As someone considering applying to Columbia, I’d like to get more of a picture of what the school is like “behind the scenes” (ie, not something I could just learn from the website). Please help me learn more about your school. Thanks!
It really depends on what you’re applying for. For me, my favorite thing is probably the lack of pressure to do any specific thing or live any specific life - as in the social life here doesn’t push you into a specific track the way it does at, say, Stanford (based on my friends’ experiences) - it basically lets you live the life you want with the people you want. I have some great friends here, who also happen to be very talented and thoughtful, not in an in-your-face kind of way, if you know what I mean. Besides that, I’ve of course had some great professors and some earth-shattering classes, but that’s an admissions packet thing, and of course not all of my professors have been G R E A T great. One thing they don’t tell you is that unless your major is super intense (think premed) or there’s some other special circumstance you probably won’t have any classes on Friday - the weekly three-day weekend can be a boon or it can sort of make you lose track of time a little.
As a music major, the most disappointing thing has been lack of one-on-one interaction with faculty. The graduate music program here is one of the best, but that quality doesn’t really trickle down to the undergrad level, especially because I’m a little intimidated by the grad students, who are all really good. In summary, I’m sure I could be getting a better music education somewhere else - this doesn’t apply for all majors, but it does for artists mainly (you probably want a conservatory or trade school if you want to be an artist). Facilities can also kind of suck at times. They’ve taken a bit too long to fix the dryers in our dorm, which were damaged in a fire a little while ago. We don’t have enough practice rooms. Other than that, I’ve had the thought before that I might be having more fun somewhere else, and from what I understand the dating scene kind of sucks ass, but I don’t think there’s much ground to the first claim, and it’s not like I’m really trying that hard.
Other people have had way more negative experiences than me, and some have had more positive experiences, so I’ll just leave it at that.
I asked DS about this when he graduated, and as a morning person, he liked the fact that the campus was very peaceful and quiet at 7AM when he would leave his room and go out for a walk, or occasionally meet friends for breakfast. But he said the same thing was also a negative, in that many of his other friends did not like to get up until just before 10. As a morning person, he found himself dragging at 9-10-11 PM when friends invited him to go out for a late dinner.
Now that he is out in the working world, he says he misses the ability to take an hour nap at 3PM. 