(Photo: Venture Village)

Who says majoring in English is worthless? A leaked job listing from a Columbia English major listserv obtained by Salon proves that even professional wordsmiths can delve into the star-studded startup world. You could toil away at a publishing company for $25,000 a year, or you could work at the hot new startup from self-described brainiac and actor/investor Ashton Kutcher.

"Ashton Kutcher is looking for a writer to join a small team of designers and engineers who are cofounding a consumer-oriented technology company," reads the job listing. "Your writing will be a centerpiece of the company?s [sic] product and will reach millions of people." Please tell us this isn't another daily deals company seeking to corner the market with quirky copy.

Of course, in order to take the job you have to uproot yourself and move to L.A. The ever-knowledgable Mr. Kutcher isn't suggesting Columbia English majors leave the Ivy League to join his new venture, is he?

You can read the full ad over at Salon.

(Photo: NYPD via Gothamist)

There are eight million stories in the naked city, and this is one of them: Gothamist reports that the police are currently on the lookout for the man in the photo to the left. He stands (or rather leans) accused of stealing a laptop from 420 West 118th Street (i.e., Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs) earlier this month, in the middle of the afternoon.

According to the NYPD, "The suspect removed the victims bag which contained a laptop and fled the scene." As you can see, he made his escape on a pair of crutches.

We trust that when the man is spotted, NYPD officers will immediately give chase on their Segways.

(Photo: Twitter)

College is a time for learning about arcane poetry and gender norms, algorithms and political discourse. But it's also a time to lock lips with a sexy, sweaty stranger in an uptown bar as the DJ plays that 2 Chainz song. Spring break forever.

Twitter account @ColumbiaMakeOut has "become a minor phenomenon up in Morningside Heights," one Columbia tipster told Betabeat. The account solicits photo submissions of Columbia students making out in various bars around campus and then tweets outs the lip-locking evidence. It kicked off a few weeks ago, during “senior night.”

"The prime time to catch some people in the act ;)," tweeted @ColumbiaMakeOut.

It seems light-hearted, if sophomoric, until you're the Columbia kid caught with your tongue out--with someone who may or not be your campus boo. "The account is also eerily reminiscent of Creepshots, subReddit that received national scrutiny for publishing photos of women without their consent.

Columbia students seem to have mixed reactions to the account. The school's paper, The Columbia Spectator, called it "refreshing (but also a tad bit creepy.)" The account certainly doesn't make us long for our college days.

What we really want to know is, when did Columbia get so fratty?

Update:

Apparently Ohio University also has one. One more and we have a (gross) trend!

High praise.

Today is the online debut of Forbes' "Top Colleges" issue. Only they should have called it the "Top College" issue, because--though the rankings aren't online yet--that big splashy profile of Instagram founder Kevin Systrom makes it pretty clear that Stanford is coming out ahead. Apologies all around to Cornell, Technion, Columbia, NYU, MIT, Harvard...

Mr. Systrom's debt to his alma mater is no secret, and Ken Auletta's New Yorker profile is really patient zero in this epidemic of Stanford Fever, but Forbes takes it to the next level, devoting a fair bit of the piece to crowning the Palo Alto Trade School as king of the academic hill, tech-wise. The feature is full of lines like this:

"These windfalls, serendipitous as they seem from the outside, are almost never accidental. In Systrom’s case his good fortune can be traced directly to Stanford."

And this:

"It was on the Palo Alto campus that Systrom got his first look at the worlds of tech and venture capital, his first internship at a startup and his first job at Google."

And this:

"Systrom’s Stanford dividends continued long after graduation."

Oh, and here's a whole video on the subject, titled "How Stanford Made Instagram's Kevin Systrom a Silicon Valley Star":

We like to imagine that Michael Bloomberg is, this very minute, summoning university officials from all over the East Coast to a top-secret summit in the abandoned City Hall subway stop, like a team of academic Super Friends.

In fact, maybe it would look a little something like this:

Bloomberg: "I thought we agreed this could not be allowed to happen," his icy gaze sweeping across the room. (Unlikely enforcers David Karp and Dennis Crowley stand next to him, cracking their knuckles meaningfully.) NYU president John Sexton is the first to look away; Cornell-Technion Innovation Institute Director Craig Gotsman stares him down. Notably absent is Harvard University president Drew Faust.

Or at least, that's how we like to imagine it.

Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Bollinger. (Photo: NYC Mayor's Office Instagram

This morning, the right honorable Mayor Bloomberg ventured north to the Columbia campus for what was teased on Twitter as a "big announcement." It turns out that Columbia will not be left out while Cornell-Technion and NYU Polytechnic rake in all the glory, because the Lions are getting their very own tech project, the Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering.

Sound familiar? That's probably because the project is what the university originally pitched, way back in October, for its very own applied sciences campus. For those keeping score at home, that brings the city's total up to three tech campuses. Are you excited for science yet?

According to a press release, the city will provide $15 million in "financial assistance," including "discounted energy transmission costs and partial debt forgiveness." So not $15 million in cash, but that's nothing to sneeze at, nevertheless. As for what it'll create, the agreement between town and gown promises 44,000 square feet of new space for engineering and applied sciences on Columbia's campus by 2016, as well as 75 additional faculty over the next 15 years.

Says the statement:

 The focus of the new institute will be on advances in the data sciences, attracting high-caliber faculty in specific fields of study, and expanding Columbia’s research capabilities and funding, and building upon the school’s recent successes in engineering.

Mayor Bloomberg took the opportunity to submit a first draft of his mention in the history books:

“This historic partnership is newest element in the applied sciences initiative that is, by far, the largest and most far-reaching economic development effort City government has undertaken in modern memory,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “It will create tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity, and it will encourage the growth of the tech sector in New York City and solidify our leadership in the innovation economy for decades to come.”

Not to be outdone (venture too far off message), President Bollinger added:

“We know from experience that the creativity and dynamism of this new Data Sciences Institute will be ignited by collaborations that are possible because they are part of the wide diversity of intellectual excellence that defines not just a great urban research university like Columbia, but the genius of New York City itself.”

Frankly, we're starting to suspect that Hizzoner re-reads that Ken Auletta piece on Stanford every night before he goes to bed.

Northwest Corner Science and Engineering Building opened Dec. 2010, last site of Columbia's core Morningside Heights campus

Columbia narrowly snuck details about its tech campus proposal out yesterday before today's deadline for RFPs. After which all contenders must remain silent. To make up for the procrastination, however, the university threw a quote from The Atlantic into the last slide of its executive summary. Something about human progress, social innovation yadda yadda economic growth?

Stanford and Cornell, who is partnering with Israel's Technion, have both shown the world their specs, which take the city up on its offer to build an engineering mecca on Roosevelt Island. But like NYU, Columbia is opting for a different location, one that it's already developing: Manhattanville.

Columbia, which has run out of real estate in Morningside Heights, has already made its Manhattanville-leanings known. But the plan released yesterday gives more details about its proposal: the Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering.

Unlike universities from outside New York seeking to build stand-alone research centers on city-owned land on Roosevelt Island, Columbia’s plan will leverage the major commitment it has already made to long-term academic and economic growth in Upper Manhattan. The proposed Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering will focus on five key areas that are essential to an increasingly data-rich society: new media, smart cities, health analytics, cybersecurity and financial analytics.

Along with its native street cred, the university is hyping the multi-disciplinary approach, pointing out that the Institute would be next to the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, currently under construction, which will house Columbia's Mind Brain Behavior neuroscience initiative. (Some tantalizing potential synergy there--spinning out startups with a better understanding of the human mind?)

Betabeat was getting spoiled with all the dope renderings competing schools were pumping out to the press. Sadly, the image above is of a building that Columbia has already constructed. But the photo and specs below give you some idea of what it might look like.

Above: construction on the Jerome L. Greene Science Center between 129th and 130th St. Below: Renderings of the Institute's proposed three buildings with the Science Center in blue.

While the selection committee takes over from here (they've promised to name a winner--or winners!--by the end of the year), sit back and congratulate yourself on being a genius, New York City.

“Experience shows that engineering and applied science thrives as part of a multidisciplinary university community that includes everything from cutting-edge research in the basic sciences and humanities to the entrepreneurship of a business school,” says President Lee C. Bollinger. “That kind of dynamic intellectual mix that defines not just Columbia, but the genius of New York itself.”

You were feeling pretty smart today, weren't you?