How does Columbia treat its undergrads?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
1

<p>Since Columbia University is more widely known around the world, I'm just wondering about its undergrad college. (This may be a dumb question, pardon my ignorance.)</p>

<p>From your experiences, current students, how do you feel Columbia's undergrad experience could compare to somewhere such as Dartmouth where undergrad is the main focus? Would you say that Columbia has a bad reputation for its undergrad program (such as Harvard, which has been criticized for focusing too much on the grad schools only)?</p>

<p>Any anedoctal or statistical evidence will be greatly appreciate!</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

2

<p>I transferred out of Columbia to Dartmouth. I found Dartmouth to be more student friendly in terms of access to resources and less bureaucratic. Columbia feels incredible with the core (less than 20 people per class), but the big classes are WAY too big (300 people in General chemistry). Also the school is run like the government, everything has a rule and a department. Whether its Acis (computer services), the registrar, the deans, whatever it feels like you have to go through alot of hoops to get things done. </p>

<p>At Dartmouth the registrar's office feels almost like your grandmother's home compared to Columbia's Kent Hall. The president waves hello and you see him park his car on the way to class. Just a totally different feeling, its a place you feel comfortable walking into and talking to anyone. </p>

<p>At Dartmouth I also found much more available to me in terms of resources; grants (I got $10K for my thesis research), money for trips, etc. I know Columbia has alot of resources but you have to seek things out much more. Dartmouth hosts your email for life as an alum, Columbia you have to get it forwarded. Its just a small example of the difference.</p>

<p>Columbia is a great school and you have access to some of the best minds in the world but it is a big university.</p>

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<p>Does this hold true for Columbia SEAS too?</p>

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<p>If you don't like Columbia for those reasons, I hope you're not planning on looking for a job in the corporate world after graduation.</p>

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<p>^And you're justifying this how?</p>

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<p>From my experience working at large corporations. You can't get away from bureaucracy at large corporations.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Also the school is run like the government, everything has a rule and a department. Whether its Acis (computer services), the registrar, the deans, whatever it feels like you have to go through alot of hoops to get things done.</p>

<p>At Dartmouth the registrar's office feels almost like your grandmother's home compared to Columbia's Kent Hall.

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<p>This is exactly right. The administration/bureaucracy at Columbia one of the worst things about the place. Much of it has a "the customer is always wrong" attitude. Funny you bring up the CU registrar, because the people who work there are among the nastiest, laziest, stupidest individuals I've ever met in my life. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Does this hold true for Columbia SEAS too?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It's the same bureaucracy.</p>

<p>
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If you don't like Columbia for those reasons, I hope you're not planning on looking for a job in the corporate world after graduation.

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<p>You're a paying customer at Columbia -- you're paying the salary of the secretary in the dean's office or the clerk at the registrar and they ought to at least be polite and respectful to you, let alone try to be minimally helpful. And not wanting to deal with CU's bureaucracy at age 18 doesn't mean you're not fit for the corporate BS.</p>

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<p>After working with the government I found it to be somewhat similar to the Columbia bureaucracy, but it's a stretch to equate them entirely. Compare Columbia to some universities in Europe with similar bureaucracies and campuses spread all over large cities (at Marmara University in Istanbul the registrar's office is downtown and each campus is in a different suburb...feel the love there!)...at least at Columbia, "running around to various offices" at most entails going from Kent to Lerner...usually. </p>

<p>If the academic experience is subpar in a 300 person lecture room for an intro class freshman year, those few who stick with majors in, say, Physics will have unparalleled personal attention in the future (right now there are only three physics majors, I think). In the meantime, freshmen can soak up intimacy in core and language classes. I've never had a semester in which the majority of my classes were 20+ people lectures. I've actually found it to be a nice balance between intimacy and anonymity.</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
After working with the government I found it to be somewhat similar to the Columbia bureaucracy, but it's a stretch to equate them entirely. Compare Columbia to some universities in Europe with similar bureaucracies and campuses spread all over large cities (at Marmara University in Istanbul the registrar's office is downtown and each campus is in a different suburb...feel the love there!)...at least at Columbia, "running around to various offices" at most entails going from Kent to Lerner...usually.

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<p>The fact that we can actually evaluate the relative merits of Columbia's administration and that of a second world country says a lot about Columbia's bureaucracy.</p>

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<p>Oh right, how could I forget...we have corruption too.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.bwog.net/index.php?page=post&article_id=3392%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.bwog.net/index.php?page=post&article_id=3392&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>And anarchy / mob-rule.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfnn7wTgoE8%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfnn7wTgoE8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Viva Colombia!</p>

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<p>I really dont think this truly answers the OP's question.</p>

<p>Yes bureaucracy is a part of student life but its not the biggest. Lets be honest here, as an undergrad the 2 places you'll be dealing with the bureaucracy are in the fin.aid. dept, and the advising departments. occasionally you'll have to go to the registrar or something but not often. (also, the times i've had to go to the registrar, i was helped in a very timely and courteous fashion. the worst people in my opinion are the work study people but even tho they may be nasty, they still tell you exactly what you need to do)</p>

<p>that said, i think undergrad life focuses more on professors and whatnot. in that respect, you have a lot of opportunities and most professors love undergrads in their offices and research teams. even doing your own research isnt that hard (yes some paperwork is required but that's the same everywhere)</p>

<p>i could go on but i think it will suffice to say that, while most of the responses in this thread are accurate about the governing body of columbia, you wont be dealing with that the majority of the time.</p>

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<p>I'd pick Columbia over a Dartmouth any day.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
i could go on but i think it will suffice to say that, while most of the responses in this thread are accurate about the governing body of columbia, you wont be dealing with that the majority of the time.

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<p>Yes, but one little thing that shouldn't be a big deal can ruin your day (or week) and/or cause you to waste time and energy.</p>

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<p>I once got in this heated discussion with my moronic university writing instructor after arguing that Columbia operates primarily as a business while he declared it an institution concerned solely with producing research that could survive without money. Unfortunately, research doesn't come free. As a result, university writing became a blemish on my transcript. Jackass. Dude's got a gold nugget on culpa too. Go figure.</p>

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<p>Johnny you're also a male chauvinist which immediately makes everything you say irrelevant in my opinion.</p>

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<p>JohnnyK is pretty cool. =P</p>

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<p>Don't expect to be coddled, which isn't necessarily a bad thing when you become an adult. </p>

<p>BTW, I worked in the Bursar's office for work study and I didn't find too much bureaucracy. I didn't get too much of the run around. I guess I could've been lucky?!</p>

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<p>Most of these responses are right to a large degree, but I would add this:</p>

<p>1) While the bureaucracy is annoying, and customer service is poor, it does teach you valuable lessons about how to deal with such a bureaucracy. You learn how to figure out who has the power to give you what you want, how to go about approaching them, how to learn the rule systems that govern a bureaucracy and how to "play the game" to optimize things for yourself. A lot of valuable lessons, that you might wish you don't HAVE to learn (and i'd agree), but are nevertheless worthwhile.</p>

<p>2) There ARE things about the columbia administration that run surprisingly smoothly, contrary to public opinion. </p>

<p>Example 1: The registrar will print and give you a transcript on the spot, you don't need to put in an order (unless you want them to mail a bunch of them to some addresses you list - which they do over the web, same-day). Barnard's registrar, by contrast, tells you they'll get around to it sometime within X business days. </p>

<p>Example 2: the Housing office runs like clockwork, servicing housing for ~5300 students with about 3 full-time employees (and more during room selection, obviously). they have a ton of info available online, a lot of request forms and processing online, forums, room selection systems, etc. and very friendly staff who'll go the extra mile.</p>

<p>This is not to say that all of Columbia is like that, i'm just pointing out there are highlights too.</p>

<p>3) To answer the original question, Columbia DOES care more about its undergraduates than an institution like Harvard, whose reputation is deserved according to most of the friends I have there. The core is a demonstration of this, because they put so much energy and resources (and promotion) into developing and executing it. Undergraduates have the prime housing relative to campus locations, and in the past two decades have had several swaps where they take a better-located building away from grad programs (like East Campus, a modern 20-story skyscraper overlooking morningside park and most of manhattan), and in exchange give the grad programs poorer housing in poorer locations (like Harmony Hall, on 110th st, a prewar building with really small rooms). They give undergrads priority on a lot of things, perhaps not as much as a college-dominated or college-only institution like a Princeton or Dartmouth, but certainly better or comparable to other large peer universities.</p>

<p>Hope that helps,
D</p>