Born to a Venezuelan dad, who has lived and breathed fútbol his whole life, and a Dutch Indonesian mother, from a family of huge fans of Holland’s international soccer team, I have been kicking a ball since the day I could stand. Soccer has taken me around the world. This August, my club team coach, Luis Mendoza, took a group of us to Buenos Aires to experience true Argentine soccer. There, I played against three youth professional teams...

Columbia’s core curriculum ensures that a math and science person like myself will fully benefit from a liberal arts education and graduate as an engineer who can ask questions, solve problems, and apply scientific solutions with a humane and broad-based approach. Columbia’s first summer assignment, to read Homer’s Iliad, has already piqued my curiosity about the connection between an ancient Greek poem and modern day engineering. For someone with a passion for all things related to music,...