There's a First for Everything

I woke up to my roommate saying that I had 5 minutes to get ready. I could've sworn that she was kidding, but the numbers don't lie: it was 6:40 and meeting time with the RA's was 6:45. I ran out of bed as quickly and efficiently as possible and prepared for the new day. What a great way to start out the first day of school!

I went with my floor to the dining hall for breakfast and had a delicious meal. I believe this is probably the best college food I have ever tasted. Columbia has a vast variety of choices ranging from scrambled eggs to hash-browns and even morning salad! After this great breakfast, we headed to orientation and went to class.

My official Columbia folder pretty snazzy if I do say so myself)

My class was in the Hamilton building, and since I really didn't know where that was, I walked with two international friends that I had recently made. Strength in numbers, right? We were quickly able to navigate through the beautiful campus and find our designated building.

Orientation

Today's first class was mainly introductions. Our teacher informed us of her professional background--with an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a Doctorate from Columbia University, I knew we were in good hands. The classroom itself was rather small, and the desks had limited writing space. To be completely honest with you, I preferred the classrooms from Georgetown much more compared to the ones here at Columbia.

Many students in the building

After roughly two hours of class, it was lunch time. Columbia was hosting this "extravaganza" party during lunch, and my cohort member Izabel and I ventured out to see what was there. It was mainly promotional club events and outreaches, but they also had a booth for free ice cream and cotton candy! We also headed to the dining hall to get our lunch food, which also happened to be rather delicious. They offered pizza, bread, salad, corn, and many other options. Izabel headed outside to eat, and along the way we caught a friend! His name is Gabriel, and he's a fellow member of our Con-Law class. Turns out he's actually a native from the UK! Gabriel was extremely easy to talk to, and had one of the most intriguing accents ever (in my opinion at least). We contrasted school in America versus UK, and discussed odd differences such as our measurement system. This was probably a conversation I would have never had without this program; thank you Ivy League Connection for allowing me to meet people from different countries in the world.

Our new friend from the UK, Gabriel!

Immediately following lunch, we returned to class for the afternoon session. Our professor Dr. Chen gave us a quick overview on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We did a class reading, and after two hours were dismissed form class. I headed to my dorm room afterwards and took a quick nap, and got a head-start on my homework.

I met up with Izabel at around 5:30 to eat dinner. The cuisine was pretty much the same as lunch time, but they refilled the salad bar. Later on in the night, our whole cohort met up and we took a quick adventure to Times Square.

Heading back to Columbia on the subway!

We all returned to our dorms before curfew, and wrapped up our first day of class.