The Story of a Potential Lion

Greeting fellow bloggers. My name is Aurea Riboroso and I will be attending the American Presidential Power at Home and Abroad: From George Washington to Barack Obama course at Columbia University this 2012 summer. My motive behind applying for this course stemmed from my interest in social science. After realizing my appeal to social science from my AP U.S. History class, I was immediately drawn to the course. The fact that it will be held at Columbia University, a potential university on my application list, is an added bonus.

The reason I am able to attend the program is due to an organization known as the Ivy League Connection. The Ivy League Connection, also known as the ILC, provides students of the West Contra Costa Unified School District with opportunities to attend a summer program operated at an Ivy League university. With all expenses paid, students are able to further their education at an East Coast university while exploring and learning about themselves and their surroundings. Upon my return, I plan to use my experience at Columbia University to encourage younger students to challenge themselves by applying for the ILC. The depiction of college as the “hardest four years of one’s life” is a stereotype I’d like to break to encourage others to go to college and enrich their lives for a better and brighter future. And for those who plan on going to college, I intend to have them rethink about their college choices and inspire them to apply for more stimulating schools, such as an Ivy League university.

The Presidential Power class is a three week summer course at Columbia University instructed by Martha Zebrowski who has taught at Columbia’s Department of Political Science for about twenty years. The class is a research, writing, and discussion seminar on the development and transformation of presidential power in the U. S. constitutional and political system. Due to limited class space, students are given individual attention. The course is an enriching college level social science and humanities class teaching students research and writing techniques.

Columbia University is a private Ivy League university located in exciting New York City, New York. Originally settled on Park Place, the institution has migrated to Forty-ninth street and Madison Avenue and now resides at its current location at Morningside Heights on 116^th Street and Broadway. The university encompasses six blocks of New York City, roughly thirty-two acres and houses about twenty-eight thousand students. The school was initially named King’s College when founded in 1754 by royal charter of King George II of England. After the Revolutionary War, the name was changed to Columbia College and has expanded to Columbia University. Columbia University is the oldest university in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the nation.

Columbia University

Columbia University has twenty-one different schools ranging from architecture to journalism. Undergraduate students must follow the Core Curriculum, a set of common courses deemed the necessary general education for students, regardless of  major. The classes include Contemporary Civilization, Literature Humanities, University Writing, Art Humanities, Music Humanities, and Frontiers of Science. Home of the Lions, Columbia participates in the NCAA Division I league in twenty-nine varisty sports.

If given the opportunity to study at Columbia University for college, I would be most interested in the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. Building has always fascinated me, even as a child, so engineering seemed the perfect choice as my intended major. Columbia ranks as the fifteenth best engineering school in the nation. The university offers civil engineering, a major dealing with the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of structures and the infrastructure. The construction of essential foundations in society, such as bridges, highways, and power plants, are headed by civil engineers.

Prisdent Obama, a Columbia Alumni

With an acceptance rate of about six percent for undergraduate studies, it’s no wonder to the great minds that have left Columbia University. Notable alumni include nine Chief Justices on Supreme Court and twenty-nine heads of state, three of which were U.S. presidents. Great minds such as Alexander Hamilton to Amelia Earhart have attended this prestigious university. By Nobel count, seventeen prizes have been awarded to Columbia alumni. Two Nobel Peace Prizes have been bestowed to President Theodore Roosevelt and President Barack Obama.