On Valentine’s Day of 2006, I stepped onto the sheet of melting ice on American concrete for the first time and became chained to the human kennel I call my apartment. Carcasses of dead roaches were strewn everywhere. Walls were fractured, bulging in spots like they had swallowed something, and paint layers flaked off altogether, exposing bare plaster like flesh under skin. The bathtub was in the kitchen, with its door directly facing the stove, which any Chinese child knows...

Four years ago, I roamed the green campus grounds, the Beaux-Arts architecture, the translucent glass of Lerner Hall, and I fell in love. As I looked up at the rib cage outline of the Scholar’s Lion, its inherent symbolism resonated with me - to be insatiable for knowledge, invigoration, challenge, self-improvement, and transform the world. Four years ago, I roamed the green campus grounds, the Beaux-Arts architecture, the translucent glass of Lerner Hall, and I fell in love. As...

For applicants to Columbia College, please tell us what from your current and past experiences (either academic or personal) attracts you specifically to the field or fields of study that you noted in the Member Questions section. If you are currently undecided, please write about any field or fields in which you may have an interest at this time. (300 words or less) I expected Panmunjom, South Korea to be a living museum, as it is the sole remnant of strained...

Leges sine moribus vanae. Laws without morals are useless. The first time I received the red and blue pamphlet, my face broke into a spontaneous smile at how the Penn motto echoed the very strings of my personal mantra: Uphold humanity and compassion, and morph a humanitarian world. Like the Locust Walk trees on the cover meeting at a focal point in the horizon, I, too, want to converge in the bastion of Penn. With a moral conscience woven with...