<p>I am going to be a rising junior this summer, and I need to decide quickly on whether or not I want to attend this program, I have already been accepted. I am a little worried about being away from home for 3 weeks. I want to know everything about it, like what people do for fun, what I'm supposed to bring, if I will have my own privacy, what kinds of people will be there, if I will be given a lot of homework ect. I'm am kind of a girly girl, I take a while to get ready and I like to have fun and go to parties but I am also serious about school. I am not a nerd, and i want to be sure that there are going to be people like me there.
& the course i signed up for was New York experienced: an urban case study. Any info on that?
Thanks (:</p>
<p>Basically:
*Overpriced so they can make several million dollars over the summer
*Very little work
*Large class sizes–little personal interaction with professors/grad students teaching the course
*Target audience: children of wealthy New England families looking to have fun over the summer and also “boost” they resume (hint: adcoms are aware of what Columbia’s program is all about)
*Lots of partying, including the occasional bit of alcohol and illegal drug use
*Little supervision or oversight
*Many attendees are not motivated learners at all
*Educational benefit? Maybe a little, depending on which course you take. Your “urban case study” selection doesn’t really seem worth the money at all.</p>
<p>If I were you, I’d save a few thousand dollars and either get a job or do some volunteering work over the summer.</p>
<p>Fortunately, you’re only going to be a rising junior this fall–while summer 2011 will be important, summer 2012 will be your most important summer.</p>
<p>thanks, but just wondering. have you ever attended the program?</p>
<p>No, but I have discussed the program with acquaintances who have attended it.</p>
<p>I did the advanced creative writing program at Columbia and I’d say chaseholl’s analysis is pretty inaccurate. It’s definitely overpriced, especially with room and board (I actually commuted because I had a sister in the same program as me and a mom in grad school in NYC, so it was much cheaper to just rent an apartment for three weeks), but it’s not “little work” and there CERTAINLY aren’t “huge classes.” For my program we had to write quite a bit (we had nightly writing assignments that ranged from a poem to a 10-page screenplay) and the classes were relatively small - I think my workshop had about 10-15 kids in it and my elective class had 3 kids and 2 grad students. </p>
<p>And speaking of the elective class, that’s easily the highlight of the program, especially if you take one that’s less popular. I took an elective on comics/graphic novels and as I mentioned, it was really small and personal and everyone in the class was really passionate and it was easily one of the best educational experiences I’ve ever had. I remember on the last day, while we were all crammed into one of the grad students’ cars trying to get to the MoCCA for an hour-long impromptu “field trip,” we were all talking about how it felt like workshops had been going on forever but the elective felt like it had just started.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, chaseholl got one thing right - the target audience. The program boasts its diversity and there are a lot of international students, but with a few exceptions like my comics class, pretty much everyone I met regardless of where they came from was a spoiled rich kid looking for a good time and a resume booster. Still, I can’t guarantee that my experience was the same as everyone else’s…I was a commuter, which made me an outsider by default, and I’m sure the crowd you’re with is completely dependent on which classes you take (creative writing attracted an especially bad sort, since a lot of them thought they wouldn’t actually have to do any work. The result was a lot of crappy writing and occasional plagiarism). Plus, in spite of what was said about adcoms, it certainly doesn’t seem to hurt your resume because every senior I’ve spoken to from my class is headed to a really good school (although that might have more to do with who the program attracts in the first place).</p>
<p>jrm927, one of my friends told me creative writing is probably the best option at Columbia, with smaller classes and such (he said at least one of the other classes had 50-100 people in it, though) and that quite a few people he met had no intention of doing any of the coursework. I <em>think</em> that may have been one of the law or social sciences classes she attended.</p>
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<p>I’m guessing it was because they’re good students overall–I doubt they were the ones who thought they didn’t have to do any work :).</p>
<p>I also attended Columbia’s program last year (creative writing), and I agree with most of what was said above, although it wasn’t a complete waste of my summer. I have friends who also attended the program who got into Princeton, Wharton, etc. I would definitely not recommend attending it solely for prestige though, that really won’t get anyone far. </p>
<p>There were very many international students too (me included), but it’s true that all were quite obscenely wealthy. As for the class sizes, we were about 8 and we had 3 different instructors - sounds like a pretty ideal ratio to me. </p>
<p>I was extremely disapointed with the performance-review, sent three months after the program, which were three quickly written sentences, and didn’t even indicate that my teacher had read the body of my work. </p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>thanks, yeah it helps a lot.</p>