Giving Voice to Values

This past spring, Columbia College, Columbia Engineering and Columbia General Studies came together to launch the Undergraduate Community Initiative (UCI), a series of programming focused on cultivating a shared commitment to the values of belonging, respect and service. The initiative kicked off in January with a celebration of the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., followed soon after by two performances by Theater of War, which stages readings of seminal texts to foster dialogue about difficult issues. Related events continued throughout the semester.

The UCI Essay Contest, meanwhile, invited students to reflect on a time that they chose to pursue or embody one of the initiative’s key values, and how that decision made a difference in their life and in the lives of others. Here, we share the winning submission, by Emma Shen ’26, which makes an affecting point about the value of listening and the power of small actions to make a significant difference. Second place went to Tazia Mohammad ’27, whose carefully observed piece about everyday communication can be found here.

Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to all the students who submitted their work.

Navigating the Universe of Human Connection

By Emma Shen ’26

Emma Shen ’26

JÖRG MEYER

I jolted in surprise from my seat and looked at my roommate. She was staring at the wall, her mind clearly on matters beyond the confines of our dorm room. I gave a noncommittal nod, a silent gesture to acknowledge what should have been an innocuous comment.

It wasn’t.

She opened her mouth as if to say more, but silence ensued. Instead, she gave a deep sigh and turned off the lights to go to sleep.

I lay awake for a while that night. It was cold, typical for February, but it felt even chillier than usual. Something bothered me about what my roommate had said. She had spoken into existence a feeling I’d been carrying with me all day, a feeling I could not identify because it was too complex to capture in a single word.

I had woken up that morning stressed and in a bad mood, mainly because I had a lot of schoolwork and two Hirevue interviews to film to help with my summer internship search (Hirevues are the bane of my existence). As a student-athlete, I can say with certainty that time is the most valuable commodity I have. With all of the tasks I needed to complete that day, I knew time was not going to be on my side.

Therefore, when one of my friends texted to ask if we could meet for lunch, my instinct was to decline. The precious hour that would be spent chatting about trivial matters was an hour that I could not afford. However, something in the way she wrote the text caught my attention, and I paused. I usually studied with this friend but never had meals with her. Was there something going on? My gut instinct was to accept the invitation, so I did.

We met at a nearby cafe, and I immediately could tell something was off. Her eyes were rimmed red; clearly, she’d been crying. I didn’t say anything, though, simply greeted her with a hug and suggested we find a table and get our food. Once we situated ourselves and had gotten past the usual pleasantries, I knew I had to ask: “Are you OK?”

Tears started streaming down her face as she tried to respond, but I could tell nothing coherent was going to make it out anytime soon. Concerned, I handed her the brown napkins from the middle of the table and waited until she was ready to speak.

“I have no one here at Columbia.”

Those were the first words she uttered. They are words I will never forget.

I won’t go into the details of our conversation because it’s private to me and my friend, but I will say this: As she expressed her emotions, I felt hot prickles of shame and guilt build up inside of me. Here I had been, just earlier that day, griping about trivial matters while my friend was struggling. I didn’t know where to hide my face.

We spoke for two hours, at the end of which my friend seemed to be in a significantly better state. I, on the other hand, felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

As I lay in bed that night mulling over the day’s events, I reflected on myself. Time and time again, I have turned people down for the sake of maintaining a decent GPA, furthering my career prospects or attending sports practice. Yet I have never paused to consider how my actions have impacted others. The idea that they would even impact others feels counterintuitive because so many choices I have made are in my self-interest, and rarely pertain to anyone else. However, when it comes to building relationships and building a community, I could have done better. I failed to recognize a friend who was hurting, and I could not sleep because of that.

My solution is not groundbreaking; I simply make it a point to share a meal with a friend more often and ask them how they’re doing.

Is the fact that I have lunch more often with friends going to change the world? Probably not. But I write this essay because I think my experience is more common than one would think. The culture at Columbia and in NYC is fast paced and unforgiving. Taking the time to do small things like asking how someone is doing should be easy, yet it happens a lot less than it should. I am living proof of this.

I still take care of the tasks I need to complete, and I continue to prioritize my academics and sports performance. However, even though I’m the center of my own universe, nothing is preventing me from visiting the other planets. It just takes a little thought and some energy on my end.

Emma Shen ’26 is studying financial economics and computer science, and is on the golf team.