CUE Pre-Orientation Program: Become a Part of a CUtE and Close-Knit Community
Passion! Community! New York City! CUE serves as an amazing introduction to New York City and Barnumbia (the nickname for the Barnard-Columbia community). CUE (pronounced as the letter “Q”) is a pre-orientation program for about 20 Barnard College students and 40 Columbia College (CC) and Columbia engineering (SEAS) students, who are lovingly called CUErs. This five-day program presents an opportunity to engage in intergroup discussions and activities around topics of social justice and identity development in New York City. The CUE mission extends beyond the week, encouraging and supporting endeavors on campus, in New York, and beyond.
Who leads CUE?
There is a team of students who lead CUE, including 12 Barnard, SEAS, and CC students. Two people on the Leadership Team coordinate the program over the summer as program organizers/coordinators.
What does a typical day of CUE look like?
This year, students will move in on Tuesday, August 25th, and the program will run through Saturday, August 29th, 2020.
While CUE undergoes some structural and logistical changes for its upcoming program, its fun atmosphere and intentional agenda will remain.
In previous years, all participants gather for breakfast around 8 - 9 am at a Columbia University dining hall. After breakfast, CUErs and leaders travel in small groups to assigned service sites. Some of the service sites from the 2019 CUE program include Getting Out Staying Out, Randall’s Island Park Alliance, Housing Works, Brooklyn Defenders Services, Brooklyn Community Services, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Services for the Underserved, and Sylvia Rivera Law Project. During the morning and early afternoon, the small groups volunteer with their assigned service sites and learn about the organizations’ missions. My group and I volunteered with a Housing Works Thrift Shop. Housing Works is a non-profit dedicated to ending AIDS and homelessness through services such as job training, legal assistance, housing, and comprehensive healthcare. Housing Works raises the funding for its services through its Thrift Shops, Online Shop, and Bookstore Cafe. They have many locations in New York City, and I highly recommend checking out its work and events!
In the late afternoon, all small groups return to campus for discussions, dinner, and night activities. Prior to the pre-orientation week, CUErs receive a discussion packet to read about various topics of discussion. Some discussions center around the ethics of service, gentrification, and equity and access in education. CUE emphasizes the importance of allowing communities and individuals to represent themselves, exploring the roles that university students have in contributing in responsible, ethical, requested, and sustainable ways to the communities that they now call home. Leaders also organize breakout discussion topics, some in the past include environmental justice and environmental racism, police abolition, broken windows policing, immigration justice, and policing. CUE is a space for individuals to tap into and share, connect, and empathize. CUErs also gather for activities and conversations around identity, systems of privilege, the meaning(s) of social justice, and community building.
CUE helped me adjust to the city, alleviating my nerves to explore the Big Apple as someone who hails from a small town. Everyone has the opportunity to explore the city in small groups for night activities, like riding on the Roosevelt Island Tramway, visiting the Brooklyn Bridge, and devouring the amazing milkshakes at Harlem Shake. On the weekend, the CUE community explores the city in teams to complete an epic scavenger hunt throughout the city; groups unlock riddles and travel to various places such as Time Square, Stonewall Inn, Statue of Liberty, and Central Park. CUE covers the price of the entire week; everything from activity fees to meals is covered.
At the end of the week, we celebrated each others’ talents and passions in a talent show. The people who I met earlier in the week were now many of my close friends, and I was excited to get to know them and my incoming peers better--from their talents to their passions--in the coming months.
What are CUE gratitudes and CUE moments?
Occasionally, the CUE community gathers in a circle throughout the week to share CUE gratitudes or CUE moments for moments and people within the larger CUE community. My CUE gratitude will always be that I had the opportunity to enter a community with such wonderful individuals.
I have met some incredible friends through CUE who challenge each other to think critically, empathize beyond their own perspectives, and commit to service without a self-serving agenda. Commitment is about the change made rather solely than the change-makers. Throughout an interesting and amazing first year, my CUE friends have been there for me. CUE has strengthened my sense of self and helped me navigate Barnard and Columbia. The CUE community has also guided me in my organization involvement at Barnard and Columbia and in New York City; I am grateful for how my experiences with the CUE community have emboldened my confidence in sharing parts of myself with other people, encouraging me to live the CUE mission every day through kindness and awareness.
How do you find more information?
Students must apply to the CUE pre-orientation program, and we can unfortunately only accommodate approximately 60 students at this time. The application for CUE closes at 11:59 pm on May 19th, 2020. Follow CUE on Instagram @columbiaurbanexperience. Also, please check out more information about CUE, the cost of CUE, and resources at https://barnard.edu/studentlife/orientation-nsop!
For the future, the most up-to-date information is on our website and Instagram.
-Grace Schleck