Columbia Love Stories 2020

"Amanda and I were randomly paired roommates our freshman year of college in Carman Hall. I remember the first few months of college being tough for both of us but as our friendship developed, our room began to feel more and more like home. We made friends together, explored the city together, and navigated the world of Columbia together. Many of my favorite memories from college are nights where Amanda and I stay up late into the night talking about our cultural heritages, social justice, and just life in general. After Carman, we roomed together every single year for the rest of college from McBain to Woodbridge to East Campus. We know each other so well and have so many traditions together that our friends sometime joke that we are an old married couple. I can't imagine a world where I don't walk into my room and immediately tell Amanda about my day or ask Amanda for advice on anything from an essay I'm writing or what outfit to wear. After graduating, we aren't going to be roommates anymore but I am confident that the friendship we share will persist for the rest of our lives. Thank you to Columbia Housing for giving me such a wonderful platonic love story!"

"The first conversation I ever had with Chris happened in an elevator, but it was a far cry from a meet-cute. After sizing me up and deciding that the coat I was wearing wasn't sufficient to stand up to a New York winter, he badgered me about it from the 8th floor of Shapiro to the lobby. Not the smoothest of starts. He got a chance to redeem himself the next time we spoke, during the time it took us to schlep a broken-wheeled blue bin to my storage unit on 107th Street and back. To my surprise, I discovered that when not fussing about outerwear, he was a pleasure to talk to. So we kept the conversations going. Chat by chat, without either of us realizing it, we were building the foundation of a relationship. Our conversations created a mutual respect that quickly grew into admiration and friendship, and eventually into affection and love. A lot has changed since we were undergrads— we'll be celebrating seven years of marriage this June and welcoming a future Lion into our pride this April— but after all this time, he still worries that I’m not warm enough and we’re still each other’s favorite person to talk to."

"It was the summer of 2008, and Yufei and I came across each other on a Facebook group for newly admitted students at Columbia and started chatting online. A few weeks later, we met in person for the first time on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at an NSOP event. After finding out that we were in the same Calculus class, we began spending more time together doing homework, talking on the steps of Low Library late into the night, and exploring our new home of New York City. We officially become a couple in October 2008. Since then, we've travelled the world together and followed each other from NYC to San Francisco and back again. After over a decade together, we finally tied the knot on our 11 year anniversary in October 2019. Many of our friends from Columbia were at the wedding, including three members of the wedding party (Jin C., Ying W., and Steven W. as well as our officiant (Belle Y.), and I handmade our cake topper featuring us depicted as two lions!"

"I met Anchal in the final year of my undergrad. The moment I saw her, I was awestruck. I went on to do my MBA in Delhi and she joined a startup which took her around the world. We stayed in touch over the years, met up occasionally whenever we would be in the same city. I would cook up random excuses to meet her and we would always have a great time together. I could never stop talking about her and my friends literally got sick of it! It was only in 2016, when both of us moved back to Delhi, that I mustered the courage to ask her out on a date. She said YES! We went out a couple of times and I was sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Even before we started dating, I knew she wanted to get an MBA from US. We started dating in 2016 and soon she received an offer to join CBS the following year. I knew I had to make this work, even if it meant moving to US for her. Even though I had a great career unfolding in front of me in India, I decided to role the dice. It wasn't going to be easy and nothing except CBS made sense to me. A year later, everything fell in place and I received an offer to join CBS for my second MBA! That day, 10,000 miles apart, we celebrated our future together. She flew to India thrice in her first year and we got married in July 2018, just before I joined CBS. Fate brought us together, but Columbia definitely made sure we stuck together!"

"We all met as suitemates in Hartley 3C, which was part of the Living-Learning Center (LLC). A few of us actually met before our freshman year officially started because we participated in the outdoor orientation program, where we hiked, biked, and made our way down the Hudson Valley through the College Walk gates. After our fateful meeting, what followed were four amazing years, full of wonderful community events (mandatory pancake floor meetings!), shenanigans (there may be a time capsule somewhere on campus...), and memorable Columbia moments (spotting Hawkmadinejad with a fresh kill on our snowy roof). We also collected many more LLC friends over the years. (Shout out to Severin, Jeremy & Christine!) Our friendship has deepened over the years, as we celebrated marriages, supported each other in our careers, welcomed babies! Who knew that the LLC also stands for 'lifelong companions'?"

"Bruno and I were studying at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation when we met. Since we both were in the same Master’s program, we were always working in the studio across from one another at Avery Hall. It was our love for architecture, the admiration for each other's work, and our reading of the built environment that started our friendship. Eventually, our conversation evolved to understanding how we cope with the question of 'belonging'. Bruno, a third-generation Brazilian of Japanese origins and I, a first-generation American, and third-generation Lebanese of Armenian origins, embraced our layered identities and acknowledged the dichotomic sentiments and situations that it put us in. Our love expanded through our shared and rooted belief that people can transcend borders by embracing multiplicity and celebrating the constructive syncretism of systems and ideas. We have since founded Oficina Aberta, an architecture firm based in São Paulo and Beirut, with the aim of building spaces where people and the environment thrive symbiotically."

"Ann and Joey first met in the fall of 2015. Ann had just graduated from Columbia Business School and was working in NYC and Joey had just started. Their first encounter was brief but little did they know, the two of them shared many of the same interests: both ended up choreographing for CBS Follies Dance, both were elected co-presidents of the Asian Business Association, and both loved Managerial Negotiations by Professor Ames. Fast forward to 2020: Ann and Joey have relocated to Hong Kong and are now happily married! Both are proud and grateful to be a part of the global Columbia alumni community!"

"Our daughter spent the very first few months of her life at Columbia by quietly sleeping in her mother's womb while her parents were taking the same class in the last semester of their graduate program. (FYI, the graduation photo is the three of us together)" 

"I met Kelley during the first semester of my junior year. We sat across from each other at the same table in Butler Library — he sparked easy conversation with me, asked about my experience at Barnard and told me how he had just transferred from Brigham Young to GS. His story was fascinating and he had an energy that was at once rare and special, so we exchanged numbers and went on a date. We walked (read: danced) in the rain through Riverside Park to Cafe Lalo. I was on cloud 9. From then on, it was us against the world at Columbia. The next summer, we both got internships in Silicon Valley and traveled all over Northern California together. I finished up my last semester with an offer at Google in San Francisco, which was bittersweet because he was graduating one semester after I did and it meant indefinite long distance. The wait ended up being worth it though — after 6 months apart, we're now finally reuniting as Kelley not only joins me in SF, but at Google as well!"

"It was October 4, 2013. We met in the elevator and I can easily tell I started to love him in that very moment. It came out we were heading to the same Visiting Scholars meeting... he sat next to me and after the meeting he gave me his card. The day after I found a spot in Avery Library and he was seating there, just in front of me... We’ve been together since then and now we’ve been married for one year! We also came back to Columbia some years later and found the same magical atmosphere." 

"It was freshman year. I was trying to make friends, so I went to a birthday party for a girl I met during NSOP. When I arrived, I saw her. It was like a cheesy rom-com where all the lights dim except around your newfound soulmate. There she was, dad-dancing to ABBA. I knew in that moment that Tanya and I were destined to be best friends. Here we are three years later, still dad-dancing to ABBA, but now we do it together."

"I met my fiancé for the first time at the Fall 2015 Graduate Engineering Orientation. We had a common friend circle and shared a few classes so would keep bumping into each other but little did we know it would be this solid! We continued to stay in touch despite working in different timezones after our graduation in 2017. This information was enough for our close Columbia friends to play cupids and made us believe that it could mean more! I was not gung-ho for a long-distance relationship with a guy who I thought was a non-romantic as that meant a lot of work. But his endearing ways to build trust, respect, and affection in the relationship changed my mind. Very soon, I was excited for months full of daily FaceTimes, endless texts, taxing airport security check-points, random serenades, surprise date nights, only to realize in my home in Houston, that I am way too in love with a guy who’s also head over heels 1,000 miles away in Manhattan. Forward to half a decade after, we are getting married on November 26, 2020!!"

"My fiance and I met through the Columbia University Ballroom Dance Club. I was on the executive board at the time, and we spent the entire first year of our friendship bickering about how CU Ballroom ran things; having been on the board of his own undergraduate team, he always had a lot of...constructive criticism to share. We started dating in 2017, and have shared many a late night fine-dining at JJ's or desperately seeking out study space on our tiny but beloved campus. In 2019, we got engaged at the Big Apple Dancesport Challenge, our home ballroom competition held in Lerner every December. The proposal involved a restroom diversion, an all-male rendition of Cell Block Tango, and a Pikachu onesie."

Watch the proposal here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUnFaVPxH7E....

"Andrés and I came to the US to do our masters degree. At first I thought it was only gonna be me but then he decided to join. We lived at Butler Hall during the entire program, right across the Engineering building. We shopped for groceries at Appletree Market. I loved NYC. He did not. But we both loved our University and our relationship started to become stronger. We made awesome friends and had great professors. He found an internship that led him to get a full time job in Dallas. I was working in Brooklyn and was on my way to accept a research position at the Columbia Medical Center. I thought I would never leave New York! But oh boy he proposed and I said YES! We are happily married and living in the Bay Area (I really miss NY but this coast is really cool too!). Hoping some day our kids also can go to Columbia!"

"We met when we were freshmen in 2007. We were both in SEAS and the Academic Success Program. A few months later, Nick said I love you and on October 5, 2019, we said I do at Faculty House."

"Sam and I met through club sports our senior year. He was the president of the Cycling Team and I was the captain of the Ski & Snowboard Club. After we had been dating for a few months, Sam, who had never been on skis, signed up for Ski Club. On his third trip, he unfortunately tore his ACL and that was the end of his skiing career. We grew closer from it and even though Sam probably won’t ski ever again (by choice), we both loved our club sports experiences." 

"We met each other in Uris Hall, with mail folders next to each other’s. What a sweet moment when a chocolate bar suddenly showed up in the mail folder. Twenty-one years later, our first born is already in college!" 

"My fiance and I met online, as is common these days. We both remarked that we had swiped right in part because we both saw that we were Columbia grads! When we met, we talked about where we lived during our time at Columbia, as well as our favorite spots-- turned out we had a lot in common-- specifically our love of Appletree Deli! We were both students during the same year but had never met. After we got engaged, we had photos taken in the beautiful Morningside Park and some great spots on campus! We're getting married September 26, 2020."

"My husband and I met at the departmental breakout session during the 2010 Mailman School of Public Health new student orientation. We said Hi to each other then, given his international student status, he kindly offered to buy me a drink at the later party so I can be his English tutor (uh-huh). It wasn't a love-at-first-sight for me, but when he jumped over to catch me falling off the mechanical bull at the party, things sort of progressed from there."

"I grew up in Maine. Margie (Margarita R.) grew up in Brooklyn and was attending Barnard and we met at a Freshman Week mixer. I was there with my roommate, John H. and she was there with her roommate, Juanita B. We enjoyed the dance and afterwards went to Tom's (more recently of "Seinfeld" fame) for ice cream sodas and apple pie. However, she ended up sitting next to John and was clearly interested in him. That next week, Margie left a note in my Furnald Hall mailbox saying she was having problems with calculus and could I help her, but if I was too busy would I ask John. With memories of the early pilgrims, I decided to "speak for yourself Bill," and said I would be glad to help, which I did for a few sessions. Then miraculously she no longer needed help. I kept calling to see if she wanted to get together, but Juanita said she was not there, or had just gone out to the library, at which point I would rush over to see if I could find her. Finally she said she would go out and I took her to the world's first trivia contest (October 14, pitting Columbia against Princeton -- Columbia won), and by late November I asked her to go steady, pinning her with my Sigma Alpha Mu pin. Later that year she brought me to meet her parents in Red Hook, Brooklyn. She parked me at the library while she prepared her folks for this "Anglo" she was bringing home. Her mother prepared a wonderful meal of pernil (roast pork) and arroz con gandules (yellow rice with pigeon peas) and her father grilled me on how important it was that we did well in school (Margie was the first in her family to go to college). We would visit her grandmother in Spanish Harlem and Margie would converse with in Spanish as her grandmother did not speak English. The first semester of my sophomore year I took Spanish 1 that I referred to as my "defensive Spanish course" so I could get some understanding as to what they were saying, especially if it concerned me. Later that year Margie made me an Honorary Puerto Rican! We were engaged at the end of our Sophomore year and were married at the end of our junior year with Rick P., my fraternity brother and roommate as best man, Juanita as the maid of honor, and John as master of ceremonies. We had our first son in November following graduation, Billy, '90SEAS (I believe the first Columbia attendee from our class) followed by Jonathan, Christopher, and Meghan, and now have eight grandchildren. I have many wonderful memories of our times together at Columbia - taking the 104 bus to the Cloisters, hot cider at the Post Crypt (under St. Paul's Chapel) football and basketball games, and finally graduation with both our parents beaming! But, my best memory is meeting my love and life partner. Happy Valentine's Day mi querida!"

“I met David day one (hour one) of college, as he was my next door neighbor in John Jay our freshman year. We were best friends for all of freshman year until he asked me to go to dinner with him at a small cafe next to Washington Square Park during the fall of our sophomore year. We began dating and became inseparable as we experienced the remainder of college together. We took a class on Indian Politics, spent hours on FaceTime when he studied abroad in Hong Kong our junior year, and hunted for the best bowl of pasta that Morningside Heights had to offer. Three years later, after surviving periods of long-distance and two cross-country moves, David proposed to me in Washington Square Park. We got married in January of 2020 in India in front of many of our lifelong Columbia friends. Our wedding hashtag was #GodBlessColumbiaHousing because if it weren't for that wonderful Columbia Housing administrator who decided to put our rooms next to each other eight years ago, we would not be husband and wife!”

“Paul and I met 13 years ago at Teachers College while enrolled at the Summer Principals Academy. The program is a 14-month program where aspiring school leaders take intensive courses in school leadership, adult development theory, conflict resolution, data driven instruction, resource allocation, and create an action research project. Within one week of the program beginning, Paul professed his love for me publicly. I thought he was out of his mind and I was deeply embarrassed. In front of about 40 peers, he said I would one day be his wife and mother of his children. I swore him off but it was inevitable to be away from him as we were in every class together all day, every day for two summers. After the program ended in August 2007, we took a step closer and started dating. We married in 2009 and have three beautiful children ages 5, 6, and 7. We are both school leaders and use every bit of knowledge imparted on us at TC, and are eternally grateful for this life-long opportunity to grow with a like-minded partner.”