<p>hi, everyone. i'm a senior right now trying to narrow down my college choices to the ones i really honestly think i could see myself attending.</p>
<p>so while i am interested in columbia, i was wondering you guys could give me a completely honest portrait of what it's like to be a student there.</p>
<p>maybe you could answer the following questions?</p>
<p>1.) what are the classes like? extremely hard? fairly easy? interesting? lectures? small, discussion-based? etc.
2.) i want to be a movie editor/producer/filmmaker. i've heard that columbia is pretty well-known for film, but can anyone assess the validity of this? how good is columbia's undergraduate film department?
3.) i'm a bi guy, and while i know columbia is gay-friendly, are there plenty of bi guys/girls too? i want to make sure i fit in and everything. also, i generally get along better friend-wise with straight or bi guys than gay guys. i do have gay friends though, but i want to be able to have all different kinds of friends, gay, straight, bi. are all orientations well-represented at columbia?
4.) is new york city really easily accessible from columbia? is public transportation good?
5.) what do people generally do for fun at columbia? i'm interested in joining a lot of student clubs. but i don't like drinking or doing drugs. are clubs big ways of socializing? how prevalent is drinking/drugs? and is it the kind of environment where people stay for their classes and then go off to nyc instead of staying on campus?
6.) how is financial aid? i'd need a ton to go there.
7.) i haven't taken pre-cal or calculus. took honors algebra II, honors geometry, and stats though. would i be automatically rejected from columbia?</p>
<p>and any other info about what it's REALLY like to be at columbia would be really helpful.</p>
<p>like is there any certain criteria i NEED to fit to be happy at columbia? (for instance, it's a lot better to be liberal at brown than republican.) does anything like this apply to columbia? thanks a lot guys!</p>
<p>hey before i go off on any of this, and anyone that will follow, i think to the OP:</p>
<p>1) have you visited campus? please visit campus before we go off because 90% of the information you want you can get from the student tour or maybe even from the admissions officer.</p>
<p>2) have you read and searched the previous posts on here? the remaining 10% of your questions that are more ‘qualitative’ can easily be discovered. including opinions about party life, diversity, ease of life, fun, etc.</p>
<p>3) have you visited columbia’s website? most of the answers from of course a positive columbia place, but a lot of your answers are there. [Columbia</a> University Office of Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/admissions/]Columbia”>Home | Columbia Undergraduate Admissions)</p>
<p>if after reading all of that you do not think you have answers to your questions - i will be happy to go at length on all these issues. </p>
<p>but there is just too much information about columbia to spend time typing here, especially when it has been written MANY MANY times before. or if you can maybe parse your questions down to a few questions, but 7 very very broad questions are not helpful.</p>
<p>but on the final question, is there a certain criteria you need to be happy - though not an absolute concept, but it relates to this post: you need to be okay being independent, figuring out things for yourself. that is the essence of columbia - there is very little to no hand holding. it is about immersing yourself in a pantheon of options, and you are given your own key to the experience. the resources are there - they are endless and far and beyond what most unis offer (when you add the city especially) and it is your call what you do next.</p>
<p>thanks for your reply, admissionsgeek! unfortunately, i can’t visit the campus (live on the opposite side of the country and don’t have the money to go to new york right now :-/.) i’ve checked out the columbia website but i’d rather hear opinions from actual students cuz i think it would be more honest and reality-based. i’ll look through older threads for some of the questions, but i guess my main question is about the actual on-campus environment of columbia. i have read on many threads, as well as your response above, that columbia fosters independent students and that there is no hand holding. but what does this mean in regards to campus life? is it a “only looking out for myself” kind of environment? i.e. possibly lack of campus life, school spirit, bonding on campus?</p>
<p>Your best bet for self-education here is to read the Life/Atmosphere section of the Helpful Columbia Threads thread, which is pinned to the top of this board. Those threads give a lot of perspectives which should be useful to you.</p>
<p>ok, thanks for the tip! :)</p>