The one thing you've got to say about Columbia is that it has

Host: The campus was quiet under the soft veil of evening. Leaves fluttered down in slow spirals across the courtyard, catching the faint gold of the last sunlight. The columns of the old university building rose like sentinels guarding an empire of memory. The air smelled of books, rain, and the kind of nostalgia that only clings to places where time walks politely, not rushes.

Jack leaned against the stone balustrade, his grey eyes drifting across the green where students sprawled with laptops, laughter, and too much hope. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his worn coat, the wind teasing strands of his hair. Jeeny sat on the steps beside him, her brown eyes following a group of students hurrying past — the sound of their footsteps like the heartbeat of youth.

Jeeny: “William Scott once said, ‘The one thing you've got to say about Columbia is that it has courses that are famous. It has alumni who come back and say it was the best thing they ever did.’”

Jack: “Of course they say that. Memory edits pain into poetry. That’s what nostalgia does — it turns exhaustion into achievement.”

Host: A gust of wind lifted the pages of a notebook lying forgotten on the steps. Jack bent down, caught it, and handed it back to Jeeny. The sunlight fell through the trees in fractured patterns — like thoughts he’d never finished.

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s not nostalgia. Maybe it’s gratitude. You’re always so suspicious of the past, Jack, as if remembering fondly means lying.”

Jack: “It does. Nobody ever says, ‘College was the loneliest, most confusing time of my life.’ They say, ‘It was the best thing I ever did.’ It’s a cultural script — the myth of the golden years.”

Jeeny: “Maybe the myth is what saves us. You think remembering the pain would make us wiser? No. It would make us bitter.”

Jack: “Truth shouldn’t be tailored for comfort. If you rewrite every hardship as ‘the best thing you ever did,’ you’ll never see what broke you — or what it cost.”

Host: A bell rang in the distance — deep, resonant, ancient. The sound rolled across the campus, echoing off brick and memory alike. Jeeny looked up, her hair moving gently with the wind.

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who regrets never being sentimental.”

Jack: “Sentimentality is just emotion with bad memory. You forget the sleepless nights, the anxiety, the debt, the sense of never being enough — and all that remains is the illusion of progress.”

Jeeny: “And yet, that illusion gets people through life. You can’t live forever dissecting your own scars.”

Jack: “But we should remember them honestly. We owe the truth to who we were.”

Host: The sky had turned violet now, the first stars beginning to whisper through the dusk. The campus lights blinked on one by one, soft halos forming around the lamps like memories solidifying into the present.

Jeeny: “You talk about truth like it’s sacred. But sometimes the truth is too heavy. What’s wrong with remembering something as better than it was?”

Jack: “Because that’s how institutions like this survive — not on education, but on myth. Alumni come back not because it was perfect, but because the story they tell about it makes them feel whole again. It’s not loyalty. It’s longing.”

Jeeny: “And what’s wrong with longing?”

Jack: “Nothing. As long as you know what it is. Longing is a beautiful kind of lie.”

Host: Jeeny smiled faintly — not mocking, but with the sadness of understanding. A student nearby laughed — a clear, bright sound that cut through the growing dark like the past refusing to fade.

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who left this place and never really did.”

Jack: “Maybe I never did. I still dream about it sometimes — the library at 3 a.m., the hum of lights, the smell of paper. But the dreams always end the same way: I wake up before I understand the question.”

Jeeny: “Maybe the question wasn’t meant to be answered here. Maybe the point of places like this isn’t what you learn, but what it makes you remember about wanting to learn.”

Host: The wind carried her words across the quad, scattering them like fallen leaves. Jack watched as a group of young students passed, their faces bright with purpose, their eyes lit with that fragile belief that everything they’re doing matters.

Jack: “You know what I envy about them? They still think this is where meaning begins.”

Jeeny: “And you don’t?”

Jack: “No. Meaning begins when you leave. When you start unlearning what you were taught to believe about success, about purpose, about yourself. The world outside these gates doesn’t care if you graduated with honors — only if you remember who you were before you wanted to impress anyone.”

Jeeny: “You sound like you’re giving a commencement speech — the disillusioned philosopher’s version.”

Jack: “Maybe. But at least it’s honest. Columbia — any great university — doesn’t make people great. It teaches them to chase the idea of greatness. And when they come back years later saying it was the ‘best thing they ever did,’ what they mean is: It was the last time I knew what I was running toward.”

Host: A silence settled between them — not awkward, but dense, like the pause between questions in a lecture you didn’t realize had ended. The faint hum of the city beyond the gates was steady, indifferent.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s all we ever do — chase that feeling again. To belong to something larger than ourselves. To believe, even briefly, that what we’re learning will matter.”

Jack: “And does it?”

Jeeny: “It does if it changes you. Not just what you know, but what you see.”

Jack: “And what do you see, Jeeny?”

Jeeny: “I see a man still standing at the edge of his youth, trying to forgive himself for leaving it behind.”

Host: Jack looked at her then — really looked — and something shifted in his face. The hardness cracked just slightly, enough for the boy he once was to surface for a moment.

Jack: “Maybe I am.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe you’re still learning. Maybe that’s what alumni mean when they say it was the best thing they ever did — not because it was perfect, but because it started something that never really ends.”

Host: The clock tower chimed again. The sound seemed softer this time, more human. The lights across the quad shimmered in the cool air, and the city beyond pulsed like a distant memory still breathing.

Jack: “So the university becomes a metaphor. A place we keep returning to, not with our bodies, but with our thoughts — trying to pass the same exam over and over: who we are versus who we meant to be.”

Jeeny: “And every time we fail it a little less.”

Host: The wind picked up, carrying a page from someone’s notebook across the steps. It fluttered, paused, and landed against Jack’s shoe. He picked it up — a sheet filled with messy handwriting and a line underlined twice: “Learn to begin again.”

He looked at Jeeny, then at the columns, then back toward the sky that was deepening into blue-black.

Jack: “Maybe that’s the real degree. The courage to begin again.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The lights of the campus glowed brighter now — each window, each lamp, a small memory refusing to dim. Jeeny smiled at him, and for a moment, the world felt young again — full of open doors, soft rain, and the quiet hope that somewhere within all this learning, the heart might still find its way home.

And as they walked down the steps, the echo of their footsteps mingled with the sound of laughter, wind, and possibility — the eternal sound of youth, running, still running, through every corridor of time.