Columbia Sad Cap
Columbia Sad Cap is an Instagram profile that has been started by anonymous senior(s) in spring 2020 semester, the semester of the COVID-19. After a bunch of students were kindly, but not so kindly, asked to move out of their dorms and go home, some students who could not go back to their homes or home countries had to stay at Columbia.
As a result, @columbiasadcap came to be. “40s on 40s” is a tradition at Columbia when seniors congregate on Low Steps and drink 40s of beer 40 days before graduation. The account’s first post started 40 days before commencement for the Class of 2020 - April 10, 2020. This or these seniors decided to commemorate their stolen last semester by carrying around their cap to various places on campus. The profile features a lonely cap on sometimes cute sometimes weird parts of campus with captions alluding to the loss of a real graduation. Every day, the cap travelled to a different part of campus upon request from other seniors who were no longer on campus but were longing a connection to their Alma Mater. On the day of Class of 2020's Commencement, May 20, 2020, Columbia Sad Cap posted its last post, completing its 40-day journey.
The instagram account became an instant hit among not only the Class of 2020 but with other members of the Columbia community including the alumni. The account was featured by Columbia's official Instagram account as well as Columbia Engineering and Columbia Alumni IG accounts.
The word has it that Columbia Sad Cap will be back at Class of 2020’s graduation that will be held on a future date as promised by the Deans of Columbia College, SEAS and GS. Here’s to hoping that will happen sooner than later and Class of 2020 gets the graduation they so truly deserve
Update: On June 20, 2020, exactly a month after Class of 2020’s virtual commencement, Columbia Sad Cap came back with a surprise IG post featuring the cap with the iconic Empire State Building lit in Columbia Blue colors alluding to the fact that the thought of graduation is still very fresh in the minds of Class of 2020.
