<p>I'm trying to decide where to attend! When I visited Columbia, I sat in on a few classes. The lectures were kind of boring and there seemed to be little student-professor interactions. I emailed a few professors in a department that I am interested in about a week ago, and I haven't received any replies. So, thus far my experiences with professors at Columbia haven't been very good. In contrast, at Penn, the lectures I heard were great and I was able to get in contact with professors/departments heads through email. </p>
<p>Are my experiences typical to Columbia or did I just choose the wrong classes to sit in on and wrong people to contact? </p>
<p>To current students/alumni/parents/etc., how have your experiences with professors/classes gone?</p>
<p>Sorry for the long post, but I'm starting to stress! I can't seem to decide where to go and the deadline is Saturday! Thanks so much for the help!</p>
<p>Please don’t take this the wrong way, but this is one of the worst times in the semester to email professors. It’s the end of the semester, and they have a lot of things to attend to–high school students they don’t know are probably at the bottom of their list of priorities (sorry). Try not to take it personally if you don’t get a response. Which departments are you interested in? Which classes did you sit in on when you were here?</p>
<p>It’s definitely possible that you just sat in on some bad classes. I felt sorry for all the prospies who sat in on the class I’m currently taking (an English lecture), and that particular class was certainly not representative of the whole major.</p>
<p>It’s really hard to make generalizations about the professors here. There are good and bad ones in each department. I’ve personally never had any problems with inaccessible professors. You can check out CULPA (you can just Google it) and look up the professors you’re interested in working/taking classes with.</p>
<p>Smiley: this is the luck of the draw situation. I visited Columbia as a prospie and the lectures I attended were phenomenal and were the reason I went to Columbia, and that experience continued. I was lucky because I had a friend who set me up with her friends and so I had someone already pre-judge the quality of the class for me. But alas. Not enjoying your experience is sufficient to make such a gut-decision.</p>
<p>As much as I champion Columbia, in the end I realize that it comes down sometimes to these interactions. Small experiences that you just have to take for what it is and decide and go forward.</p>
<p>I think Columbia is amazing. And if you want to tell me what you’re interested in, I’d be happy to share experiences of mine or friends in those departments (maybe even introduce you to individuals in departments with contacts I still have). But don’t think it over too much. Follow your heart. If it tells you to be in West Philadelphia, go there. If it tells you to be at Columbia, follow it. But wherever you go, know this, you make your experience.</p>
<p>One thing further: because of the Core and especially Columbia’s funding further of it, the chance that you will have small seminar experiences with professors is very high, even in large majors.</p>
<p>I would say that you just visited at the wrong time. You probably would have had an amazing experience if it wasn’t during the hectic times! I have sent emails to Columbia admissions, who probably receive more emails than professors, and I’ve always had replies coming back within 48 hours. However, when I sent one to them last December during their Early Decision application time, I did not receive any replies. </p>
<p>To be honest, I had a similar situation where I visited Columbia during Christmas Break and was disappointed by the “unattractive” campus. However, I remembered that I was visiting during winter when no plants would be alive and definitely no students to make the university feel more lively.</p>
<p>What kind of “student-professor interaction” are you expecting during a lecture? Students go to professors’ office hours and engage in them with seminars, but lectures are not discussions. I don’t know if all classes in your high school were student-led discussions, but the point of a lecture is for a professor to explain topics and answer student questions, not engage in a back-and-forth discussion with every student. Don’t confuse seminar/discussion classes (which Columbia has plenty of) with lectures; they are not the same thing.</p>