Barnard College Top Questions

students at barnard work really, really hard. REALLY hard. academics are probably 70-90{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of any students life during the duration of their time here. most of the classes are really rewarding, especially after you get into the higher up classes within your major, and even the largest lectures are around 60-70 people. there is also the option to take any columbia classes, although i never even attempted to because many think the classes and professors are better on this side of the street. i have a few favorite professors that i love to go in and talk to in my free time - they are really good about being there for their students. the typical barnard professor really cares about their students. there are 9 "ways of knowing" which are our general education requirements, most of which are not hard to get out of the way. my advice is to take an AP math class in high school so you can skip the quantitative reasoning requirement, and get your full year of lab credit out of the way early.

Professors know your name, I had a professor even call me when I had mono freshman year, professors take a real interest in your personal, academic and professional development. Barnard education is based on the system called "9 Ways of Knowing" - we are based on a liberal arts education, but ultimately Barnard wants you to put your education to good use, to take what you have learned in the classroom and apply it in the real world. I'm in the Political Science department, I think that Political Science is among the top departments at this whole university, I'm perpetually impressed by my professors, an excellent set of course offerings each semester and all sorts of relevant internship opportunities offered to students each year. Students are competitive and clearly driven to do well, but not cutthroat.

All of my classes this semester are small seminars; the biggest is 25 students and the smallest is 6. Some students study a lot, but I don't study that much. If I studied more, I would be much less stressed out though. It's definitely a very, very intense academic environment. More reading than you could ever imagine. Barnard students definitely have intellectual conversations outside of class- that's one big thing I notice whenever I hang out with my friends from home, the complete lack of intellectual stimulation compared to the conversations here at school. The best class I've taken is Women and Leadership, taught by Liz Abzug (whose mother was a famous feminist). The professors here are all very distinguished and accomplished and most of them are great teachers. Don't worry about picking up any actual skills... this is a liberal arts college, we're here to learn and read, not to figure out anything practical.

The relationship between students and administration is amazing. Barnard has an extremely low student/faculty ratio, and it shows. Classes are small, and learning is optimal. As a student at Barnard, academics are your life. It is rare to eavesdrop on a conversation on campus at any given time without hearing sophisticated academic jargon. Unfortunately, the course registration process can be quite frustrating. Also, there is an implicit sense of cut-throat competition that pervades every academic department at Barnard. I assume, though, that these qualities are prevalent on the majority of American campuses.

Barnard prides itself on being a school that hires professors who are not only great scholars but also dedicated to their students. In my experience this is 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} true, and really a key factor in making my experience so positive. My friends and I have sat in wonder, talking about how we can't believe how brilliant our professors are and yet how much they seem to care about us! I would equate it to the coolest, most popular person in middle school paying attention to you, and you sort of wonder, "why are you paying attention to me!?" That's pretty much the deal. Because the professors are so invested, students feel comfortable participating in class- it's encouraged. Of course, like at any school, there are lectures and seminars. In many seminars you will find the professors relinquishing varying degrees of control to class discussions, more often than not leading/shaping the conversation to the interest and direction of the class. A lot of professors here have a knack for spinning student comments into really interesting ideas for everyone to chew on. In lectures, students aren't technically supposed to participate, but many professors in my experience try to devote as much time as they can to questions and comments. Most don't like to feel that they are just talking "at" a room full of students; they want to make sure everyone is engaged. The biggest class I ever took was an Intro Bio course that had 300 people, and the smallest class was a really terrific women's studies class with 5 students. Most of my classes are generally 10 - 25 people, and the 25-person classes are usually the lectures that luckily end up small. Barnard has its general education requirement, the Nine Ways of Knowing. It is very flexible in what courses fulfill the requirements. I enjoy these requirements because they give me an excuse to take many of the classes I'm interested in and to try out a lot of different disciplines. Additionally, freshmen have to take First Year English and First Year Seminar- one each semester. This guarantees that first year students get to have the small seminar experience. I'm going to be an English major, and Barnard's English department pretty much has a 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} approval rating from anyone who has ever had anything to do with it. People love it. I came to school thinking, "I don't want to be an English major, you just sit around talking about books. What a redonkulous way to spend your time." I wanted to do something gritty, in the trenches. I was also turned off by what a popular major it was; I thought I wanted to do something sort of "different." But you can't go wrong being an English major here, and ultimately I just wanted to take all the required classes. Barnard students are motivated and highly intelligent, but by no means competitive. There is a really strong sense of comradery and support- people work together when they can, and don't compare grades. One great thing Barnard has to offer is its Writing Center (shameless plug, I work there), which is a place where Barnard students can come to have a peer read a paper they are working on and discuss it with them. The class that I took to train to be a Writing Fellow is one of the best classes I ever took at Barnard, and pretty much everyone I took it with agrees. It is the ideal Barnard class- amazing professor, students who work their butts off and really want to be there, and great readings and assignments that change the way you think. This in mind, a Barnard education definitely focuses on learning for its own sake... all the better to prepare you for a satisfying, meaningful kind of career in my opnion. Of course, as for acquiring some of the more commonly known marketable skills, i.e. computery-ish kind of stuff and... I don't even know what other skills are, but the kind that will pay for your plumbing, electricity, and food someday, you're on your own. This is a liberal arts school to the core. But we do have the Office of Career Development to counteract that, and being in New York City, there are opportunities up the wazzoo to get job experience- and being in the city all year, you have an edge over everyone else getting internships during the school year.

At Barnard, I think academics are as competitive as you choose to make them. Everyone wants to do well, but they know that their success does not depend on someone else's failure. So I really have not experienced any cutthroat types here. Even my friends who are studying science and math say that people tend to work together and help each other succeed. I'm a comparative literature major and a psychology minor. The comparative literature department is quite small here, so it shares most of its professors with faculty from other departments (such as languages, film, or history). Thus, if I had known I wanted to do comparative literature before I came here, I might have looked at other schools to find one with a more established. However, both comparative literature classes that I've taken have been useful and enjoyable. And although having a small department can make class offerings erratic (for example, the intro course is only offered once per year) and sometimes limited, there are advantages as well, such as being able to get to know your professors, small classes, and lots of individual attention. The psychology department is supposed to be one of Barnard's strongest, and there are tons of psych majors here. However, I don't know if this is because the program is truly great, or that girls just tend to like psychology. Of the courses I've taken, I haven't found any to be extraordinary. However, I've heard great things about the neuroscience course taught by Russel D. Romeo and the drug use and abuse course. I'm sure that the non-survey, specialty courses are better than the big labs and lectures. For me, I feel that Barnard's academic requirements may as well not exist, because I ended up fulfilling them just by taking a varied course load in different areas that I'm interested in. However, lots of people hate the 2 semesters of lab science requirement. As a liberal arts college, Barnard does not offer strict pre-professional tracts such as business, journalism, or pre-law. However, there are plenty of people who do want to become doctors, lawyers or investment bankers, and there is also an architecture program. Because of this, some people find Barnard way too pre-professional. Also, many students intern or hold jobs at off campus organizations. So sometimes it feels like if you aren't doing an internship, you're being lazy. If you can't imagine attending college with so many "go-getters," and would prefer to be surrounded by people who are not worried about their careers and wish they could live in the ivory tower of academia forever, you might not enjoy Barnard.