Our goal as a college is to bring together students of different backgrounds, experiences, interests and understandings so they can learn as much from one another as they do from the faculty who teach them. As a result, our community is the most diverse among our peer institutions. Our students are championship athletes, accomplished artists, award-winning entrepreneurs and cutting-edge scientists, just to name a few. They are leaders in their fields, transforming and improving their communities on campus and beyond Morningside Heights.
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Finding Focus in Composing
“Studying music here has granted me the time to contemplate and understand what it is I like to listen to — and from there I can understand what it is I want to compose.” — Daniel Lazour ’16
Daniel Lazour ’16 won the 2016 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater for the musical We Live in Cairo, which he wrote with his brother, Patrick. The show tells the story of a group of young organizers and revolutionaries during the 2011 Arab Spring.
![Sara Sakowitz ’18](/annualreport/sites/default/files/2016/2016-community-saragroup.jpg)
Innovating to Bring Science Home
“I wanted kids to see characters just like them having adventures and exploring scientific concepts." — Sara Sakowitz ’18
Sara Sakowitz ’18, founder and CEO of Blue Moon Box — a monthly science kit subscription service for kids — was selected for the 2015 Crain’s New York Business “20 Under 20” list. She also won The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science’s annual Fast Pitch competition in 2015.
135 Columbia College students helped to welcome the Class of 2019 through leadership roles in New Student Orientation Program (NSOP)
Sasha DiGiulian ’16, a professional rock climber and a creative writing major with a special concentration in business management, was the first woman to climb the North Face of the Eiger mountain in the Bernese Alps, in Switzerland.
Four Columbians — Isadora Cerullo ’13 (rugby, Brazil), Katie Meili ’13 (swimming, USA), Akua Obeng-Akrofi ’18 (track and field, Ghana) and Nzingha Prescod ’15 (fencing, USA) — traveled to Rio for the 2016 Olympics. Meili took home bronze in the 100m breaststroke and gold in the 4x100m medley.