Stuart Bartosik
What's been your most gratifying moment at Columbia?
Getting in. I think so, yeah. I wouldn't call grades gratifying. I wouldn't call classes that gratifying either. External experiences...nothing that gratifying, so to say. I actually applied on the last day, the very last day. I was like, "you know what? I should apply. Okay, I'm gonna apply." They had actually sent me an email saying please apply before. It wasn't on my list before then. And then I was like, "yeah you know, why not, it's in New York so I'll apply." And then to actually get in, I was happy. So, gratifying.
If you could give advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Work harder...And I don't know, maybe, do what you know is right more often, instead of like, thinking about it. Just do it. Instead of being like eh, I could do this, I could do that, they're both equally good. Just do one of them instead of sitting.
If you were leaving to start a new civilization, which three books would you bring with you?
Well I don't know if I'd really want to bring Cat's Cradle because that's kind of the wrong book to bring. Which three books? I don't want to bring a classics book because...I mean I'd think about trying to bring something that kind of is, kind of shows what the previous civilization was like. But then I'm not thinking of any books right now that are like that. I'd prefer to bring fiction than like, history. Yeah, that's a problem. I mean I suppose I could always bring something by James Joyce, so that I'd be like, "okay now I'm actually gonna read it." I mean I wouldn't bring a religious book. I wouldn't probably bring anything just complete fiction either. Then I wouldn't want to bring, considering you're starting civilization, I wouldn't want to bring a depressing book. So...huh. I don't know I guess one of them that I could throw in there, I liked it when I read it a long time ago was Mr. Popper's Penguins. That was a nice one. And then Fantastic Mr. Fox. And an anthology of Calvin and Hobbes but...Dilbert would not be a good one. It would just promote all the wrong ideas. Philosophy books? In a way it would be good to have philosophy books, but then at the same time, starting it all over again is not a bad thing. Although of course it might be good to bring an engineering book like, how to build something. How to build, or how to use electricity or something practical.
What do you do when you're stressed?
Listen to music. Play a sport or piano. More often piano. And maybe watch a video.