TedX At Columbia College Or How We Learned To Stop Worrying So Much About The Future
By Erika Kubick in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 8, 2015 4:15PM
Last Saturday I attended TedX, an independent event in the style of the Ted Talks, organized completely by Columbia College students. I’ll be honest: I was there as a favor. One of my best friends coordinated the event and asked me to cover it. I owe her a portion of my sanity, so I blindly agreed. As the day crept closer, I realized that I had signed away my sunny Saturday afternoon to sit with a grouping of college students and listen to their varying ideologies. Didn’t I have better things to do? While the promise of a catered lunch and fear of disappointing my friend were the real agents of persuasion, among the budding artists and innovators I actually gained a new wave of perspective and a beam of hope. These kids are our future, and I’m excited about that.
In addition to a collection of brilliant speakers and creative minds, TedX is a showcase of the young talent bubbling within the walls of Columbia College, a myriad of inspired entrepreneurs, artists, authors and musical talents. The seminars are structured according to the core philosophy of the original Ted Talks: “ideas worth spreading.” Highlights included Matthew Hoffman, an artist and designer behind the You Are Beautiful campaign, John Edwards, founder of Food is Free and Columbia’s own president, Dr. Kwang-Wu Kim, who offered an inspired speech about how to nurse young talent.
The students also organized a great live-streaming party featuring musical performances, crafts and free lunch. My favorite attraction of the party was author and illustrator Isabella Rotman. She’s a School of the Art Student graduate who authored a brilliant safer sex illustrated manifesto in the style of R. Crumb. Rotman will soon release her new book “Not On My Watch: A Bystander’s Handbook for the Prevention of Sexual Violence.” Columbia distributes her booklets across their student body, which is brilliant.
I ended up, willingly, spending the majority of my day at TedX. I learned about the effect of music on hospitalized patients, why we shouldn’t overuse the term “awesome” and the importance of vulnerability in storytelling. When I left, I was elated and hopeful for my generation. Columbia's class of 2015 is clearly a treasure trove of thriving talent and burning passion, but as a current graduate I know that the world outside college is oppressive enough to suffocate the most brilliant of flames. As I walked my way back to the train, I considered, for the first time, what can I do to help.
TedX is an annual event. I recommend checking it out next year so you can pick the brains of the next wave of artists who will probably end up saving us all.