<p>Even though it has the smallest undergraduate enrollment of all the Ivies, it seems to have this reputation - make it on your own, seek out your own help, no hand holding whatsoever - relative to the other Ivies.</p>
<p>I really love the other aspects of the school - the core, the location, etc.</p>
<p>For those with first hand knowledge, is that reputation well deserved?</p>
<p>I've never attended any other school so I don't know how it is relative to other colleges, but yes, you're expected to be independent here. If you don't take the initiative you will miss out on a great deal. For example, it is possible to go through your entire freshman year without having spoken to your academic advisor. That being said, Columbia does have a lot of resources, but it's up to you to find out and take part in them.</p>
<p>How much of an interest do the prof's take in you? Is it the case that you'll only get personal attention if you make a concerted effort to seek them out?</p>
<p>Yes, you have to go to office hour and such to get personalized attention. But I think this is pretty much the case at other colleges - it's definitely not like high school.</p>
<p>My son's a sophomore and I don't get a sense of sink or swim at all. I do think the freshman/sophomore advising is almost non-existent. The advisors are there -- but my son never saw his after the first meeting because he said he didn't find it useful. That seems to be as much the student culture as the university culture. Once you've declared a major, you are assigned to a professor in the department and then it really depends on the department. I can't tell you yet how much mentoring there will be, because he only declared a week or so ago. </p>
<p>It's a research university and the atmosphere is not the same as a LAC. However, I can tell you that when my kid's made the effort, his professors have been accessible and that most of them (he's only told me a couple of exceptions) really seem to care about their teaching. His first semester, the math prof took students who signed up to lunch at the faculty club in small groups. His first year Lit Hum instructor (a teaching fellow rather than a prof, but great) got together with him for coffee a few weeks ago. The core classes are 22 students or less, and students usually stay in them with the same instructor for the whole year. His Contemporary Civilization instructor last semester took them to a hookah bar for bonding. He e-mailed a physics prof about a research possibility and got an immediate and positive response. When he got mono, he did contact his advisor who sent out a notice to all his profs, and several of them told him they had received it, so they at least knew him by name. </p>
<p>My sense is that there are a ton of resources available there that he has yet to take advantage of (career center being one) because he hasn't spent the time to find them all. But, whenever he has made the effort, RAs, TAs, the health service, professors, have all responded.</p>
<p>
[quote]
it is possible to go through your entire freshman year without having spoken to your academic advisor
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</p>
<p>I wish I hadn't spoken to her incompetent ass freshman year....or ever for that matter....FYSAC advisors have no clue what they are doing, especially when it comes to SEAS.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Once you've declared a major, you are assigned to a professor in the department and then it really depends on the department
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</p>
<p>I'll be a bit nicer in this comment only because I'm taking a class with the guy this semester.....but he seemed uninterrested in my existence and doesnt even care to learn my name.</p>
<p>I agree completely with everything that Shraf said. My first/second year advisor gave me wrong information and I had to read the school rules and correct her stupidity. And, my major advisor was uninterested in doing anything more than the minimum (signing my program every semester).</p>
<p>There are many profs who you can have a great relationship with. However, there isn't a forced infrastructure to match you up with that person. If you like a prof, you'll be able to get to know him/her, go to his office hours, get involved in research with him, develop a mentoring relationship, etc. That happens naturally at Columbia, as plenty of faculty are interested in their students. The forced advising "system" stuff, however, doesn't work.</p>
<p>Shraf -- Bummer. The one prof my son said cared less about his teaching was in an engineering department at SEAS. On the other hand, a prof in a different SEAS department met with him on a Saturday to talk about the field, even though he's not a SEAS student. I hope you can find a different prof to act as unofficial advisor.</p>
<p>I see I cross-posted with Columbia2002, but his advice seems pretty much the same.</p>
<p>The experiences of sac's son, Shraf and myself aren't really particular to Columbia or SEAS. In <em>any</em> math, science or engineering department at a research university, you'll get a number of faculty who don't speak english and/or have poor social skills and/or don't care about teaching and students. That's the nature of the system. You have to seek out the profs who are interested in their students.</p>
<p>In SEAS and especially in my major, you dont really need an advisor...its all layed out for you online in those extensive tables in the bulletin. the only reason i ever talked to my advisors was for integrating premed into my curriculum....but even for that they'v been useless since i didnt find out that BME lab replaces Bio Lab until 3 weeks into taking bio lab when i was told by one of my peers.....that totally messed up my first semester junior year schedule since i wanted to take 6 courses and had to drop bio lab and couldnt add another one since it was past the deadline. As for my FYSAC advisor, she would call the premed advisors for basic premed information and still get it wrong. She also scared me about physics first year and told me not to take 6 courses which would have clearly been better than taking 6 courses sophomore year both semesters....it showed a complete lack of knowledge of the sheer number of classes that BME students have to take.</p>
<p>Columbia2002- Actually, my son's had good luck with both the physics and math departments, both in terms of teaching and language skills among non-native speakers. The engineering department prof who was a lousy and disinterested teacher is a native born English speaker. No excuse for him. But I think your basic strategy is exactly right -- to seek out the profs who ARE interested in their students. I'm glad to hear you report you found plenty of them.</p>
<p>Shraf -- You're confirming what I heard from my son about the freshman/sophomore advising center. Premed, BME, and a core make for a really, really complicated schedule. It's too bad you didn't get the advice you needed and I hope you have better luck from here on out. Can you meet with the premed advisor directly, rather than working through the FYSAC advisor?</p>
<p>Premed advisors have little to no interest in freshman/sophomore premeds since at that point pretty much half the school is "premed"</p>
<p>lol.
by little or no interest, you mean they won't meet with you to answer questions?</p>
<p>
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Even though it has the smallest undergraduate enrollment of all the Ivies...
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</p>
<p>Actually, Dartmouth has fewer undergrads (just under 4,000.)</p>
<p>Wow...I had a really good experience with my adviser. I didn't meet with her first semester of freshman year because I already knew what I wanted to take, but second semester I got an e-mail saying that if I hadn't seen her yet this year I should make an appointment, so I did. </p>
<p>I brought a list of classes I wanted to take this semester and an overall plan for my four years. She was friendly, she asked what majors I was thinking about. I told her I wanted to study abroad, so she told me what CORE classes I should try to have done before I go abroad. She had good information on how that would affect my progress in the creative writing program which has a designated class each semester sophomore through senior years (which was later backed up by the program itself).</p>
<p>When I had a tuition check snafu (totally out of my hands; my loan company mailed it to my parents not the school, so it got there late), and I missed registration, I went to go see her again. She told me to whom to go in the fin aid office and what questions to ask her, and she sent an e-mail to the regristrar to register me for the classes over Christmas Break (after the check had come in) so that I would have some classes registered before the start of the semester. There are two registration periods for spring semester, one in December and then the two-week shopping period at the start of the spring semester. She kept in contact when one of my classes got cancelled.</p>
<p>She was really helpful, so I would say don't write off all of the adivising resources at Columbia as inept and uncaring.</p>