Slightly abridged version, written for a final paper, based on Lucian’s “The True History.”

Welcome to Barnard! My name is Tova, and I’ll be your tour guide today! It’s hard to believe that it’s been a whole two years since I’ve been in your place: eager to find an academic institution that would find me worthy, eager to find the perfect place to accumulate knowledge and experience. So eager, in fact, that I spent many a sleepless night studying for the SATs, working on supplementary essays, and staring at my computer screen in a stress coma. If I’m not mistaken, that young lady over there is falling asleep just as I talk! Don’t worry, bud. If you’re not up for this tour, please go and take a nap. There’s a really comfy couch on the third floor of that building over there.

In fact, I’m going to give all of you a break. Whether this is your first college tour or your fiftieth, I’m sure you’ve all heard the same El Dorado spiels of grassy lawns and peppy clubs. Some places even create their own unique forms of deceit! I won’t go on calling out other colleges, but I might as well mention the University of Pennsylvania, who told you that there’s plenty to do in the city of Philadelphia; or Boston University, who told you that despite the huge campus, everyone knows each other by name; or the University of Maryland, which claims it houses a bowling alley. Obviously, none of this is possible. But it makes for a hell of a tour, so Barnard followed suit. For the past sixty days, I’ve given countless tours spewing the same old bullshit you’ve all heard since you engaged in this downward spiral that is college apps. I’m not so shocked by the corruption of the tours as much as I am by the credulity of all the suckers I’ve brought around. So, you know what? I can use a break too! Let’s be honest with each other, shall we? I’m going to tell you, right here, right now, that I have no intention whatsoever of telling the truth throughout our time together. This should be fun. Let’s get started!

We’re walking, we’re walking, we’re stopping! This here is Athena, goddess and Barnard College Alum 373 BCE—around the same year as WORLD-FAMOUS author Anna Quindlen! Would you believe it if I told you that I once overheard them discussing their majors in this very spot? Quindlen was a history major with a concentration in Ancient Greece, and Athena studied leadership. It is said that Quindlen instead publicizes that she majored in “Unafraid,” which we’ll speak more about later!

Shoot, excuse me, I forgot to give the history of the college! Barnard College was founded in 1889 by an open-minded, multiracial human being. Columbia University happened to be across the street. After Barnard’s parties yanked the thriving social scene from Columbia, Columbia’s student government gathered and decided to ask Barnard to marry them. I’m worried you won’t believe this part, but I’m telling you—to propose, Columbia men presented one $17,040.98 diamond ring to EACH Barnard woman, funded by the PRIVILEGE trust, which is an acronym for something. Barnard’s student government got really awkward and stopped answering Columbia’s calls (across the street). Finally, Barnard’s student government sent a telegram to Columbia, explaining, “we think of Columbia like our brother,” and that, anyway, “not many of us are into that sort of thing.” Thus, Barnard became Columbia’s sister school. Historians say this was the origin of the epidemic of friend zoning between Barnard and Columbia students.

Barnard’s motto is “hepomene toi logismoi,” which means “following in the way of reason,” and the reason for this motto is such a GREAT, unbelievable story that I just NEED to tell it to you! In 1888, Millie the Dancing Bear was taking a thoughtful stroll through the woods and became lost. In her distress, she called out, “Help me! I’m in distress! But not because I’m female because I don’t submit to gender norms and gender is a social construct!” At this time, Roaree the Lion, mascot of Columbia University, overheard Millie from billions of miles away and was intrigued, so he sent Millie a telegram—get this—asking her to explain what she meant by “social construct!” Millie sent back a telegram, and her exact words have not been salvaged, but we know they were something along the lines of, “I’ll explain it to you if you get me the hell out of these woods for I am lost.” Roaree, always the academic, suggested “hepomene toi logismoi,” and once Millie found a Latin-English dictionary under a tree and a street sign that said “Reason This Way” with a large arrow, she was able to make her way back to the city in just 413 days! Millie was forever grateful, so when she became the mascot of Barnard the next year she insisted on the motto “hepomene toi logismoi” as a tribute to her dear platonic friend Roaree.

This, to our left, is Barnard’s grassy lawn. One of the factors that drew me to Barnard in the first place is its mixture of city and country. On the one hand, we have the entire New York City to our disposal: many of us, including myself, do stints on Broadway when we feel like it. In fact, I’m reprising my role as both Jean Valjean and Spiderman in the new production, “Spiderman: Turn off les Mis” this upcoming spring! Additionally, 67.32% of Barnard women have endearing friendships with quirky but harmless homeless men. My friend is named Steve, and just last week Steve told me “Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference” when I asked him what time it was! At the same time, Barnard also offers an out-of-town college experience: I’m afraid of losing you here, but trust me—studies show that Barnard has more grass than Central Park, Yellowstone National Park, the woods Millie got lost in, and my backyard, combined! Also, we have trees. We may as well be in Idaho!

Let’s take a look at the dorms before our time is up. We’re walking, we’re walking, we’re stopping! This here is the quad, where all Barnard freshmen live. Let’s step inside. This here is the staircase, where, believe it or not, it is said Anna Quindlen (Barnard College ’73 BCE) once climbed. We’re going to take a seat in the lounge here. Everyone settled? All right. So, again, this is where all Barnard freshmen live. Roommates are matched based on a rigorous algorithm including celebrity crushes, nail polish pattern preferences, sleeping patterns, and how one pronounces the word “orange.” We here at Barnard emphasize our tremendous diversity: no two students have the same birthday, some people are politically conservative, and students come from everywhere from New York to Canada to Kalamazoo.

I can’t take you into a dorm, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one: each dorm has a personal, impeccably clean bathroom that elves come to tidy every few DAYS. And believe it or not, each student is given a desk, a chair, a bed, and some storage! Each room is carpeted, but the carpet stays clean, because of, as I mentioned before, the elves. Please don’t fret, though—our elves are paid ABOVE minimum wage. Students are expected to choose their bedding, but the elves will also make your bed if you ask nicely. An interior design elf also decorated my walls freshman year, but I’m told this is more rare.

Students get, on average, 10-12 hours of sleep a night.

Okay, so it doesn’t look like I’ll have time to show you the dining hall either. In that case, I’ll tell you a bit about the meal plan, then we’ll make our way to the Barnard Hall. Barnard’s meal plan offers Kosher, Halal, Vegan, Lactose-Intolerant, Gluten-Free, Potato-Intolerant, Moist-Food-Intolerant, Raw-Meat-Only, Raw-Vegetables-Only, Fish-Hater, and Vegetarian options. Our chefs are collected from the previous season’s reality TV cooking competition winners, and teams of runners-up accompany the chefs. Students may choose to order from any of the seven chefs AS LONG AS THEY ORDER THE NIGHT BEFORE, which I know is difficult to believe, but it’s only fair if the chefs get a heads up.

We have time for a few more stops, so let’s move on to a class building. We’re walking, we’re walking, we’re stopping! THIS here is Barnard Hall, named after generous donor Fred M. Hall. Barnard Hall houses thousands of classes a day, so let me take this time to tell you about Barnard’s academics. Barnard women challenge themselves with a curriculum of 64 points minimum per semester, which is roughly twenty-one classes worth. Get this: Barnard’s diverse class topics include Underwater Basket Weaving, Advanced Class Passing, Pokémon in the Seventeenth Century, and Introductory Pronouncing the Letter R! Barnard women are also allowed to take any classes offered by Columbia College… but, to be honest, the Columbia College classes I’ve taken have been pretty boring.

Barnard offers students incredible trips and speakers DAILY. Just last week, Anna Quindlen (BC ’73) came in to speak to my creative writing class. Star-struck, I somehow approached her after class. “It was such an honor to hear from you,” I gushed, “and I was just wondering, what did you mean when you said that you majored at ‘Unafraid’ at Barnard?” Anna Quindlen (BC ’73), in all her glory, responded, “I just did that because I resented my actual pointless liberal arts major for making me resort to fantasizing for a living.” WOW, right? Her ingenuity just blows me away! I caught my breath before she left the room and got to ask her another question, smiling like a cartoon character: “How was your experience at Barnard?” She scrunched her eyebrows and took a thoughtful pause. Finally, she answered, “It was good—I mean—yeah, it was alright.”

Here at Barnard, we believe in work hard, play hard. Weekend parties rival those of The Great Gatsby, except with a LOT more energy, and a lot more drinking. Not to worry, though, parents—the legal drinking age for the entire Morningside Heights district is seventeen! Also, our drink of choice is orange juice spiked with a completely safe form of water engineered by the chemistry majors that intoxicates the drinker WITHOUT damaging the drinker’s health. The effects of the drink are designed to wear off when the drinker considers making a VERY bad decision! Incidentally, the drink does not wear off if one decides to leave the party with a chemistry major.

Be it community service or classwork, Barnard students are enthusiastic about EVERYTHING they put their minds to. This enthusiasm is perhaps most evident in the Greek Games, a tradition started in 1903 when a student in the Class of 1905 wore the same dress as a student in the Class of 1906 to a party, thus sparking some friendly competition to decide who should have to go home and change. Over 7,009,002 people came to watch the FEROCIOUSLY competitive games that ensued! Events included interpretive dance and a chariot race, with chariots pulled by teams of four students. The games were suspended after the tragic Breaking of the Nail in 1950, but the games were revived in 2000, this time with even MORE zest! The modern execution of the game is a lot more faithful to history: competitions include pig slaughtering, deity worshipping, slave trading, and the old classic, interpretive dance. I know, I can’t believe they kept interpretive dance either—how primitive! The games are phenomenal nonetheless.

Unfortunately, we’re almost out of time! I’d like to leave you all with a hopeful story. Just two years ago, I received an inordinate amount of promotional mail from various colleges, so much that it was pouring out of my chimney! The more my aunt and uncle tried the throw out the letters, the more letters came. To get away from all the mail, my aunt and uncle took me on vacation to England. Just as we were settling into our cabin on an island in the middle of the English Channel, a large hairy man named Hagrid burst through the door with my acceptance letter to a magical place called Barnard! I hadn’t even applied yet, but as Hagrid explained to me, my father went to Columbia, and my mother went to Barnard; thus, he explained, “Yer a Barnard woman, Harry!” I’m not sure why he called me Harry, but trust me, he did.

Any questions before we wrap up? No? All right, well, if you have any more questions, you’re welcome to email me! I’ll just drop you off in the gift shop here! And remember, the more Barnard laser pointers, fanny packs, and teddy bears you buy, the higher chances you have of getting in! GOOD LUCK!