This week on Chronversations: A conversation with students on campus returning for the Spring 2025 semester.
TRANSCRIPT:
0:08: Welcome back to the Chronicle Chronversations.
0:11: I’m your host, Aaron Guzman.
0:14: This week on Chronversations, students share the things that they look forward to for the Spring 2025 semester, as well as any challenges they may face this year.
0:24: Junior exchange student Amelhyne O’Regan-Farineau talks about her opportunity to study abroad here at Columbia and the challenges that she faced when registering for classes.
0:34: I’m in my junior year.
0:35: This is my last semester at Columbia, unfortunately, and now, next year I’ll have to go back to Ireland and complete my studies there.
0:43: Well, how are you liking it at Columbia?
0:45: I love Columbia.
0:47: I really, really do.
0:48: I’m blessed this semester. I kind of know I’m a little bit more settled and I kind of know what it’s all about.
0:55: I adore my classes.
0:57: My lecturers have been nothing but opening and very, you know, just excited to hear my point of view because, obviously, American references I don’t always understand, so, you know, they’ve just been very, like, excited and open to everything, which has been so lovely.
1:13: That’s good to hear.
1:14: As for registration and everything, were you able to get everything in order?
1:18: It took a long time unfortunately, and because my major is film and broadcasting, I kind of had to kind of fight a little bit to get into the classes that I wanted to get into, especially because I’m not a beginner.
1:33: I’d be more in the intermediate standards, so it was a lot of kind of like rebuttal-ing and and proving as to why I should be doing these courses and not courses with freshman.
1:44: Senior Mahlia Schneck shares the events and clubs that she looks forward to this semester, as well as how current politics affects her student life.
1:52: Well, is there anything that you’re looking forward to on campus this year?
1:55: I’m looking forward to doing the, I don’t know if they’re still calling it the ASO club, Asian Student Organization Club, one of those and just, like, Manifest especially, so I think that’ll be really fun seeing, like, all what my peers have done and stuff like that and, like, just what the outcome was for the past 4 years.
2:13: How do you think, like, a change in politics and change in presidency would affect somebody’s, I guess, mental work for the semester?
2:21: I don’t know, like, even, like, with me personally, like, it’s already so stressful. I can’t really focus on my assignments right now just because, like, I try not to- I try to stay off of social media but, like, I’m on threads because I thought that was, like, the quote unquote, like, safest place to be, but now it’s, like, I’m just, like, reading all of these terrible things, so it’s definitely really stressful to, like, think about what the next, not even the next 4 years but, like, what the next month or two will, like, what’ll happen.
2:48: It’s definitely stressful, especially with school and, like, trying to figure that out because, like, of the whole, like, the, I don’t know, FAFSA thing getting taken away. I know that was stressful to, like, some of my peers; I got, like, a few texts from a groupchat and it’s yeah. It’s definitely, yeah, they were freaking out, which is, like, totally understandable and, like, but it just yeah.
3:03: It’ll definitely be interesting trying to juggle the political world and, like, trying to stand up for yourself as well as, like, just trying to go about your daily day.
3:10: That’s all for this week.
3:11: Make sure to stay up to date with campus and metro news at columbiachronicle.com.
3:16: And sign up for our newsletter at ColumbiaChronicle.com/newsletter.
3:20: Don’t forget to check out our Three C’s podcast where we tell you about the three biggest things you need to know at Columbia for the week.
3:26: I’m Aaron Guzman.
3:28: Thanks for listening.
Copy edited by Matt Brady