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The CCRA blog is authored by Columbia undergraduate researchers, who are invited to reflect on all aspects of the research process and their own undergraduate research experiences, beginning (but not ending) with the Core.
Category Archives: The Core
Dancing With, Not Against, Time
I have a playlist called “compost” meant to house all the songs I’ve grown tired of and don’t want to actively listen to anymore but also don’t want to delete and risk losing forever. Someday, I imagine, nostalgia or historical … Continue reading
Posted in COVID-19, The Core, Uncategorized
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The P3 in University Writing
One of my favorite icebreaker questions at Columbia is “What’d you write your P3 on?” The P3, for those uninitiated, is the Phase 3 essay in University Writing, a Core course required for all Columbia College and Engineering students. The … Continue reading
Posted in The Core, Uncategorized, University Writing
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The Core and the Libraries
My previous post betrays it: at risk of being nerdy even for a Columbia student, I’m a big fan of the Butler Library sixth floor reading rooms, the Avery Library folio shelves, the stacks in the Burke Library at Union … Continue reading
Finding the Intersections in All Subjects
The summer before I got to Columbia as a freshman, I decided that I wanted to go to medical school. Looking back, the nine seasons of Grey’s Anatomy I watched that summer played no small part in that decision—Patrick Dempsey’s … Continue reading
Posted in STEM research, The Core, Uncategorized
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Research and the Polis
Last autumn, I was about to fall off of the stepping stool in the Avery Library stacks when I found the report. Titled Morningside Heights: A Sketch Plan, the slim volume from 1958 detailed the then-confidential neighborhood strategy of Morningside … Continue reading
Research as Reimagining
I attended my first thesis presentation sitting on the couch. The university had sent many of us home in March. Now it was May. Instead of facing the blank page, commencing battle with my final papers, I opened Zoom, settled … Continue reading
Posted in Senior Thesis, The Core
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Novelty in Undergraduate Research
“As a woman I have no country,” Virginia Woolf wrote in Three Guineas, and also in the Passage Identification section of my spring Contemporary Civilizations final exam. She continued: “As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my … Continue reading
Posted in Study Abroad, The Core
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Using the Words of the Past to Define the Future
At the beginning of my second semester of CC, my professor asked us all to write down a response on an index card to the question “What do you hope to get out of this class?” My response was, “The … Continue reading
Posted in The Core, Uncategorized
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