Will getting a BA at Columbia College vs. a BS in the school of engineering hurt my future job prospects at tech companies? I do like the thought of getting a more liberal arts/well rounded education, and am not very interested in chemistry/physics.
Essentially, no. Just make sure you don’t skimp on CS courses if any fewer are included in the BS vs BA. Employers will care more about the classes you’ve taken, and few jobs that aren’t practically interdisipliary with CS care about science coursework and such.
For Columbia specifically, the BS major is in the SEAS division, while the BA major is in the College division.
The BS major has slightly more technical requirements, but it should not be of any disadvantage if you do the BA major and take the same technical courses that you would if you were in the BS major. The divisional general education requirements between SEAS and College are also different.
https://mice.cs.columbia.edu/c/d.php?d=214&
https://mice.cs.columbia.edu/c/d.php?d=215&
If you want to take the patent exam, be aware that some non-CS/math science course work is required as a prerequisite.
From my experience, nope.
The classes you take in BA and BS are pretty much the same for CS (with BS forcing you to take an extra 3 or 4 more advanced classes but those are technically upper level and honestly, you could really take an extra 3 or 4 more classes with a BA too -no one is forcing you-)
Also, about the more “well rounded education”
Both BS and BA do have a “well rounded education”. With a BS, yes, you will probably have to take like an additional 4 more classes that are aligned to the STEM fields than the humanities but honestly, it’s just 4 classes out of your whole 4 years (that’s like 1 class every two semesters!)
The only real difference between the BS and BA in CS at Columbia Uni is that if you take the BA route, you are forced to take certain humanities classes (COCI, HUMA series) while in BS, it is optional (do note that like 19/20 SEAS students do avoid taking those series so… ehh)
As Columbia Uni generally prides itself from the humanities, trust me, either a BS or BA will help you become a more “well rounded person” than if you had studied from most of the other universities in the US.
COCI, HUMA alone requires almost 300~500 pages of reading a week (depending on your professor and your integrity) and I doubt people in BS who went through those series are not as “well rounded” in any part to that of those who went the BA route.
However, it does seem the general consensus that if there are 10 CS majors, almost 9 of them seems to be from SEAS. 
<join seas="" cause="" it’s="" more="" fun!="">