Columbia College vs. School of General Studies

<p>If you defer admission for a year is there any way you can enter the college?</p>

<p>Yeah, the FAQ says there is, ieatglue. Check it out.</p>

<p>Thank you for the informaiton, Elleneast.</p>

<p>I really hope that your daughter continues to enjoy the benefits of the Columbia education. It is indeed a fabulous school even from a third person viewpoint.</p>

<p>Thank you, Mr. Sambouc's father.</p>

<p>And good luck to your son's future endeavors in whatever he may pursue.</p>

<p>I will certainly pass your advice to my student who has just decided to go ahead to pursue the Columbia education by sending the required deposit today. :)</p>

<p>I took upon the task of "interviewing" a couple GS students on campus hoping that it would help me better understand the relations that CC students have with GS students. Time and time again I kept hearing the same concerns from GS-S. Mainly that they are perceived as inferior by CC-S and even by some Barnard-S. This was the gripe 8 out of 12 GS-S I spoke to had about CC-S in general. To be fair, I ask 9 CC-S what they thought of GS-S and 6 had some rather unpleasant comments. The notion was that GS-S were not up to par with them in wits. 1 did not know what GS was, and the other two had very polite remarks.</p>

<p>I find it disturbing that this is the attitude on campus. And it seems to me that it has always been this way. It’s puzzling why the school does not take measures to clarify the facts; that the entrance requirements are different for CC-S vs GS-S ultimately because they are different types of students. If anything I would probably venture out to say that GS-S could actually teach CC-S a thing or two about the “real world” since that is the main attribute differentiating the two – Experience! </p>

<p>Is time for GS-S to stop walking with their heads down.</p>

<p>but the question i am interested to ask is whether such superficial superiority complex by CC students is such that it would induce the CC students to actually discriminate against the GS students in an open manner.</p>

<p>You know, "Oh, you are a GS student....um, no I am sorry, but I have other thing to do on Friday, I cant hang out with you."</p>

<p>We all know that there is a certain degree of superiority complex against others, such as Columbia over NYU, Stanford over Berkeley, and Harvard over Yale, etc. But such complex is so petty that we can just laugh it off instaneously.</p>

<p>thus, compared to these types of "harmless" superiority complex, how is the campus vibe against GS students?</p>

<p>a quick glipmse into the "Faces of GS" site ( <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gssc/faces/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gssc/faces/&lt;/a> ) reveals just that DaRaverLA - discrimination!
It's an issue that just about every single student on those interviews describes.
It's a true shame.</p>

<p>i dont really face any discrimination. perhaps because im only 23; however, you do have to take into concern that regular 18 to 19 yrs old will discriminate people that are twice their age</p>

<p>Um, honestly, who cares? It's all COLUMBIA.</p>

<p>Who cares what snotty nosed 18 or 19 year olds think anyway?</p>

<p>How could they really discriminate? By talking amongst themselves?</p>

<p>I don't think any of the CC kids have the moxie to stand up to a 27 year old GS student, not even after 5 drinks. </p>

<p>Youknowwhatimsayin'?</p>

<p>I'm in my reading days (and heading off to Butler in a few seconds...) about to complete my first semester at GS, and have to agree that most CC students won't stand up to a 27 year old GS'er, especially seeing as GS students tend to dominate the discussions of the classes I've taken. They're generally much more motivated and their real-world experience infused with the classroom experience dwarfs those who went through the more standard school-to-college approach who tend to offer nowhere near as much. Someone said to me the other day that GS could be thought of as a "school for transfers" and I think he's right to an extent, but at the end of the day, "Columbia University" goes on the resume. Children, it's Columbia. The openness of our requirements allows us to complete a core fitting our needs, and if we so choose, can go the same direction as the CC kids (which I'm doing). The beauty of the school is that they literally leave it up to us. Another huge plus is that GS students register BEFORE CC/SEAS (because the students have so much going on outside of school, they get first crack at registration to make sure they get classes that fit into their schedule). That helped me considerably a few weeks ago, getting into some of the most highly sought after classes on campus.</p>

<p>Having our own restricted (swipe access) 24-hour study area in Lewisohn Hall is pretty neat too.</p>

<p>Before I forget, I should also add that <em>as far as I know</em> professors have no way of knowing to which division students are a part of unless they confront them with that information, or bother to look us up on the directory. Frankly, professors don't care. I don't buy any of the "GS students are second class, second rate" and tend to squash the baseless arguments whenever they arise. My University Writing instructor (a mandatory first semester core class for <em>everyone</em> -- CC/SEAS/GS; however the university offers CC/SEAS sections separately from GS due primarily to age and the inclusiveness of the course itself) said that GS students were much more talkative in class and much more motivated to do the work, and generally produced better pieces of writing throughout the semester mostly because they cared about what they were doing as as opposed to the CC/SEAS courses he'd taught in the past who generally trudged through the work more interested in the grade than getting something out of it.</p>

<p>Um.. obviously someone is very insecure of him/herself.</p>

<p>Here at Columbia, I have never heard of people mentioning GS in a negative light, ever. No one cares, really. In the end, the people that are complaining are the ones that are jealous that others enjoy the same advantages they do at a higher acceptance rate.</p>

<p>My daughter is in her first year at Barnard College. She says that all her classes (except first year English, a Barnard-only course) have students from BC, CC and GS. No one cares what school you're from. You can't even tell what school someone is from unless you actually ask them (except some of the older students obviously have to be from GS).</p>

<p>Everyone is doing the same (difficult) work.</p>

<p>My daughter really admires the GS students because she says they bring so much to the class discussions. They're more interesting and more grounded than some of their younger classmates - less apt to get crazy and stressed-out over grades.</p>

<p>She loves the diversity of Columbia classes. Age and experience is another type of diversity.</p>

<p>I just thought I post this link to a page with feedback from Columbia students: <a href="http://www.studentsreview.com/pdftmp/NY_Columbia_University_in_the_City_of_New_York.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.studentsreview.com/pdftmp/NY_Columbia_University_in_the_City_of_New_York.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I am amazed at the mix, mostly negative comments about the school.</p>

<p>I did not sense a lot of negative sentiments from the students about columbia. From the review,I felt that columbia is not for everybody. A sample of 40 students is too small to infer any significant opinion of the entire population. I also think that there are good side and bad side and you should make you decision base on your intended area of studies, the core and new york.</p>

<p>General Studies is like Extension School at Harvard University
or
General Studies program at University of Pennsylvania</p>

<p>from what he/she posted in another thread about this, mdx49 is wrong</p>

<p>mdx49 is clearly an idiot. The general studies students at both penn and columbia fulfill the same exact requirements as their traditional arts and sciences counterparts.</p>

<p>Can you show me the web site which shows General Studies reqirements are same as traditional arts & sciences requirements ?</p>

<p>I go to GS. We take all our classes with the Columbia College kids. The only difference is the mandatory writing workshop known as University writing which GS students take together. </p>

<p>click on this:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.gs.columbia.edu/index.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.gs.columbia.edu/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>