<p>Sure, I've read the website and my acceptance letter, but neither are particularly enlightening. Do any current Columbia students have experience with this programme? Friends who are JJ Scholars, perhaps? Some anecdotal information would be helpful as I try to figure out whether this is mostly a recruiting gimmick or a real deal-sweetener.</p>
<p>“Some anecdotal information would be helpful as I try to figure out whether this is mostly a recruiting gimmick or a real deal-sweetener.”</p>
<p>More the latter. I was a Kluge Scholar, and what the scholar’s program does is provide an additional (mostly exclusive to Scholars) forum for Columbia students to discuss relevant issues, and attend some really prominent speaker events–and these include, but are not limited to, round tables with prominent academics, entrepreneurs, and people out to change the world, among others. Not the CU as a whole doesn’t provide this opportunity, but the scholars’ program tends to arrange these seperately, and they usually aren’t open to the wider student body–so events are more accessible, and can be more personal. You can also get a sweet internship out of them, if you try. Furthermore, it also gives you the opportunity to interact one-on-one with the Deans (Austin Quigley in my day–badass extraordinaire), and great dinners with prominent alumni. There’s also an email listserv that gives you internship opportunities that the wider CU community may not be aware of, and an additional advisory resource to your academic advisor. Basically, it’s a smaller academic communtiy at Columbia that has all these extra add-ons.</p>
<p>Perhaps the crowning glory of the scholar’s program, though, is that the scholars mainly keep that fact on the DL. It’s not a divisive force among students, because although scholars are chosen because they’re exceptional applicants, they are, in truth, probably marginally better than the rest of the CU class. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, though, the scholar’s program, like everything at Columbia, is what you make of it–you can take full advantage of hte resources they offer, or you can just do your own thing and not be involved at all. I, for example, sort of straddled the border–probably because I wanted to go into finance, and I felt that the career center was better at hooking me up wiht a job in the field than the scholar’s office.</p>
<p>Oh! That reminds me–if you’re not into the whole Wall Street thing, that the career center is really good at, the scholar’s program is fabulous at getting you jobs in non-profit, the arts, and other industries that the career center doesn’t provide as much of. I’ve seen lots of funky job ops–anthropology research in africa, public health, documenting oral history traditions, paralegal jobs with human rights lawyers through the listserv.</p>
<p>Hope this helps! sorry it’s such a ramble.</p>
<p>Actually, it helps a lot. Thanks a bundle. I might have to call on you later, if you wouldn’t mind.</p>
<p>And at the risk of sounding too eager, what about academia and law school vis-a-vis the Scholars programme and the career centre?</p>