Columbia provided the environment for the most dramatic growth I have experienced, immersed in a culture of diverse and amazing colleagues undergoing similar growth and guided by the luminance of engaged and enthusiastic professors. My mind expanded in a manner it had not before, and likely never will again in quite the same fashion, with exposure to new ideas, challenging concepts, and brilliant minds. I gained a better understanding of the world around me and formed attitudes about why and in what fashion I should engage that world. These world view-nurturing ideas, percolating through the Core Curriculum, Sociology and Religion classes, among others, laid a foundation for my understanding of my role in the world that has carried through to today. Columbia did not provide me with many of the specific tools necessary to execute actions of world change; these would come later in life. Columbia did provide the knowledge and shared wisdom to realize the importance of world change.