Hi. For any students/parents in the know, on the spectrum of collaborative<>competitive, where do students at Columbia College fall? Obviously it was competitive to get into CC, but in my experience some highly selective colleges still manage to have a more supportive or at least lower key vibe (people all work hard but not in competition) while others seem to foster individual competitiveness (looking at you UC Berkeley).
Thanks.
What major? What clubs are of interest? Career goals?
Insights @blossom?
Majoring in Classics or French Lit? Highly collaborative. Majoring in bio or another “typical” premed? more competitive. Pretty much like any other U which attracts an intense and accomplished student body. There are a LOT of kids at Columbia who see it as an on-ramp (medicine, law, Wall Street) but still a core of kids who are there to explore philosophy and history and urban planning and anthropology-- etc.
What is the kid interested in?
Thanks @Mwfan1921 and @blossom. Interested in physics, math and music, probably in that order. Currently assuming ongoing studies in grad school, though a lot could change.
How about in SEAS, specifically CS major?
My daughter was at Barnard College of Columbia University, taking the same classes, using the same libraries and dining halls, sharing the same facilities, working in the same clubs and interest groups… attending the same parties, having friends from the various undergraduate colleges.
She almost did not enroll, because she was worried about the perceived Ivy League character and typical student, and feared she might not have a normal college experience. On accepted student day she met other prospective students and realized that most everyone was “cooking with water” too and she herself was as “typical” a student as everyone else.
These are no longer young teens in high school - generally people don’t have to compete with each other. It’s too big of an environment and people are spread over too many courses - after the first semester, chances are none of your room mates will even be in the same courses.
Yes, most are high-achieving students and they will continue to consciously balance “fun” with deadlines, just as they have done thus far - but there IS time for fun. If anything they will compete with themselves, not with one another.
Part of it is also that first-year students are still coming from the “boot camp” high school mindset, with its strict rules designed to “get you ready for college”. That’s over!
It will take them a semester or two to realize that things might be much less uptight at college, than what they were lead to believe. Many Columbia U professors will be understanding, more than open to reasonable requests, e.g., for deadline extensions - and that you can actually walk into a professor’s office hours (or get together with their TAs) and get very helpful, task specific assistance, as many times as you want.
So the early anxiety will eventually give way to “settling in” to the new groove. That doesn’t mean one can “slack off”, or “work less”, but many “stressors” are no longer “handed down”, but are likely self-imposed (= time management).
Through the years my daughter had some courses with first-years and other students mixed together - and as the first-year she learned from those other students on her team, when “chilling it” was an option, or, in later years, her helping “moderate” the occasional over-anxious first-year.
In any case (and maybe it’s different for certain majors after Sophomore year, e.g. competing for certain lab/research assistant spots), I never heard her talk about having to “compete” with a fellow undergraduate student - but she often talked about how someone else in her class had been helpful because of their particular niche for something.