<p>My daughter's best friend is choosing between these schools, mostly I think between Columbia and Harvard. She wants to be a science writer. She's a sweet, serious, unpretentious kid and a gifted cellist who would never pick Harvard simply because of name value. She wants best undergraduate education/experience and may even ultimately select Reed if the money there is better. She loves NYC. I've heard rumblings that Harvard is not great for undergraduates and wanted to ferret out for her any information on this. Thoughts? Thanks.</p>
<p>D is currently a freshman at Harvard. Like any other school, Harvard is probably not ideal for everyone, but most of the gripes about Harvard that one commonly reads here and elsewhere just haven't proven true for her. She is VERY happy at Harvard.</p>
<p>As far as we can tell, she hasn't had any close intellectual relationships with any of her profs, but beyond that I think the quality of her undergraduate education has been excellent. Her classes are mostly small and all of them so far taught by profs. The school does not ignore the undergrads or give them short shrift as some like to claim. In fact it seems to me that the undergrads are the princes of the campus - the true Harvardians.</p>
<p>She is good friends with all the kids in her dorm. She finds them all to be a great group of kids - a brilliant, articulate, passionate, witty and fun group to hang around with. They eat together, do things and go places together, etc. I asked her about how happy the kids are, and she estimated that among the 24 kids in her dorm about 4 were unhappy with Harvard for various reasons and the other 20, like her, were very happy.</p>
<p>I'm guessing the difference is that, this being Harvard, 2 or 3 of those 4 unhappy kids will go on to write books or articles about their experience. </p>
<p>I can't speak first hand about MIT or Columbia. I'm sure they are fine schools too. And I must say that prior to D going there I was worried about Harvard too (and for that reason I preferred Princeton), but it is working out wonderfully for her. I wish your D's friend good luck with her decision</p>
<p>Columbia has also been called a school that is not undergraduate oriented in the sense that the school does not hold your hand. You don't need to be outgoing necessarily but you do need to be a self-starter to make it a personal experience. Intro courses can be large and then break down into smaller groups. Many of my daughter's classes have been surprisingly small.</p>
<p>NYC is a big part of Columbia life. There are activities on campus but students often head off into the city during their leisure time. My daughter is a second year student and continues to love it. There are many musicians attending that are not music majors. My daughter is a pianist and takes lessons as a non-major. At her recital last year I was impressed with the performance level of the students (who were mostly non-majors). The majority made my daughter sound like a beginner.</p>
<p>I would recommend that your daughter's friend read up Columbia's large Core Curriculum before making a decision. My daughter has felt that the Core is a wonderful base that she will draw on for the rest of her life. It takes up about 1/3 of an undergraduate career. </p>
<p>I recently read a posting on the Harvard board by a current student (or recent alum) that covered the "Harvard is not undergrad oriented" topic. Harvard sounds very like Columbia in that it can be an amazing school for someone who doesn't need (or want) much stroking. You might want to check out that board.</p>
<p>Your daughter's friend has great choices. Congratulations to her.</p>
<p>She can't lose, really. </p>
<p>My son went through this decision last year. Though most choose Harvard, my son chose Columbia and I know of five students in the first year class who did the same so I'd guess there are even more. He's not a music major, but has been involved in jazz all his life and was drawn to Columbia and NYC not only for the opportunities to play but to hear great music. He also liked the core curriculum and is really enjoying that and the fact that it is a shared experience with the other first years. (They can all gripe about the same book, or fall in love with the same book, at the same time.) Our feeling about Columbia is that because of the core you cannot help getting a great education there. On the other hand, I'm not sure it's any more undergraduate friendly than Harvard and I suspect he would have been just fine there as well, or at Stanford or UCLA, which were the three other final contenders. (And I mean final, as in the day before we mailed off the check.)</p>
<p>He loves Columbia, though he's working his butt off, and says he made the right decision.</p>
<p>The bottom line is really about where she feels most comfortable, most stimulated, most at home, because that's where she will reach out and grab the opportunities. Neither place is a school where the opportunities will reach out and grab her. She might want to participate in student publications, so she should take a look at those and talk to students involved with them. </p>
<p>She obviously should visit both again and hang out if she can.</p>
<p>If I wanted to be a science writer I would be attracted to a lot of things about Columbia. First of all, they have just added science to the core curriculum, which means that while students at other schools are learning massive numbers of facts in their courses in bio, chem, physics, etc., those at Columbia are working with some of the best minds at the university, discovering the <em>connections</em> between different scientific disciplines and the <em>meaning</em> of what is going on at the cutting edge of science. <a href="http://www.college.columbia.edu/students/academics/core/frontiers.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.college.columbia.edu/students/academics/core/frontiers.php</a> (Scroll down to the bottom of that page for relevant links.) </p>
<p>The Miller Theater, on Columbia's campus, features many big-name performers but also offers exciting lectures by science faculty on a wide range of fascinating topics: <a href="http://www.millertheater.com/list.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.millertheater.com/list.html</a></p>
<p>The presence of Brian Greene on Columbia's campus might be reason alone for a future science writer to attend. He is an example of a scientist whose work is widely read by generalists. <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/03/11/brianGreene.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/03/11/brianGreene.html</a> You take a class with somebody like him, you do an internship in publishing -- what better place than NYC? -- and before you know it, you're on your way. </p>
<p>Like any great university, Columbia has courses in the sciences, but it offers opportunities to take a broader perspective that I think are pretty special. </p>
<p>Neither of my kids even goes there, btw! I was so impressed when we visited.</p>
<p>I've been a science writer with an MIT degree, and would vote for MIT or Reed with those choices. Why MIT? Fantastic science core; great science writing program; enormous credibility as a science writer once you graduate. (No one talks down to you when you have an MIT degree.)</p>
<p>Why Reed? Because Reed requires a thesis for graduation and has good undergraduate sciences. The thesis, however, represents a major body of work, already completed, that can be a publishable work upon graduation or simply a great addition to the portfolio.</p>
<p>Disclosure: son at MIT, daughter at Reed, MIT grad ('75).</p>
<p>We are at Harvard today and asked very directly about undergrad focus, especially from the students we talked with. We found nothing to indicate a lack of commitment to undergraduate education. The freshman expository writing classes are taught by published authors in sections limited to 12. Other classes range from 1 student to two full professors, up to several hundred in a very popular lecture course with discussion sections held with TFs in 10-12 size. Many of the TFs are post grad and many are grad students. Our student guide said that many of her TFs are now full professors at other schools. We came in looking for those issues to compare with Yale. We came away with a good feeling about Harvard. Harvard has a concentration in History of Science (Plato to NATO they call it). It sounds like a good base for science writing.</p>