IvyGate paid close attention to the Columbia Class of 2011 this summer. Some claimed to party hard, others waxed robotic and one was *allegedly* a Kazakhstani target of a consultant's mindfucking. None, we assume, had actually met each other until the last week. As the Columbia Spectator's Josh Hirschland reports from in the field, our high expectations for this bunch were unwarranted. The Columbia Class of 2011 is neither chic, nerdy or nerdy-chic. They're just freshmen.

Hirschland oversaw a group of freshmen during Columbia's New Student Orientation Program (NSOP). He dreaded that they'd live up to their Facebook rep--"as annoyingly too-cool as past years' classes, but their collective haughtiness would be better organized." IvyGate salivated at the the possibility.

The "annoying" manifested itself all too quickly:

On Tuesday, students neglected to forfeit their seats on a crosstown bus to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to elderly New Yorkers who were trying to get home. And yes, they walked five abreast on the sidewalk, blocking anybody on their path.

Take that, you old fucks. But after solidifying the Ivy League freshman's reputation as the worst thing to happen to a community, the '11s suckified and spent the week eating ice cream:

At the big party on Ellis Island, people not only showed up but kept grousing to a minimum despite long lines and being stranded in New York Harbor. Even at CU: Take One-neé The BlaZe and formerly CUnity-orientation leaders had to restrain their groups-afterwards, my group ate ice cream on Low Steps. ...More people attended a free ice cream event put on by Hillel than the biggest party of the week held in a first-year residence hall.

Harumph. What about sex? Did anyone have sex? People must have hooked up after the first-year mixer:

At the last formal event of the week, students dressed to the nines in suits, dresses, and fedoras--

"Fedoras" means a) no one reached second base all week b) it's time we never read another word about the Columbia '11s. What a disappointing batch of potential fuckwiths. Could someone please destroy Facebook groups now?

Our maligned guest stint has come to a close, ladies and gentlemen (we can hear you cheering already), and we're happy to say that it's been grand. We hope we were able to keep you from falling asleep during office meetings, at the very least.

They say it's dull in the summertime, but our two weeks has seen its fair share of scandalicious stories: Caroline Giuliani and Lucy Morrow Caldwell went head to head, the Ivy nerds took revenge, Hillary Clinton showed how she answered the voice crying in the wilderness, Yale's Beta Theta Pi fraternity went the way of the dodo, the Daily Pennsylvanian took heat from one of its own, a four-person crowd of fire-breathing bigots took Ithaca by storm and Cornell was simultaneously voted best and worst motto in all of academia.

(Oh, a few more things: sex, Kazakhs, gambling, MBAs, crime, snobbery, harassment and idiocy.)

So from the bottom of our hearts:

Andrew Nusca: We asked you to bring the comments on, and you brought it. It's been a pleasure to carry the torch for Nick and Chris whilst they tanned on the beach (or drank in the bar), and working with Newell these last two weeks was like enjoying a fresh hoagie from Wawa or a wiz-topped cheesesteak on South Street: nothing short of rewarding. I'll take this opportunity to sign off with my original greeting: Cheerio, fuckers!

Jim Newell: Thank you for reading our stuff. I've enjoyed building loving/hateful relationships with certain commenters. Andrew Nusca for president. And if for some inexplicable reason you want to get in touch with me, or you've got about 27k + benefits to throw away, I can be reached at newell.jim@gmail.com. Let the hate mail begin!

Lastly, I'd like to dedicate a pick-me-up to poor Caroline Giuliani. We all have bad stretches, Caroline. Don't be ashamed to cry it out. It's not unusual at all:

Be nice to the next guest editors and TIP THEM (ivygate.guest@gmail.com)! 

Always,

Jim Newell & Andrew Nusca 

This is dedicated to the robot person from the previous post, obvi.

But yeah -- It just. Keeps. Giving. We will continue to write about the 7/29/07 New York Times (Magazine) article-by-image-by-article until it's exhausted. And I want to keep this brief, because I've had enough with nerds for the day, but there was yet another relevant article in this issue of the Magazine. It's called "Who's a Nerd, Anyway?" and no, it's different from the robot cover story. I could write a whole post on it... or I could just let you chew this one over:

By cultivating an identity perceived as white to the point of excess, nerds deny themselves the aura of normality that is usually one of the perks of being white.

Sleep well!

--JIM NEWELL

You may recall from Jacob Savage's "Drinking on Facebook 101," one of my favorite posts evarr, how '11s across the League are creating groups to demonstrate their mad drinking skillz, which sometimes reach five Smirnoff Ices in a single night. The standard bearer for this bacchanalian revelry was the Columbia group "Screw the U - Columbia '11 works hard but parties harder!!" That's right, two exclamation points, bitch. 

Given the First Rule of Facebook Groups -- for every eccentric group there is an equal and opposite eccentric group -- there was no way these chug-a-lugs would exist in a vacuum. With that, allow me to introduce "Columbia '11 Works Hard, Stays Indoors, And Does Not Party At All."

I don't feel like a jerk describing them as geeks, because they'd be the first to admit it. And while their philistine adversaries have some dizzyingly funny discussion board topics, like "Mary Jane" and "The thin line between drunk and tipsy," these more traditional Columbia types have "Orientation Iliad Discussion Party" and "Attracted to Dorkiness."

After the jump, riveting tales of supergalactic love and temperance.

But first, as funny as these groups are, I'm a little worried about the Columbia '11s. It's still a month or so before their college experience starts, and many have already cordoned themselves into one-dimensional identities. Isn't it odd that some of the country's brightest kids have self-dichotomized -- at the college level, no less -- into bingers vs. squares? I thought the point of college was discovering nuances and not having to choose between the Screech or A.C. Slater camps. We should emulate Zack Morris: a friend to all of earth's creatures, a lover of Kelly Kapowski.

Meh. Nerd sex, after the jump. 

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