<p>Hi guys.
I am a bit bummed about the Columbia Core curriculum.
Did I get this right, that you can choose NOTHING in the beginning?
When are you finally able to drop subjects?
Could anybody PLEASE post a typical timetable of the first and second year?
I'd really apreciaty that and didn't find anything like that.</p>
<p>THX!!!
SoWhat</p>
<p>Try this site: [The</a> Core Curriculum | Columbia College](<a href=“http://www.college.columbia.edu/core]The”>The Core Curriculum | Columbia College)</p>
<p>the core comprises about 1/4-1/3 of your class at columbia. It’s easier if you place out of your language requirement. In their first two semesters, most kids do 6/9 of their classes in the core. So literature humanities x2, frontiers of science, university writing and usually a language course or two / global core (history/culture of one major world civilization). You can, in theory easily take 10 classes your freshman year and chose what 6 of those should be. So there is ample room for exploration. just know that by the end of your four years, ~10-15 classes need to be core classes. You can place out of the 4-semester language requirement, and core classes count towards a major, like global core can count towards a history major, science requirements can be filled in with vector calculus which counts for econ. etc.</p>
<p>I hated the idea of the core when I came to campus, I thought how oppressive, how annoying. But the classes are all doable and fun because everyone has to do them, so your class isn’t filled with experts, there’s no competitive disadvantage from doing them. At brown for example if you want to study philosophy your class will be 70%+ philosophy majors, which can make the class intimidating and annoying. The fact that everyone takes it means the core too thinks about how to be inclusive with their courses. </p>
<p>In contemporary civilization, a sophmore year long philosophy course, you read about economic theories, scientific theories, political theory (lots), art, ethics, justice, knowledge etc. It’s easy to be engaged even if you aren’t really passionate about philosophy. If you are finding a class annoying, there and empathizers whom you can whine to. Most people end up loving the core irrespective of major.</p>
<p>I hated art and art history in high school. I’m in art hum right now, my class is average and my prof is good but nothing spectacular for art hum profs. It’s the only class this semester which I haven’t missed once.</p>
<p>How many classes do average students take at once? 3-4? 4-5? Might it be a good idea to go easy for the first semester to make sure I’m adjusting easily?</p>
<p>min of 4, max of 6, some people do 7 cuz they can. I would suggest 4-5 for CC freshmen and 5 for seas freshmen first sem.</p>
<p>Five is average. If you’re worried about adjusting to college level work, take four your first semester. I came from a strong public school, but still felt I was behind a lot of the other students here. I took four my first semester and had time to adjust, and had absolutely no problem graduating on time.</p>
<p>I’m actually really excited about the Core. I’m pretty sure even if it wasn’t the rule, I would still do it.</p>
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<p>it’s important to note that part of the core’s value comes because it is a rule. It is not the same as taking equivalent courses at a comparable university. The core bring in kids from different majors and vastly different perspectives (political, social, economic, career, ethical views) and puts them in a single classroom. As i said before, there is no competitive disadvantage to taking these classes and finally everyone does it, so there both a theme connecting everyone in the student body and they are all all given this base level of knowledge and analysis so it makes debate both more fluid and more engaging.</p>
<p>hey, are we gonna be getting a copy of the Illiad or something?</p>
<p>valentino - you get your copy either during the summer advising sessions that they host throughout the country, or in the mail. i carry my illiad around with me everywhere i travel (wow i’m a geek).</p>
<p>Confidentialcoll - What is a language requirement and how do you place out of it? Thanks for your reply.</p>
<p>i love Columbia, but i too was disappointed when i heard we would be forced to take those Core classes. </p>
<p>that was the one thing i hated about high school. to maintain a good GPA/courseload, you were basically forced to take classes in subjects like History, English, Government, etc. i hated going to those classes, and i was always more interested in my math/science courses. </p>
<p>the one thing i vowed to myself is that when i went to college, i would finally take the classes I wanted to take and that I was actually interested in.</p>
<p>i guess i’ll get used to it, but it’s probably the one main reservation i have about Columbia. i need to get more opinions and read up on it some more.</p>
<p>@inquiring, during orientation they have language tests and they place you at your performance level. sem 1 = beginner, sem two = ~1 year previous experience with language, sem 3 = 2-3 years of experience, sem 4 = 4-5 years of experience, place out entirely = more than 5 years of experience. The tests check your level not your experience, but I’m making a general correlation between learning stuff in HS and learning it at Columbia. </p>
<p>@blu: you can’t compare the core to highschool required classes, the whole philosophy is different. The core is not there to teach you pure memorization material as much as it is to make you a critical writer, thinker, arguer, analyst. I promise you I hated those high school classes, but I enjoy the core, and didn’t think I would. The core is all about discussing ideas influential in the past / affecting what we believe, see, hear and read today. In high school you need to do well on the test, for the core a large portion of your grade is class participation, the classes are driven by discussion and debate. It’s usually 1/2 professor speak, 1/2 students speak.</p>
<p>Cheer up about the Core. It is very enriching and will help you in your postgraduate quests, either on the job market or in graduate school. I’m in graduate school and a lot of the theoretical foundations we discuss now were learned in my LAC’s core classes and are covered in the Core at Columbia. The purpose of university is not just to allow you to take whatever you want, but to shape you into an intellectual and a leader, and Columbia attempts to do that with the Core. The curriculum is supposed to turn you into a thinker, a well-rounded individual, a liberal arts student.</p>
<p>And all the skills you will learn in the Core are helpful for job market, too. There’s a reason Columbia graduates are prized as workers. They learn how to think, to synthesize information, to construct logical arguments, to analyze and evaluate works. The Core is the foundation of that instruction.</p>