Columbia University in the City of New York Top Questions

my first class dean, i just learned, is being charged with some kind of fraud for acting as the head of financial aid while also being paid as a consultant for an independent company that provides loans (which he encouraged students to buy...look up david charlow if you want to know more). he was totally unhelpful (columbia grad, i guess that's how he got the job) but wasn't fired until after the indictment...my next dean was very nice, but i've only met her once... i started school as a physics major. my first year i focused on physics and math classes, and it was terrible - these classes, especially at the beginning, are large (50-150 person) lectures. i'm 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} sure that no one in the physics or math departments knows my name - i didn't try to cultivate those relationships, but neither did they. i left after my first year, and was seriously considering transferring to a smaller school. instead i came back a year later and decided to stop taking that kind of classes. that was a great decision for me - i ended up being a visual art major, math minor. i know most of the visual arts faculty well (i have their phone numbers, and they are interested in my life after graduation). the math minor is a joke, 6 semester classes...anyone could do it. overall, i have definitely gotten a good education from columbia...i feel totally confident talking about whatever is being talked about, and i definitely didn't before college. i also know that columbia gave me a much better education than i could have gotten at the state school near my house. in retrospect, though, i think i might have been happier (i.e. able to stick with the physics major) at a smaller school. it's also important to note that the school makes it hard to get great grades, but extremely easy to get something like a B average. they'll never publish the mean GPA, but i would guess it's around 3.2...you won't fail classes unless you do ZERO work. my freshman physics classes were curved to an A- (!), my 35{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} on the finals got me A's, and i doubt that anyone failed.

Obviously academics at Columbia are top notch. They do a great job of hiring amazing and experienced professors and keeping the class sizes as small as possible. Class size and attention from the teacher really depends on your major. For Econ and PolySci majors, the majority of their classes will be in a lecture hall with over 100 other students and multiple TA's. For Language or English majors, the majority of their classes will be reasonably sized (less than 20), with no TA's. And generally for all students the class sizes get smaller when you start to take very specific classes for your major, usually during Junior and Senior years. In smaller classes, the teacher will definitely know your name, in lecture classes probably not. BUT, every teacher is willing to know your name and its your choice what kind of relationship you want to have with them. My favorite class has been Contemporary Civilizations (CC for short), which is one of the Core Requirements and is philosophy based. I didn't expect to enjoy this class at all, but it actually changed my life. Reading Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Nietzsche and other great thinkers enabled me to secure my floating thoughts of how the world worked or was suppose to work into my own personal structured beliefs and opinions. I was lucky enough to have an amazing teacher who really went out of her way to help me understand all the concepts and make sure my writing on them was up to par. The Core is definitely something students may be really interested in when they apply to Columbia but quickly realize how they really feel about it once they start taking it. On the whole, the majority opinion on the Core seems to be that students have a great appreciation for it and think its a great idea, but actually daily dread going to the classes. Some of the Core can definitely be eye-opening, and some can simply be another requirement for graduation. My least favorite class was Statistics, but thats only because I'm not a math person and found it very difficult. It took a lot of studying and a lot of work to get through it. All Columbia students are used to work, though, and tend to spend hours everyday studying. There's always a balance ofcourse just like any every other school. We have students who spend their week nights in the library til the wee hours of the morning or even do multiple all-nighters a week, and then there are those go a day or two a week without doing any work and still happen to do well. Students definitely participate in class. Usually theres always three or four that participate the most, but teachers really encourage it so you'll hear from every student a couple of times, and its definitely a very open atmosphere for discussion. Even more important than class discussions are the talks you have outside of class. I have without a doubt learned more from talking with my friends than I have in a classroom. We do have intellectual conversations about concepts we studied in class or current events, especially the upcoming election, and you can always count on hearing the SEAS students rambling off Calc equations to each other over dinner. But students are also silly and immature, down to earth and friendly, and any subject is fair game. Pop culture is definitely a huge topic that comes up all time since we're always bombarded with celebrity and entertainment news every where we go in this country. As a Psychology major I've only taken lecture course so far that have ranged from 200 students to 25. I've made the effort to get to know the professors and what they're looking for in a student, and they have in turn gotten to know me. I've really benfitted from having relationships with my teachers because its reveals more about the class that way. The subject of psychology is really interesting, though strenuous at times with a lot of memorization, and all of my professors so far have been visibly excited by the subject they were teaching. I highly recommend an intro psych class to everyone because you'll learn so much about how the human mind works! In my experience, professors are not concerned with your vague future job but are VERY concerned with your knowledge of the material they are presenting you. Professors know that they have students who just went to Columbia so they could own a Fortune 500 company someday, but they don't teach towards them, rather they teach for the students who are there to learn and to expand their minds. This style of teaching helps both types of students and is very rewarding.

The Core STINKS. If you're not sure want to study or you're only interested in one thing, this is not the school for you. The Core takes up a ridiculous amount of your time and courses. If you're undecided about your major, it is difficult to explore majors your first two years because they encourage you (or require that you) fulfill as many requirements as possible, therefore taking up all your hours. The Core also makes it difficult to study abroad especially if you are a double or triple major, though it can be done. There is almost no AP or high school credit, except for language. Professors are pretty good. Because of the great number of Core classes, there are many TAs, who are often great. On any given day, the top specialist in the world (who is probaly affiliated with Columbia) gives an open speech on campus. It's easy to get good grades. It's difficult to get great grades. Teachers usually place a lot of weight on finals, which is great if you've been slacking off all semester (or bad if you decide to sit on the beautiful quad during the first hot days of summer and still not catch up). Students take their work very seriously at Columbia and are always in the library. There is definitely competition in the air, but it is not overbearing.

Students at Columbia seem to make a huge deal about how much work they do (again, comparatively to Duke) but I haven't found the workload to be overwhelming, particularly because undergraduate classes here are quite large and it's much easier to skim or skip readings that you aren't being tested on or asked to write about. I would say though that Columbia is much more intellectual than pre-professional, which was very important to me in choosing between academic environments.

As far as academics go, Columbia is challenging, but (like Harvard, Yale, Brown, etc.) getting in is almost the hardest part. Because people here are so motivated, everyone seems to do well enough, although it can get a little hectic around mid-terms and finals. People also aren't too competitive, and I've found it very easy to form cooperative study groups. A good thing about a school like Columbia is that students are very driven, and so the institutional culture brings about the best in you. Professors in seminars are very accessible (about two thirds of your classes will be on this scale), while TAs take the lead in large lectures (my TAs have been fabulous, though, and it's much easier to ask dumb questions to a grad student when you're feeling confused). Before you apply, know that the Core is a big deal here-- some students don't take that into account and find themselves overwhelmed by the requirements. In general, Core classes (most of which are fantastic) will take up one third of your classes, most of those occurring within the first two years.

The Core Curriculum, much like the campus, is distinctive and amazing, but not for everyone. The classes are small, most teachers are great (in my experience, anyway--but I've had some life-changing profs, so maybe I'm biased), and you will be highly fluent in Western culture after taking them. They'll amount to about 25-33{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of your course work, so don't come to Columbia if you want to choose every course yourself. I came here because of the Core, and it hasn't disappointed me at all. Some texts were challenging, but I adored most of them right away, and I feel so comfortable analyzing any work of scholarship now (reading all of The Wealth of Nations will do that to a person). Core classes also allow for some nice bonding; I really like the perspectives that students from different majors bring to discussion, and it's nice to know that my friends and I are going through similar academic experiences, at least for the first two years. Beyond the Core, Columbia excels in just about every discipline, and there are plenty of star professors to go around. I've generally stuck to the humanities, where classes tend to be small, so I'm on great terms with my professors and have really bonded with some of them. That also means I've been able to avoid TA's, but I've heard they're not bad, and they generally are used to supplement large lecture courses. (From what I've heard, Columbia doesn't rely on its TA's to the extent that Harvard does.) I highly recommend Columbia for anything in the humanities and social sciences (I don't know as much about the sciences, but my friends who are so inclined seem content with their experience at CU).

Sometimes I get the notion that Columbia isn't a place to challenge yourself, but a place to improve what you already know. "Did you take AP chemistry? Take basic level chemistry again, throw the curve." But maybe I'm just bitter. The academics are rigorous, and they certainly do permeate the social atmosphere. I should mention that at Columbia, we have a set of classes everyone (in Columbia College) takes, simply called the Core Curriculum. There's been a bunch of controversy around what should and shouldn't be taught to the general student body, and at the moment they're testing out a broad-spectrum lecture/seminar about current topics in the scientific world. I don't have a major yet, and I'm a little reluctant to decide. A lot of kids know what they want to do the minute they get here, and they blow through the required classes with gusto. That seems to be the norm, but I could be wrong.

Overrated-- I've attended two other colleges, and the classes are either the same or slightly less rigorous. Getting in the A range in a social science/humanities class is easy; can't say anything about the sciences. Most professors are decent folk who are trying to spend as little time as possible on the class so as to get back to research (can't blame them).

Academics can be hit or miss at Columbia, especially with the Core classes. What's great about the Core, however, is that class sizes are capped at 22, and even as low as 12 for some. This means that you can really get to know your professor if you get a good one, but it also means you can get stuck with an obnoxious grad student who doesn't really want to be teaching the class. Columbia's Core is notoriously difficult and all students moan and groan about it, but ultimately, it's what unifies us; we're all in the same boat, reading Plato for that horrible final. Education is definitely geared towards bettering the individual and offering a well-rounded liberal arts education, but for those who want to buffer their resumes, there are plenty of opportunities.

i think that overall professors really care about the students and what they are teaching. professors feel blessed to be teaching this community. i think sometimes the undergrads dont realize how fortunate they are to be here and could take more advantage of the opportunity