Columbia Attitudes?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
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<p>What is the prevalent attitude amongst Columbia undergrads? Is it easy-going? Smug? My unsubstantiated gut feeling is that Columbia is going to be rife with kids from well endowed backgrounds who are dedicated to financial success and nothing much else.</p>

<p>I need to fill in some gaps and pursue an undergrad, and I love New York City. Columbia seems like it might be an ideal place, but I have some serious concerns about it. I left I-Banking because I was sick of the blandness of it all. People stand in line, do what they're told and collect their fun high tax bracket incomes for doing things that have absolutely no impact on the real world. (and that they likely couldn't even explain to their neighbors.) </p>

<p>I'm scared Columbia might be full of smug kids who aspire to that, somebody tell me I'm wrong, please?</p>

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What is the prevalent attitude amongst Columbia undergrads? Is it easy-going? Smug?

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<p>There's no prevalent attitude and the attempt to generalize something about 1500 people isn't going to go anywhere.</p>

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My unsubstantiated gut feeling is that Columbia is going to be rife with kids from well endowed backgrounds who are dedicated to financial success and nothing much else.

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<p>Yes, most people are from "privileged" backgrounds. However, plenty of these people could care about anything but their own financial success. They could be guilty spoiled kids who want to save the world. Or they could be spoiled kids just leaching off their parents.</p>

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I left I-Banking because I was sick of the blandness of it all.

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<p>Why are you going to college if you're a banker?</p>

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<p>are we talking about undergrad? columbia is not stern or wharton. therefore, you won't find a lot of that. its well known for its strong liberal arts through the core, so i doubt it. as far as the engineering students go, some do take a business path afterwards but ultimately..what makes columbia great is that it strongly engages intelligent and independent thinking. its not like a vocational school or anything where you would strictly go there for a degree necessary for a particular job. the professors are top notch in their respective fields, and truly ignite the process of learning. the student body at columbia is incredibly diverse, so i wouldn't say its "rife with kids from well endowed backgrounds who are dedicated to financial success and nothing much else." the students at columbia aren't just gifted with intelligence, theyre engaged in all sorts of activities that really make them stand out so its not a place of high school graduates who all received 4.0s and 1500 SAT scores to simply get into college. so yes..i think you're wrong. but hey, thats a good thing.</p>

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Why are you going to college if you're a banker?

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Because there's more to life than making large sums of money?</p>

<p>a-dub, I will be attending Columbia in the spring so I don't have first hand knowledge of what goes on in classes but I have attended enough CU events to offer an opinion.</p>

<p>Like biggyboy said, you will find all sorts of people at Columbia. Will a good portion of those people come from financially secure families? You bet. Parents with money->Kids in private school->Better education->Higher test score->Freedom and the time to be "passionate"->Better hooks. </p>

<p>But there are people from all sorts of backgrounds and you will be able to find your niche. Sure, most of those econ majors probably want to go into banking but there are also some that want to work for nonprofits or the UN or serve in public office. The one thing 99% of them will share is a high level of ambition.</p>

<p>My suggestion is to go ahead and apply, take a class or two and see if it's for you. Worst thing that can happen is that you'll have to transfer those credits to another school.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

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<p>There are in fact all kinds at Columbia and you will not find them posting on this board because they are too busy.</p>

<p>What Columbia offers in terms of indulging your passion is inspiration and New York. No matter what your passion you can find an incredible internship opportunity right here and most students do.</p>

<p>That creates a student body with one foot in the 'real' world and one foot in an elitist academic institution. New York provides a student with the opportunity to mature within their field and within the working world more quickly than someone that does not have New York as their laboratory.</p>

<p>I do not perceive at all that Columbia has more wealthy students than any other institution. I do not have time to look up the facts but I believe over fifty percent of the undergraduate student body are on student financial aid.</p>

<p>The smug attitude that some the alums display on this Board is not indicative of the students at Columbia. they/we are too busy living our lives and doing our work to even bother with an attitude. Obviously, once you get out you may find yourself posting on these boards and reliving your one great accomplishment: getting into Columbia.</p>

<p>However, hopefully you will take advantage of a great education in great city and make the contacts you need for a fulfilling career.</p>

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<p>How were you in investment banking if you didn't have a college degree? I'm really not getting it. Did you already go to college?</p>

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<p>I don't care what anyone says. The admissions propaganda will throw all this "the city is you campus" nonsense at you, with pictures of Times Square, the Empire State Building, and every other little touristy spot in Manhattan (and strictly Manhattan). When you get here, you'll find that reality quickly sets in. That reality, sadly, is that very rarely do (most) students venture off campus. I'm sorry, but I've seen it now for two years. I've even heard kids in front of Butler talk about "going into the city tonight" on a Saturday as though they were boarding the MNRR out of Greenwich with pockets full of mom and dad's cash for a night on the town. Kids often talk of the "bubble" that exists between 110 and 120. If you need something - anything - it can be found right there, and it provides a layer of security to shield students from life outside Morningside... and probably makes many parents happy too.</p>

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is that very rarely do (most) students venture off campus

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<p>Not the case for my daughter and her group of friends. Some of them have jobs off campus and except during crunch academic times, they are often off campus at galleries, museums, restaurants and just to wander.</p>

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There are in fact all kinds at Columbia and you will not find them posting on this board because they are too busy.

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In my opinion this is true.</p>

9

<p>Elleneast is exactly right and I'd be out wandering today if I did not have a cold after midterms and am just totally run down and exhausted.</p>

<p>Because we do not have classes on Friday ... but that is illusive because you will have discussion groups and labs on Friday ... I work on Fridays and so do most of my friends. After work we always do something and if I am not studying on Sat or Sun I do something new and different or try to. You get your favorites and it takes discipline not to fall back into familiar haunts.</p>

<p>BUT that's the cool thing about my friends. We are all doing something in our chosen field on Fridays or the weekends and that brings new things to do. We share the social aspect of our individual lives.</p>

<p>That is my Columbia experience. In reflection the friends I have chosen are doing what I am doing ... studying hard and putting in a few hours in our fields of interest. I don't want to put too much of a glow on it because I know there are those alleged alums who like to shoot the rosey picture down and shoot me down (not being a real CC student -- see image where I HAD to prove I was a student -- having parents that make less money than current posting recent graduates which was BS -- being nuttier than trail mix -- not knowing the difference between net worth and annual income, etc.)</p>

<p>But really I like it a lot and the image that admissions puts on it misses my reality which is certainly a hybrid of the admissions picture and in my opinion my experience is an enhanced version of the admissions office presentation.</p>

<p>I love my field of interest and I work downtown so after work we try to meet in this area on Fridays. This bubble concept is not our reality at all. I love being a part of my friends' work world though social invitations to things they are doing and try to include them in things I am doing. </p>

<p>I really, really feel like I have one foot in academics which I love and one foot in my chosen field working with the brightest and the best. </p>

<p>I guess you could stay in Morningside Heights if that was your nature. It's just not mine and the friends that seem to work for me don't have that mindset either.</p>

10

<p>Thanks for the replies, I'm pleased with the additional data points that you have collectively provided. </p>

<p>In response to the questions about my background, I'm 26 years old so I'm considering the controversial (well at least on here) GS track. I left high school at an early age to pursue some opportunities in software engineering (which I had a bit of a knack for) and built up about 10 years of career in the field culminating with my last position with a large west coast investment management firm. The pay and benefits were great, but I felt that I was performing way below my potential- so I left with the intention of focusing on a return to school. Since then I've been retakin standardized tests in order to have some data for admissions officers that is in their language. I have a great resume, but I suspect most admissions folks wouldn't know what to do with that.</p>

<p>Currently I'm working in a university neuroscience lab as a programmer building infrastructure for electrophysiological experiments. I'm getting paid very little, but I'm gaining the opportunity to work on very interesting things and I'm earning a recommendation letter which will likely prove invaluable in the admissions process. I'm working with a bunch of grad students, and some day I hope to be one myself- but I need to fill in some gaps first.</p>

<p>I have a number of schools on my radar, but Columbia is particularly interesting to me for a few reasons: </p>

<p>The GS track appears to be an excellent way to skip the community college experience. People often talk about how community college is a wonderful asset- but in my experience the people who have the most to say on the subject have never stepped foot on a community college campus. I strongly believe that the quality of the classroom experience is heavily dependent on the attitudes, backgrounds, ambitions and academic aptitude of those who populate it. (It is this belief that prompted me to start this thread in the first place.) </p>

<p>Secondly, Columbia offers a 3-2 combined plan program, which I think would be fantastic. Many of the schools that I've been looking at offer very focused pure engineering programs which I think are way too lopsided. Balance is everything.</p>

<p>And finally, while it may not be so much of a factor for an 18-19 year old, at 26 location is a big deal. My tolerance for suburban campus bubbles is much lower than that of someone who is jumping into the real world for the first time. I have lived in cities for almost 10 years now and to be honest I'd rather not spend the latter half of my 20s in BFE. </p>

<p>I think I'm going to apply and see how it goes. I've told myself that I'm unwilling to go more than 80k in debt (which is a LOT) for this whole experience, so if they can't offer something that can work within that boundary, the point is moot anyway. There's no point in giving up the cushy, uninteresting high salary job to pursue an education if you only find yourself going right back to the same thing afterwards to pay for it!</p>

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<p>Columbia could use more of you and your friends. I've been able to avoid Friday school for the past three years, though I generally take most of the day to rest following the week that was.</p>

<p>I can think of three class off the top of my head where I've felt partially insulted in being nudged to get outside of Morningside. Two come from the core, and a third comes from an utterly disorganized history class (that maybe Denzera can also speak to).</p>

<p>Art Humanities required two museum trips. Of couse, this varies by section, but at least in my case, the museums were prescribed in advance and billed as a chance to visit two of New York's finest cultural institutions. With a bit of interest on my own part, both would have been visited and perhaps even better appreciated were they not forced upon me in a specified timeframe. The futile, restrictive exercises proved nothing short of detrimental to what could have been intellectually stimulating museum-going experiences. Sadly, I personally know some in that class that have become turned off from greater museum exploration as a result. My Music Humanities section (in progress) has been far more freer thanks to the endless options of classical concerts throughout the city. Again, the exercises have been billed as ways to explore New York's finest cultural institutions, immediately altering the potential for independent appreciation.</p>

<p>Finally, I happened to land a course that required a plethora of urban field trips, with the explicit preface that students generally don't see these sights otherwise. I'm betting that was true for the bulk of the students. For me, it meant trudging all over the city to meet credit and even extra credit requirements while gaining so little, if anything, from the supposed academic adventures.</p>

<p>If you're interested in exploring the city, you'll always have that opportunity, but it's not uncommon to hear of kids unable to get beyond the little bubble upon a hill when everything you need to survive has been acquired for your consumption in such small space.</p>

<p>I'd write more, but I have to get ready for the opera.</p>

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<p>oh, yeah, and the twenty dollar tickets to anything at Lincoln Center ...</p>

<p>including Carmen.</p>

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<p>$16 usually, but I'm getting in tonight for $10. :)</p>

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<p>p.s. carmen was outstanding.</p>

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<p>I dunno, it's just not the same without Rockapella. Oh wait, that was Carmen Sa... yeah, nm.</p>

<p>More seriously, a-dub, you do sound like the classic case calling for a GS degree. Part of me wonders, given your background, whether it wouldn't make sense to directly pursue an MBA, since your work experience speaks for itself so strongly and you seem to have a talent for pursuing your career goals independent of whatever "usual" qualifications some might assume were necessary.</p>

<p>WindowShopping is a curmudgeon and a cynic, but underneath it all he really has enjoyed his Columbia experience. Perhaps not the GS-specific side of it, but overall, I think he would agree that he's gotten what he's paid for.</p>

<p>I agree with you on the community college point - they serve a purpose, but probably not the purpose that you or I would want for ourselves - and the location of columbia can't really be beaten with a stick. WS seems to think we're all recluses (note: he himself spends most of his time in the library), but many others find themselves all over the city and region every weekend. Speaking personally, I love that Columbia is both a bubble and a gateway; you can choose to feel at home in the quad, or go find some adventure. Perhaps the sense of adventure won't be as fresh for a 26-year-old, but I sympathize with wanting to have everything at your fingertips.</p>

<p>There are many 3-2 programs that may appeal to you. The BS/MS track for a CS degree sounds like what you're aiming for, but you may discover a little more breadth in your interests - that is, after all, part of the point.</p>

<p>Finally, I-Bankers do contribute to the real world, but their benefits go disproportionately towards themselves and other wealthy people unless they're properly incentivized. And more than a few end up burning out and becoming high school teachers =)</p>

<p>Thanks for dropping in,</p>

<p>D</p>