[Oratam]

Lit. Hum. and CC are nearly the entirety of one's freshman and sophomore years at Columbia. Soetoro missed those. That alone is interesting considering how essential the "Core Curriculum" is to Columbia.

Why was he given a pass?

[varyouga]

College is not like high school where everyone goes to the same building on the same schedule and knows each other. There were no assigned seats, most students don’t even know the name of someone sitting next to them and many professors didn’t even call us out by name. Showing most students from Obamas college years never heard of him doesn’t prove anything.

I went to a huge University and estimate 99.9% of people attending the same years I did would not know me. I base this number on 100 friends/acquaintances out of about 100,000 undergrad students enrolled during those years. All of the friends I made were not from classes (most engineers are such geeks :)

Among those who took the same classes I did in engineering school, an even smaller percent would remember me. I rarely went to class and was better at learning the material on my own (I doubt this is the case with Obama). The only students who might remember me were from the small mandatory lab classes of 10 people or less.

I was never close to and don’t keep in touch with anyone I had class with.

[Iron Munro]

If this one person knew Obama or not isn’t the main point as I see it.

So far there are ZERO other people who have come forward to say they knew Obama, or remember him, in the years he claims to have been at Columbia.

That is almost unbelievable, considering he is now the president.

People are always eager to announce their close encounters with celebrities and presidents - so where are the people who can say they were in class with the man who became President Of The USA?

[Georgia Girl 2]

Wayne Allan Root was probably not in the Choom Gang or he would have remembered Barry real well.

[bgill]

If he was such a loner, it was his choice and his lifestyle (gay and drugs) had to have contributed to it. Every once in a while, people from high school and college run into me and I certainly don’t have my face on tv 24/7.

[unique1]

Wayne Allyn Root stated on Hannity that there were around 200 students with the exact same major at Columbia as Obama and Root. My question is: How many of those students were black? I’m only interested in this because I’m assuming that there were very few and that group would be especially noticed at that time in history. Also, that group would be especially popular given the atmosphere in a college setting.

Also, I wonder if any professors remember Obama.

[Macoozie]

The strange thing about encountering and remembering people from your past, is what you remember . . .
(I played ELEMENTARY school baseball with the writer, his dad was our coach. I remember their “rock-n-roll” band too, with Peter and Brian in High School.!)
When I transferred to Columbia, Physics was in the classic Pupin Lecture Hall (”The Paper Chase”) with more than 200 in attendance. But other classes where in Lewisohn, Havemeyer or the Math building with only 20 students.

The oddest part about Obama is the real lack of people who come forward and say “I knew him when . . .”, or “He is a real honorable man since . . .”. So few come forward and talk about this now famous person they once knew.

It’s weird too, because the main subway stop for the 1 and 9, at college walk, is 116th street.

Oh yeah, 110th street is definitely the dividing line between heaven and hell. Famous song Bobby Womack “Across 110t Street”

[TigersEye]

This is in addition to the obvious point that there wasn't much reason for anyone to spend a lot of time hanging out on campus with all of Manhattan a mere subway ride away.

Unless you're a political activist which 0bummer has said he was.

[aruanan]

The first thing to note is that Columbia was a male-only school in those days (the first co-ed class was the class of '87).

Funny, though, how Columbia University had two undergrad colleges, Columbia College for men and Barnard College for women and Barnard College is still for women.

I wonder, though, if Barry could have gone to The School for General Studies of Columbia University, "created specifically" for "returning and nontraditional students." Is he covering this up because, in his mind, just the name would make it sound like he got a university level GED (though it's supposed to be a very excellent undergrad college) and because on subsequent applications and curriculum vitae he didn't list this school but, instead, Columbia College?