<p>Hi Nil:</p>
<p>First I have written a lot on here, so feel free to read my other posts, ask questions, etc. Also feel free not to believe what I have to say. I hope you do, but part of being a good ‘consumer’ is being skeptical. </p>
<p>I was a scholar at Columbia and so I can say that without question being a scholar helped me form relationships with professors that eventually led to research, led to grants, and ultimately led to me going to grad school. As a JJ scholar you will have special access to professors within and outside of Columbia, and many working in biomedical fields. They often take on scholars to do research or know someone who would. </p>
<p>I like to point out that at Columbia your experiences are constantly bordering on the absurd - I remember being a wide-eyed first-year shaking hands with every major figure in the world of business in politics just a few weeks into school at this special luncheon, I remember the first time I discovered Tim Robbins’s The Backroom and fell in love with perfect cocktials, or the time that I booed a drunk comedian off stage and she went after my friend; Having soccer class every Friday up at Baker Field and being able to look out and see where the Harlem and Hudson rivers meet; Running through Riverside Park Promenade and feeling like I was in the most beautiful place on earth. Yeah, I love New York. I love it in ways you only can if you go to school there and are able to be a mixture of both naive and curious. The older you get, curiousity goes away, work takes over, but being 18-22 and having literally an entire city as your playground is unquestionably amazing. I love New York in a special way because I went to college there.</p>
<p>Having Columbia’s community as your home base makes that experience that much better. It gives you a place you can call home, a patchwork of buildings centered around a central open area. The steps, the roof of IAB, the basement of Lerner, the lounge in John Jay - they are congregation places, places for contemplation, work, fun, and each and every one of them has a special memory. I remember when I was a first-year and I was participating in this event for Bacchanal and was able to hang out with Ben Stein down in the depths of Lerner’s basement. You will find spaces that take on new meaning and become as much home as your parent’s house may be now. It is also hard not to avoid the history of the place - the goosebumps I still get every time I walk through the gates at 116th street, when I look up at Journalism and imagine Lou Gehrig smashing the windows; the words of Ginsburg on my lips every time I close my eyes and remember the old West End. You are constantly chased by memory, by excitement, by contemplation. The relaxation of Morningside Heights works well with the hustle of the city, they feed off of each other - so that you can have the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>I hope you choose Columbia. It is truly, utterly fascinating. If you want to go to the school that will challenge and change you the most: I think Columbia is that place. That is my take, I will let others fill in more details, and please read up on the Penn and JHU boards. Great schools, can’t go wrong. And I know that the Penn board has great champions who will try their best to convince you, definitely talk with them.</p>