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Barack Obama

2008-05-27T17:41:35Z

Jas2011: /* Columbia years */

{{wp-also}}

'''Barack Obama''' [[Columbia College|CC]] '[[1983|83]] is a US Senator from [[w:Illinois|Illinois]] and a Democratic party candidate for the 2008 presidential election.

Many Columbia students are [[w:The Audacity of Hope|audaciously hoping]] he'll win his primary and the national election. If he does, he will not only be the first partially black president, but the first attendee of [[Columbia College]], and the first graduate of any Columbia school<ref>[[Theodore Roosevelt]] and [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]] both attended [[Columbia Law School]], but neither graduated, as you only needed to pass the bar after 2 years of school to practice law. One Roosevelt dropped out after passing the bar, the other after being elected to the NY State Assembly. [[Dwight Eisenhower]] never attended Columbia, but rather served as a somewhat absentee President of the University while biding his time to run for the Presidency.</ref>, to occupy the Oval Office.

Obama, however, tends to forget/ignore his Columbia affiliation, preferring to mention that he attended [[Harvard]] Law School. He has repeatedly turned down requests to be the [[Class Day]] speaker in recent years, as well as general requests to appear from the [[College Democrats]].

==Columbia years==

[[Image:Obamany.jpg|thumb|right|Obama the Columbia undergrad, visiting Central Park]]

Obama [[transfer student|transferred]] to CC from [[w:Occidental College|Occidental College]], where he'd been into partying. He hoped the move to New York, and Columbia, would put him on a more serious track.

While at Columbia, he lived off campus. He claims to have spent his first night sleeping in an alley near the corner of 109th and [[Amsterdam Avenue]] and washing with the homeless next to an open fire hydrant. He eventually moved into a walkup on E. 94th St., in [[East Harlem]], where he would "chat with his Puerto Rican neighbors about...the sound of gunfire at night".

When he was on campus, he concentrated on academic work, spending most of his time in [[Butler Library]] "like a monk." He also took up jogging and "stopped getting high". The racist and anti-Semitic graffiti he sometimes encountered on bathroom walls on campus helped him form his ideas about race and class. He wrote of "the almost mathematical precision with which America’s race and class problems joined; the depth, the ferocity, of resulting tribal wars; the bile that flowed freely not just out on the streets but in the stalls of Columbia’s bathrooms as well".

Obama claims to have participated to some extent in anti-apartheid activities with the [[Black Students Organization]].

He majored in [[Political Science Department|PoliSci]], and concentrated in International Relations. Sources differ on whether he wrote his senior thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament<ref>http://www.columbiaspectator.com/?q=node/28631</ref> or the North-South debate on trade and the "new international economic order"<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04obama-t.html</ref>. Obama's professors and classmates, including former international politics professor [[Michael L. Baron]] and current MTV president [[Michael Wolf]], confirm that he was a brilliant, standout student and that he was an active participant in seminars.

==Later Columbia coincidences==

In his primary fight to become the Democratic nominee, Obama has faced, among others, [[GS]] alum [[Mike Gravel]]. In the general election, he would face [[Wayne Allen Root]], also CC'83, the presumptive Libertarian Party nominee. His Republican opponent would be [[John McCain]], a former [[Class Day]] speaker whose daughter, [[Meghan McCain]], was CC'07.

==References==
<references />

==External links==
*[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/us/politics/30obama.html NYT article on Obama's years at Columbia and subsequent time in New York]

[[Category:Columbia College alumni|Obama, Barack]]
[[Category:Class of 1983|Obama, Barack]]
[[Category:Political science majors|Obama, Barack]]
[[Category:Presidential candidates|Obama, Barack]]

Barack Obama

2008-05-27T17:40:34Z

Jas2011: /* Columbia years */

{{wp-also}}

'''Barack Obama''' [[Columbia College|CC]] '[[1983|83]] is a US Senator from [[w:Illinois|Illinois]] and a Democratic party candidate for the 2008 presidential election.

Many Columbia students are [[w:The Audacity of Hope|audaciously hoping]] he'll win his primary and the national election. If he does, he will not only be the first partially black president, but the first attendee of [[Columbia College]], and the first graduate of any Columbia school<ref>[[Theodore Roosevelt]] and [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]] both attended [[Columbia Law School]], but neither graduated, as you only needed to pass the bar after 2 years of school to practice law. One Roosevelt dropped out after passing the bar, the other after being elected to the NY State Assembly. [[Dwight Eisenhower]] never attended Columbia, but rather served as a somewhat absentee President of the University while biding his time to run for the Presidency.</ref>, to occupy the Oval Office.

Obama, however, tends to forget/ignore his Columbia affiliation, preferring to mention that he attended [[Harvard]] Law School. He has repeatedly turned down requests to be the [[Class Day]] speaker in recent years, as well as general requests to appear from the [[College Democrats]].

==Columbia years==

[[Image:Obamany.jpg|thumb|right|Obama the Columbia undergrad, visiting Central Park]]

Obama [[transfer student|transferred]] to CC from [[w:Occidental College|Occidental College]]. He hoped the move to New York, and Columbia, would put him on a more serious track.

While at Columbia, he lived off campus. He claims to have spent his first night sleeping in an alley near the corner of 109th and [[Amsterdam Avenue]] and washing with the homeless next to an open fire hydrant. He eventually moved into a walkup on E. 94th St., in [[East Harlem]], where he would "chat with his Puerto Rican neighbors about...the sound of gunfire at night".

When he was on campus, he concentrated on academic work, spending most of his time in [[Butler Library]] "like a monk." He also took up jogging and "stopped getting high". The racist and anti-Semitic graffiti he sometimes encountered on bathroom walls on campus helped him form his ideas about race and class. He wrote of "the almost mathematical precision with which America’s race and class problems joined; the depth, the ferocity, of resulting tribal wars; the bile that flowed freely not just out on the streets but in the stalls of Columbia’s bathrooms as well".

Obama claims to have participated to some extent in anti-apartheid activities with the [[Black Students Organization]].

He majored in [[Political Science Department|PoliSci]], and concentrated in International Relations. Sources differ on whether he wrote his senior thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament<ref>http://www.columbiaspectator.com/?q=node/28631</ref> or the North-South debate on trade and the "new international economic order"<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04obama-t.html</ref>. Obama's professors and classmates, including former international politics professor [[Michael L. Baron]] and current MTV president [[Michael Wolf]], confirm that he was a brilliant, standout student and that he was an active participant in seminars.

==Later Columbia coincidences==

In his primary fight to become the Democratic nominee, Obama has faced, among others, [[GS]] alum [[Mike Gravel]]. In the general election, he would face [[Wayne Allen Root]], also CC'83, the presumptive Libertarian Party nominee. His Republican opponent would be [[John McCain]], a former [[Class Day]] speaker whose daughter, [[Meghan McCain]], was CC'07.

==References==
<references />

==External links==
*[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/us/politics/30obama.html NYT article on Obama's years at Columbia and subsequent time in New York]

[[Category:Columbia College alumni|Obama, Barack]]
[[Category:Class of 1983|Obama, Barack]]
[[Category:Political science majors|Obama, Barack]]
[[Category:Presidential candidates|Obama, Barack]]

Barack Obama

2008-05-27T17:31:28Z

Jas2011: /* Columbia years */

{{wp-also}}

'''Barack Obama''' [[Columbia College|CC]] '[[1983|83]] is a US Senator from [[w:Illinois|Illinois]] and a Democratic party candidate for the 2008 presidential election.

Many Columbia students are [[w:The Audacity of Hope|audaciously hoping]] he'll win his primary and the national election. If he does, he will not only be the first partially black president, but the first attendee of [[Columbia College]], and the first graduate of any Columbia school<ref>[[Theodore Roosevelt]] and [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]] both attended [[Columbia Law School]], but neither graduated, as you only needed to pass the bar after 2 years of school to practice law. One Roosevelt dropped out after passing the bar, the other after being elected to the NY State Assembly. [[Dwight Eisenhower]] never attended Columbia, but rather served as a somewhat absentee President of the University while biding his time to run for the Presidency.</ref>, to occupy the Oval Office.

Obama, however, tends to forget/ignore his Columbia affiliation, preferring to mention that he attended [[Harvard]] Law School. He has repeatedly turned down requests to be the [[Class Day]] speaker in recent years, as well as general requests to appear from the [[College Democrats]].

==Columbia years==

[[Image:Obamany.jpg|thumb|right|Obama the Columbia undergrad, visiting Central Park]]

Obama [[transfer student|transferred]] to CC from [[w:Occidental College|Occidental College]]. At Occidental, Obama had been into partying. He hoped the move to New York, and Columbia, would put him on a more serious track.

While at Columbia, he lived off campus. He claims to have spent his first night sleeping in an alley near the corner of 109th and [[Amsterdam Avenue]] and washing with the homeless next to an open fire hydrant. He eventually moved into a walkup on E. 94th St., in [[East Harlem]], where he would "chat with his Puerto Rican neighbors about...the sound of gunfire at night".

When he was on campus, he concentrated on academic work, spending most of his time in [[Butler Library]] "like a monk." He also took up jogging and "stopped getting high". The racist and anti-Semitic graffiti he sometimes encountered on bathroom walls on campus helped him form his ideas about race and class. He wrote of "the almost mathematical precision with which America’s race and class problems joined; the depth, the ferocity, of resulting tribal wars; the bile that flowed freely not just out on the streets but in the stalls of Columbia’s bathrooms as well".

Obama claims to have participated to some extent in anti-apartheid activities with the [[Black Students Organization]].

He majored in [[Political Science Department|PoliSci]], and concentrated in International Relations. Sources differ on whether he wrote his senior thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament<ref>http://www.columbiaspectator.com/?q=node/28631</ref> or the North-South debate on trade and the "new international economic order"<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04obama-t.html</ref>. Obama's professors and classmates, including former international politics professor [[Michael L. Baron]] and current MTV president [[Michael Wolf]], confirm that he was a brilliant, standout student and that he was an active participant in seminars.

==Later Columbia coincidences==

In his primary fight to become the Democratic nominee, Obama has faced, among others, [[GS]] alum [[Mike Gravel]]. In the general election, he would face [[Wayne Allen Root]], also CC'83, the presumptive Libertarian Party nominee. His Republican opponent would be [[John McCain]], a former [[Class Day]] speaker whose daughter, [[Meghan McCain]], was CC'07.

==References==
<references />

==External links==
*[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/us/politics/30obama.html NYT article on Obama's years at Columbia and subsequent time in New York]

[[Category:Columbia College alumni|Obama, Barack]]
[[Category:Class of 1983|Obama, Barack]]
[[Category:Political science majors|Obama, Barack]]
[[Category:Presidential candidates|Obama, Barack]]