<p>hey toastmaster, i am starting to notice a trend here so that is why i am responding. students are making really widely stereotypical decisions based on student social life that I think are off. second, i will try to convince you why the core is the second coming.</p>
<p>the supposed myth that there is such thing as a better ‘social life.’ Now, even if we could measure to some degree who has a better or worse one you have to remember that both Brown and Columbia pick students from the same pot. Yeah we like to on the Columbia side enhance stereotypes of students being intellectual or entrepreneurial, but in reality we have every kind of student on here, as does Brown. And if you want to have fun, you will have fun, trust me. Particularly when you come during DOC you will find columbia to be in massive fun mode because Bacchanal is going on during the same time, and you will see everything and everyone doing tons of things that it will just be an awesome vibe (and most students I know look back fondly at DOC as the thing that cinched it for them). I think though that if you believe in the stereotype that Brown is less serious, whereas Columbia is the intellectual hardnosed school that you can get lost in the reality - these schools attract all kinds of students. And at both it doesn’t matter how great the social offerings are, if you are an awkward person - you wont have friends. At Columbia I had great friends, I made incredible relationships, I dated, I got dumped, I did things I shouldn’t do again, and things I wont repeat, I went to clubs, I played soccer weekly, I complained about the snow. I had a great experience that defies the supposed stereotype of Columbia. In any case, it isn’t fun to be a stereotype.</p>
<p>Columbia has a curriculum. Brown does not. Haha, I kid. I think that both are reasonable frameworks for studying, and both play to strengths of students. To some each school up I would say that Brown’s education is about personal choice, Columbia is about engagement. Choice is a compelling concept for an 18 year old student who has been compelled to study subjects. It essentially says that you have the ability to decide for yourself what you wish to learn. But in doing so it aims to separate learning into subject matter and this is its greatest fault. Even if you want to be a chemist your whole life, if all you ever do is chemistry besides the few other courses you self-select, then you wont necessarily will be apt to see relationships across completely unrelated disciplines Columbia is about engagement in the sense that it believes that the subject matter itself is not what is most important, but rather your approach to learning is your primary choice. By learning coursework in common you come to realize your own academic strengths in ways you had never done before, and you come to see how you can most effectively contribute to the conversation and the production of ideas. In the most interesting way this is the most modern and novel form of pedagogy, that insures you will have small classes and close relationships with your peers academically across departments. It wont ever be “hot” for students, they wont sweat with envy because it is not an educational experience that is both easy to sell and self-evident. In reality it is an education that requires deeper thought to understand and deeper thought to take advantage of it. </p>
<p>So you have a great curriculum, you have a quality Chemistry program where you can take graduate courses as an ugrad, do all the research you want, and a solid social fabric that though more heterogeneous than other Ivies is still cut from the same cloth. It is a solid experience that I think you should consider. Best to you.</p>