<p>"Plus, I'm not particularly keen on the two. For one, you can study subjects in Core in every other top university as long as you've got the drive, and you come out as thoroughly 'enlightened' as any Columbia student. As for NYU, I've heard that it dilutes the atmosphere in the university"</p>
<p>ahh, but the core is not just to enlighten you, it does that primarily and better than any other place i might add because it's structured, lit hum flows into CC, and there is a proper order to the humanity classes that you take, structuring the order of classes and making them gel into one another is one key benefit of the core. Also everyone does it, this has three-four distinct advantages:
1) you always have something common to discuss.
2) if you hate the class, others are in the same boat, and it makes for better bonding
3) everyone is exposed to these ideas, and it makes your peers too 'enlightened', college is mostly about the peers
4) there is no competitive disadvantage to taking the class, at penn you'd take a lit class primarily with english majors, and doing well will be more difficult there than doing lit hum at columbia where there are all the sorts of majors.</p>
<p>as for being in NYC (not NYU as you mentioned), Columbia isn't engulfed by the city like nyu is, the city far more accentuates campus by offering opportunities than it detracts from campus life. it has a stand alone campus, in which 90% of the people walking around, laying on the lawns/playing frisbee etc are students - and so maintains the college atmosphere that you find at more remote schools. our athletics are not great, this is what dampens school spirit, not in the least bit the city. the city gives opportunities for you and a random group of friends to go off campus and do something cool.</p>
<p>new york is hardly the dreary metropolitan area that it was 10 years ago, it's bustling, much greener, more pedestrian, cyclist and tourist friendly with better public transportation much much safer, and more cultural, lots of languages, and community and public events like plays in central park, free dance lessons in the summer. to give you an idea, when crime in most other parts of the country is rising, and housing losing value, crime is consistently declining in new york and real estate booming in manhattan. there is a weirdness about nyc that welcomes anyone and makes anyone feel at home. Even if you aren't particularly weird, diversity is a good thing. i've been to many cities and none has forstered diversity as much.</p>
<p>nyc aside, one would want to go to columbia for columbia. so the poly sci and econ depts are very strong, subjectively speaking, students on campus are more internationally aware and politically opinionated than at other places. the college also gets some unbelievably high up world leaders (and slightly less important figures far more frequently) to speak on campus. all the econ profs that i've had, without exception have been stellar. The dept has nobel prize winners and recognized researchers for the name, research, recognition and funding, but they make sure undergrads get rivetting professors, and enthusiastic post-phd rising stars. </p>
<p>penn culture i feel is too skewed toward being pre-professional. regardless of whether that fits your bill, it is endearing and beneficial to be around a variety of different people. people, who want to direct a movie, wannabe musicians, philosophically inclined students, the pre- meds, the pre laws, pre-journalism, the ibanking/consulting wall street crowd, the students who want to go into science research, the book worms and classics majors, the hardcore engineers and computer scientists, economics freaks, and those with domestic and international political aspirations, (the rare wannabe athlete at times :p) - the list goes on. Now every college including penn would have such a student, but i mention these because i have met each of these types of people in abundance. and no group dominates opinion, each is present, contributes to campus diversity and is well represented. </p>
<p>columbia doesn't gather at large events and chant in tune, but ask people if they're happy/proud to be at columbia, they'll overwhelmingly say yes, and then ask if they'd rather be elsewhere.</p>