Columbia College is the Place To Be!

It’s always hard stepping into a new environment that you are unfamiliar with. Remember when you graduated from elementary school, moving into middle school and it was a big deal graduating from middle school to high school. You are afraid to go off to college because mainly you might leave all your friends behind or afraid you wont fit in. Columbia College Chicago is a private school that does not have a campus. The buildings are spread out around downtown “Loop” Chicago. We might not have a mascot or school colors, but people know who Columbians are.

If you are interested in finding out what Columbia College Chicago provides stop by 33 E. Congress and observe their art gallery. Columbia is all about creating change and showing off their artistic work. The gallery is full of complex, colorful as well as thoughtful art. While walking pass the building and looking inside the window, it pulls your attention in because you just have to know what’s going on and what these “awkward” objects are about. The objects range from paintings, photography “photos”, graphic designers, clothing lines. The overall mood of the work is very settle, but its bound to catch your eye. I used to have class in the congress building quite often and would always stop in to see what was new because the gallery seemed to change every month. Not many people take time to see what our other classmates are coming up with. I feel they need to advertise the gallery a lot more because it’s a lot of good work that shouldn’t be missed.

Another building of Columbia’s that would represent Columbia College quite well is the 1104 S. Wabash. This building holds a lot of events that go on during the week. Columbia just doesn’t show off their artistic skills with photography, graphic design and fashion designers, but also through instruments, dancing, singing and poetry readings. I never knew how many students at Columbia were fierce at playing instruments. They would rock out and you could just look on their faces and tell what they do they have a passion for. Those who dance, everyone knows it’s not easy shit. It takes a lot of time, mental and tons of physical abuse to train. Dancer’s break, sprain, twist, tear and pull different parts of the body everyday and continue to dance because they love it. Unlike many schools, Columbia lets second semester freshman choreograph and show off their work.

These two buildings are quite similar but also very different. Both of the buildings give students opportunities to show what they are capable of. The only thing that separates these two building apart are their audience. The congress building is on the corner of Wabash and Congress and many people are rushing and just brush by the place not aware of the building and what’s inside. Unlike the 1104 building that is surrounded by a diner, condo’s, little mini mart, tanning salon etc. It stays open pretty late and when events are happening, from an outsiders view, you see the lights and right away it catches your attention. It’s also a good way of getting people who aren’t from Columbia to come in and view what Columbia College is all about.