What It's Like to Have a Sibling On Campus

Up until high school, my brother and I had always attended the same school. The two of us grew up right next to each other, with our bedrooms located right across the hall from each other. Yet, we’re the opposite of each other. It was by chance that we would go to the same university together. I enrolled as a first-year at Barnard directly across the street from Columbia College where my brother was a sophomore. I found myself somewhat unintentionally following in his footsteps.

So what is it like to have a sibling that goes to the same university as you? It is both hysterically sweet and inescapably annoying. My brother, now a senior at Columbia, majors in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and I study environmental science on a pre-med track. We’ve taken very different paths in our college career. He normally can be found in the philosophy building while I most likely am uptown doing lab research. Yet, it is in the small things that we enjoy about going to the same school. If he needs an iron to unwrinkle his shirt for an interview, we will meet up at the Columbia Gates so he can borrow mine. In exchange, he lends his pasta maker for a dinner I am hosting. In the midst of final season and in need of a break, we will share a meal together in Hewitt and talk about the dogs or classes we recommend from each other's respective departments. It’s wonderful to walk out of a rough exam and see your sibling on Low Steps just preparing to say anything that will make you overcome with laughter. Having my brother study something very different for me has allowed me to understand more from a world that I am new to, and vice versa. Together we can craft interesting conversations on how WGSS issues are intrinsically combined with environmental science.

Now, as I enter my last year at Barnard, my brother won’t be on campus as he finishes his degree and is headed to Yale for graduate school. I do feel a bit sad that I will not get to see him as much, but maybe this is a sign that Yale is my next step or that I need to learn how to take public transportation to get outside of NYC. I wonder where I will go now to get last-minute dorm things, someone to take and share my meal swipes with, and really think about how I ever was able to come to the conclusion that having a sibling go to your school can have its benefits.

-Léa Jean-François
Léa is a Junior from Staten Island, NY studying environmental science on a pre-medical track. On campus, Léa is doing lab research uptown at Columbia Mailman, co-leading the Jews of Color Caucus, and being a Barnard babysitting! Off campus you can spot Léa in trying out cafes throughout NYC or doing doula work.