Columbia Slang

Know the slang, know the school. The following is a list of things you really need to know before coming to Columbia. The more of these words you know, the better off you’ll be.

“The class is taught by a graduate student.”

–To your mother, this means that a TA or teaching assistant is teaching your class. To you, it means that someone who’s quite close to your age will be responsible for instructing you and grading you.

CC–

Contemporary Civilizations— the required political-and philosophical-thought course for second-year students.

Courseworks at Columbia

An online chat room where the faculty posts syllabi and students can learn about assignments and grades. To access it, go to www.columbia.edu and then double click on “Courses.”

CULPA

This is the online resource for students wishing to glean what others think about professors at Columbia. Just type CUPLA in the Columbia search engine, and you will find stuff about nearly every professor.

Hammie’s

Hamilton Deli on 116th Street and Amsterdam, producers of all kinds of hangover-curing hoagies. They deliver.

Jay

John Jay is the dormitory, and its dining hall has the same name. But to all, it’s Jay and if you ask your Carman suitemates if they want to go to Jay at 6 p.m., they’ll know you mean to have dinner, not just kick it in the lounge.

L&R

Your freshman composition course, a.k.a. Logic & Rhetoric.

Lit Hum

Literature Humanities; everybody, even the freshmen, enjoy this required first-year literature course called Lit Hum.

Lutomski

Rob Lutomski is in fact a real person, and is even spotted frequently on campus. But most CU students know him as the man who controls their fate—their housing fate that is. We usually only see him once a year, during the 10 minutes that we select our room. But wielding that red pen, he might as well be God.

Star-sixing

The ROLM phone system is the cornerstone of Columbia culture. Star-six is the pivotal ROLM command. It stops the message you’re listening to in the middle and then deletes it. Comes in handy when you receive approximately one broadcast message a night from the University.

The ‘Stend

An affectionate, if dorky, slang term for the bar and restaurant, the West End.