Focus on What You Want to Do
Focus on what you want to do, not what you want to be.
-Ted Pryor '82BUS
The World Is Ready for Your Brilliance
Congratulations! The world is ready for all the brilliance you have to offer. Don't be afraid to be lost or confused--you have a lot of time to figure it all out. Surround yourself with the people and things that make you come alive--and forget the rest. Before you leave campus, sit on the steps and really soak it all in. Always remember you have a place to call home in the greatest city in the world! Best wishes!
-Namrata Gumaste '14CC
Creative Freedom Is Important
Don't forget that you have the opportunity to create amazing entrepreneurial businesses in this new media world. Don't just think of your career in terms of being someone else's employee or freelancer. You'll have much more freedom, and creative freedom, if you create a company of your own.
-Alex Connock '88JRN
Live the Life of The Ideas You Want to See in The World
Live the life of the ideas you want to see in the world. You can make a difference and we need your contributions.
-Joseph Alem '06SIPA
Hold Fast to the Spirit of Youth
Hold fast to the spirit of youth; let years to come do what they may. (And spend some quiet time where this is written.)
-Greg Gonzalez '87CC, '88JRN
Our Next Generation Must Embrace Technology
Technology is a disruptive force that is impacting all business endeavors. Our next generation of CBS business leaders must embrace technology. Those that don't will become obsolete, like old technology. Those that do will thrive and prosper.
-Michael Oliver Weinberg '98BUS
Continue to Think and Learn
Your Columbia education has taught you to THINK! Continue to think and learn and do things to improve your world, not merely your finances. Be a productive and worthy citizen of the world!
-John G. Scandalios '57CC
Act on Your "Gut" Feelings
1.In most, if not all, things, you probably have a "gut" sense of what is the right thing to do. You will probably be most satisfied with your life if you act on that sense.
2.If you live your life the way one or more people want you to live it, you will not probably not be satisfied. It's your life, not theirs. If you don't do what they want, they'll eventually get over it and you will be happier.
-Kenneth Birnbaum '69BUS, '69LAW
Don't Listen to Negative Advice
Don't listen to negative advice. There will always be someone telling you it's "impossible." Or "no one has ever done that". Learn to trust your own judgement.
-Susan Gingrich '75PS
Do Something Fun Every Day
Do something that is fun every day and be thankful that you can.
-Mel Klein '62CC
Economists Keep In Touch with the Human Element
Economists should never lose sight of the human element in explaining economic decisions and predicting outcomes.
-S. Nuri Erbas '82GSAS
Stay In Touch
Stay in touch with each other. My very best friends are from my Columbia years! Communicate well, encourage yourself and others to think freely, and above all strive to be kind at work, to your friends and family, and also to strangers. Don't be proud or pretend... be humble, generous and real. These are the things that matter in the end.
-Airie Stuart '94SOA
Marry Well and Grow Together in Love.
Marry well. Grow together in love. Have children early and often. This more than anything else will have the biggest impact on your happiness.
-Chuck Callan '78CC
Become Wise Enough to Serve as Your Own Best Adviser
1. Look with suspicion upon unsolicited advice. You will probably get a lot of it in the coming years. It may well be motivated by impulses and aims having little to do with your own best interest. For instance, a middle-aged person may be interested in recapturing, for a moment, his own youth by vicariously connecting with younger generations in the form of advice-giving. Or, he may be attempting to distance himself from the folly of his own youth. Be willing to consider advice, and even to learn from it, but remember that the ultimate goal in life is not to follow others advice but to create your own, to become wise enough to serve as your own best adviser.
2. Do not believe those who say, you are over-thinking it. Most often, what such people mean is:Your thinking is too quick and complex for me. It is very hard to over-think. Ninety-nine percent of the time, we under-think.
3. Be wary of those who say, just trust your gut. There is nothing simple about trusting your gut. To trust your gut, you must first find your gut, which takes time and effort. You must try out your gut, see where it leads you, see to what it tends, see what it favors and what it hates. You must discover what sort of creature your gut is. So, first go seek your gut, study your gut, prove your gut in the archaic sense (look up the archaic meaning of the term, prove if you don't know it), and then decide whether and how to listen to your gut.
4. Learn, if you are able, what fear and anxiety are for you, what they do to you, and how they affect your thoughts and actions. If you can do this, you will have a much better chance of dealing with them in creative and courageous ways. To become familiar with fear and anxiety requires that you probe them, think about them, talk about them, and, sometimes, confront those things that make you the most fearful or anxious.
5. There are a few profound paradoxes that point us toward a richer understanding of the human condition. One paradox is that human lives can be meaningful to persons and yet, in some ultimate sense, the existence of humanity may be meaningless. Another is that when one creates something, one finds what is already there. Find and appreciate the rare, special paradoxes when you can, but beware the temptation to seek refuge in mysteriousness where reason could enlighten you. Many apparent paradoxes are mere confusions. Many people are unable to recognize the genuine paradoxes, so they see false paradoxes everywhere. For example, it is not truly paradoxical to give unsolicited advice to be wary of unsolicited advice: That is merely ironic.
-Matthew Bowker '96CC
Have Fallback Options
Have fall-back options—in case your ideal one is delayed
-Paul Anirban-Pal '03SIPA
Think of All You've Learned
Congratulations! Think of all you've learned and understand that you've received the tools to learn so much more. Best wishes in all your endeavors.
-Paul de Bary '68CC, '71BUS, '71LAW
Find Ways to Further Peace and Understanding
In your place of work and service may you find ways to further peace and understanding in our increasingly diverse world.
- Rev. Dr. A. Gary Angleberger '57CC
Change The World
If you want to change the world, start by making your bed.
-Anthony Blackstone '68GSAS
Regularly Set Goals
1. Regularly set goals for yourself - career, personal, exercise, rest, savings and travel.
2. Treat others outside your fold with gentleness and inclusion.
3. Throughout life, build small social groups where you are a contributor (in some fashion).
4. Seek advice from a knowledgeable, diverse group of people; remain flexible, and amenable to change.
5. Decide to enjoy life on a daily basis.
6. When setbacks occur (such as a personal relation gone south), try to process what is going on now in crisis, as if you are examining this distressing/painful episode from the vantage point of 6 months forward.
7. Document your progression with some text and photos, etc.
-Patrick F. Dolan '78BUS
Life Is a Journey
Continually strive to deliver excellence in your performance. Build and nurture your rolodex; you will need it many times. Don't do anything that would land you on the front page of the WSJ in a negative way. Life is a journey, not a series of goals...Enjoy it!
-Ronald Lefkon '64BUS
Now It's Your Turn
You got one of the best education, now it's your turn. Use it!
-Elizabeth Klasicka '74GS
Keep an Open Mind
Keep an open mind, keep active intellectually and physically, and follow a career in what you love and yearn to do.
-Wendell Hatfield '53CC, '56PS
You Were Meant To Be Great
Be fearless. You were meant to be great.
-Tochi Iroku-Malize '07PH
Never Forget Your Ambition
Never forget your ambition. Stand by your views. Congrats to the classes of 2017.
-Jannine Dewar '13MSPH
Have Faith in Your Journey
Have faith in your journey, the good, the bad, the ugly. They all play a part in who you will become.
-Christina LaGamma '16BC
Where Will You Be in Seven Years?
What and where do you want to be in seven years from today? What would the future-you tell your present-you?
-Rao Kolluru '89PH
Be Adventurous
Be adventurous in all of your choices and unafraid of the unknown. Stretch yourself and embrace your world.
-Patricia Bidwill '78BUS
Make Your Dreams Come True
Don't settle. If you don't see a way to make your dreams come true, make a way for your dreams to come true.
-Debi Bobango '85SW
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
Don't sweat the small stuff -- it all comes together in the end.
-Roham Usmani '16JRN
Fear Nothing, Challenge Everything
Fear nothing and challenge everything!
-John Gaber '91, '93GSAPP
Trust Yourself and Go For It
As you make your own way in the world remember to have compassion, to be courageous, to trust yourself and go for it. Your path may be straight her winding like mine was. But it's your path and trust that it will take you where you need it to. And most importantly be positive -- cause a positive attitude will take you a long way.
-Maryam Banikarim '89BC, '93BUS, '93SIPA
Work Harder Than You Dream
Work harder than you dream and remember that it's not polite to talk too much about yourself.
-Lloyd Lim '87CC
The Path to Happiness...
Don't assume that the path you are on is the only one. The path to happiness is often one you didn't know existed.
-Harold Freiman '90LAW
You Have Bright Futures Ahead
Congratulations, graduates! You all have very bright futures ahead of you. Hold close these friends and the others you have met and will have met. In the beginning, through it all and at the end, it's all about the loyalty you will demonstrate for each other. That virtue, along with hard work and commitment to your duties, will carry you through! Felicitations again!
-Sohan Dasgupta '07CC
Fail Quickly, Start Over
Fail quickly; start over.
-Laurent Adamowicz '09GSAS; Anthropology Dept., Columbia University
Your Education Lives On
Keep reading! One of the pleasures of taking the Core is that you will re-read your CC and Lit Hum books, and each time you do, something kinetic takes place. The works can take on entirely new meanings. That's how your Columbia education lives on. There's something special about re-reading these classics and discovering something that you didn't notice or realize in the first go-around, or if you are lucky, you learn something about yourself in subsequent readings. Congratulations to the Class of 2017! ROAR!
-Mark Momjian '83CC, '86LAW
Enjoy Every Second of Graduation
Enjoy every second of your graduation day.
-Chantal Schuster '06GS, '07SIPA
Listen to Understand, Not to Respond
Listen to understand, and not to respond!
-George Soto '76GS
Let It Shine
Evidencing as is so that one of my most cherished items is my diploma; when I ask fellow alums about experiences at other schools and they say; "it is ie. ok; but its not like Columbia;" that light which has been lit will shine on in you. Let it shine.
-Mark Trop '84LAW
You'll Appreciate Your Columbia Education
The older you get, the more you will appreciate your Columbia education.
-Barry Bley '64CC, '65TC
Remember That Women's Rights are Human Rights.
Remember that women's rights are human rights.
Louise Bernikow, '61BC, '73GSAS