<p>Can someone please explain how I can figure out if Columbia's core cirrc is right for me?</p>
<p>There have been a lot of threads about the Core and its workload. A simple search will turn up tons of them. I suggest reading through those threads to see if what you learn appeals to you. </p>
<p>But on a very basic level, I have to ask, are you excited by the syllabi? (If you haven’t already, go dig around on the Columbia website. There’s a page dedicated to the Core, and you can download the syllabi.) Lit Hum and CC are basically the core of the Core, and they’re full-year sequences. They also have substantial workloads, so you will most likely spend a lot of time on these two classes in your first two years. You don’t have to love the reading list, but even if literature and philosophy aren’t your cup of tea, you should at least be willing to explore these areas. </p>
<p>There was a thread this time last year where we counted the number of credits required for the Core. Including the language requirement (which many people place out of), it came out to 60-something credits. That’s more than most majors, so it’s a huge commitment.</p>
<p>Do you have a passion for learning the crux of western civilization? Are you a thinker? Do you like to read classical texts and admire artwork?</p>
<p>If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you might be well-suited to the Core Curriculum (but not Columbia’s English department, as evidenced by your poor spelling).</p>
<p>Hey KB, </p>
<p>Great Question, and yeah it is a difficult one to figure out, but it is also the crux of the reason to go to (or not to go to) Columbia.</p>
<p>I will break it down for you, and what is unique about Columbia and let you make up your mind.</p>
<p>The first thing to figure out is why are you going to college. In general I gather there are three main motivations.</p>
<p>1) At College you will study something that will become your career. Preprofessional track.
2) At College you can network to go on to bigger and better things. College as a network.
3) Learning for learning’s sake. A modernist ideal of the university and education as having a purpose unto itself. At the core of this is the concept of the “Liberal Arts”</p>
<p>Most students have to some degree all of the three, though the most common is the 1st. Think of all the students you know who want to become doctor’s and know that at 17, and so they want to choose a school that has a “good premed curriculum.” Or consider anyone you know who immediately considers a Business degree as meaning something concrete, when in reality Business as a career many times deviates from what can be learned in the classroom. In the end, you can go to any number of places and have one of these three desires satisfied to some ends. There are some students who want all three - and they tend to gravitate toward leading universities and liberal arts colleges. </p>
<p>So I guess to get to the heart of the matter. Columbia’s Core. There are quite a few other schools that have Core’s and I think most noticeably you have St. John’s and Chicago. St. John’s is pretty extreme on the love of learning side. Columbia is more about the academic experience. Chicago I would say is mostly about the rigor. Columbia I think does the most to explain the Core as a preprofessional idea and in doing so really tries to mend the love of learning side with this is something that is actually practical. Pedagogically the core courses are taught in a way to maximize three ideas - encountering diverse opinions, building an academic community and the development of necessary soft skills. The first sounds simple enough, but it is curious in college how easy people can segment themselves into their own major, own cliques; and the Core purposefully tries to bring the scientist and the philosopher to understand the importance of each other. The Core offers something that all students can say they participated in together and in common - something they can love together, hate together, struggle with together and ultimately concur. As a historical legacy, something that has existed over 90 years, there is a power to this idea and you feel part of something greater than yourself. And if you talk to most alums the core was the most ‘impactful’ experience they had at Columbia. And it is something that only Columbians can really say they took LitHum and CC together going back so long. (It is not like at Brown you can celebrate doing nothing in common 
) And the third idea of developing soft skills is something I think that Columbia effectively communicates. For the rest of your life you will probably here things like skill sets, and people taking jobs just to gain a serious of skills that will impress future employers. Whereas your major will certainly give you plenty of “hard skills” in math and science, or humanities and arts, most of those skills are useless without effective communication skills, understanding and negotiating different points of view, being able to form relationships between genres and industries (to look at a Monet painting and understand why it is similar to a Debussy piece). Columbia’s Core does that effectively.</p>
<p>I would say it gives you three things - it makes you smarter, it makes you more aware of things around you, and gives you balls to develop opinions on all things and be unafraid of speaking up and disagreeing with a professor. To me that is a valuable experience.</p>
<p>Now closer to your question. I don’t really believe there is an absolute reason why you would be better or worse for the Core. I think you have to want to have it as an experience, and so you should understand its benefits and why it is important at Columbia. What are your priorities? I think yeah it is a commitment, but unlike Demeter, I hope you consider college overall as a commitment that in many ways has very little to do with your future. I think you should also consider that there is a way in which preprofessional track by itself is not sufficient in making you a better citizen and smarter in whatever future you wish to have. If you just take business courses and nothing in philosophy or ethics, then how are you to be a good businessperson? Columbia is very much about interdisciplinary skills and seeing problems on multiple planes. Other univerisities (I would say Ivys and other like places for the most part) have similar emphases, but few have it so central to the mission of the undergraduate experience. Columbia is about people learning from each other. That is why I really love what it does.</p>
<p>So after you hear all these opinions, and you can peel back the layers of everyone’s biases. If Columbia excites you as an experience unto itself, and the accoutrement of having great internship and career placement is a nice advantage too. Then I would say do it. In this regard I am with Demeter - you have to want to jump in. If you don’t, well first you wont enjoy it, and second you will not do well in it. If all you want to do is study one thing, Columbia is not the place for you. But if you like the idea of learning a lot of things and forming relationships between disparate topics, rock on.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t believe that college is only for preprofessional purposes, so I apologize if I gave off that impression in my first post. I meant to say that like anything else you do in college, if you’re not excited or challenged by it, then you’re wasting your time and energy (regardless of whether it relates to your future or not). </p>
<p>Also, I believe visiting students are allowed to sit in on Core classes. KB24yo, I’m assuming you’re a future applicant, so if you have the time and money, I encourage you to sit in on a Core class. While each section of the Core is a unique experience, sitting in on one class will give you a better idea of what to expect. You’ll also get the chance to talk to current Lit Hum/CC students before and after.</p>
<p>Thank you guys so much for the information!! If anyone has anything else, I’d be greatly appreciated :)</p>