Institutional memory is fickle. For one thing, after four years, the student body will only really remember very spectacular or infamous events, such as Ahmadinejad or the 2007 hunger strike. As for each semester’s couple of scandals, they will be documented by campus media.

Harder to preserve is the honest experience of being a Columbia student. Looking at WikiCU’s 2007 picture of the Low Steps on a sunny day can tell me that, in 2007, students sat on the Steps on a sunny day. It can’t tell me what they were talking about. Nor can it convey how whatever dozens of documented events from around 2007 shaped Columbia back then.

And yet, photos are seductive. They take so little effort and include so much data. Quick-drawing my iphone, I can take a photo of the Steps without breaking stride. Then, a year later, I can check the color of everyone’s shoes, without having wasted any time actually sitting on the steps. Or, I can sit inside for a few hours editing WikiCU, obsessing over the history of Riverside park without actually walking in it.

Obviously, it’s better to sit with some friends on the steps or get some sun in the park: not just for knowledge, but for my own actual, un-quantifiable well-being. If I’m describing this poorly, it’s because it isn’t simple: it’s individualized. It’s what gets missed in quality of life surveys, which, out of the approximated experience of all of us, tell the story of none of us.

So, this issue focuses on the personal. Daniel Stone profiles Richard Sun, CC ’13 and University senator (p. 9). Naomi Sharp looks into the lives of ROTC cadets, years after the end of the ideological dispute (p. 14). Naomi Cohen rides with Nashoba Santhanam, CC ’13, who’s driving a yellow cab he until starts in sales and trading (p. 22). Luca Marzorati blows his wad at Empire City Casino (p. 38).

These are all stories about the experiential, not the statistical.

— Conor Skelding