it!?

I'm taking care of this as soon as financial services opens.

I feel like an indentured servant. Seriously. It's like the modern elite academic version of serfdom: I work for the university in order to get the right to keep working.