<p>Would anyone care to elaborate on this? What is the political atmosphere on campus? From what I understand, it is mostly "left-leaning"? Is there room for differences though, i.e., more centrist or right-leaning postures? Examples would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>almost all the top colleges are liberal, columbia is no exception, there are many activists, but I hear some of the smaller LACs and schools like Berkeley are more left leaning/ activist. Columbia does have a vocal conservative minority, and it does have many moderates, many libertarians also. If you are conservative you will be in a minority. </p>
<p>What i've found though is that the students at columbia are not blindly liberal (or less so than at other places), they tend to have reasons for what they believe in however disagreeable their beliefs might be. As a conservative you will be challenged more on your views which means you will have to develop more rigorous reasoning for why you are correct, to me this is a positive. I for one challenge almost any view, on both sides. Most professors outside of economics and political science are liberal, those two departments have a good mix.</p>
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Most professors outside of economics and political science are liberal, those two departments have a good mix.
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<p>Most liberal arts profs outside of econ are liberal. However, I'd say most science profs are apolitical libertarian types who don't have much use for government, period.</p>
<p>I asked this question to an admissions officer - he told me: all sides are very vocal and very passionate. There is slightly more of a liberal atmosphere, but as a result the conservatives are also very strong in making their viewpoints heard. There are plenty of protests, demonstrations, and various political activities constantly taking place on campus, and there are many ways to get involved. At the end of the day, though, everyone is still a Columbian. :)</p>
<p>I asked a Democrats representative if their club was bigger than the Republican one and she said: Ooh yeah definitely! So it seems to me that liberals/democrats are a large majority.</p>
<p>^that's the same at any top college, it's a function of being young and idealistic, pretty much any college would have more students leaning left. At least in my experience left leaning people tend to be more politically active, which would also help to explain why the college dems are significantly bigger than the college republicans, i.e. conservatives tend to be less politically involved. Columbia is also in the north east and in new york, which is notoriously liberal.</p>
<p>I came to columbia moderate and after seeing how politics goes on here, I became conservative.</p>
<p>^would you care to elaborate, mike?</p>
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I came to columbia moderate and after seeing how politics goes on here, I became conservative.
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<p>Perhaps you didn't "become" conservative, and you were just forced you think harder about things and finally discovered what you always were.</p>
<p>there's also a strong difference between being fiscally / economically liberal or conservative, vs being socially liberal or conservative. For example, I am fiscally conservative but socially liberal in my politics, generally speaking.</p>
<p>I can see how walking past brainwashed socialists on college walk a few times a week would make a lot of people more hardened economic conservatives. But I doubt it would affect social liberalism/conservatism. I can still be pro-choice without agreeing with them that the united states is the devil incarnate.</p>
<p>With Columbia boasting the largest number of war vets in the ivy league whom are active, talented, connected and experienced at a whole other level than a vast majority of 18-22 non veterans traditional students on campus this is the future of the core of the Columbia political scene. </p>
<p>Reality during WWII at Columbia and reality at Columbia after November 2008. Were prepared, locked and loaded and ready to take over.</p>
<p>that doesn't even make grammatical sense.</p>
<p>you are "prepared, locked and loaded and ready to take over"? Really? This is a good thing? What does that even mean?</p>
<p>dude. it's gs. let it go.</p>
<p>:: pause ::</p>
<p>oh feck. i'm in gs.</p>
<p>for somebody w/ 2k posts, thought you'd have realized by now Columbia rolls out the red carpet for war heros regardless of circumstances, all we have to do is make every lecture and we'll pass whether our grammar is at a 10th grade level or even lower, while some are higher. After three years I have refused to change my style and have yet to fail a class. Read something somewhat credible that war vets who graduate college make about 20k-30k more than average college grad, in fact after talking to many CC kids graduating next week, most of them are going to make less than what I was even offered right out of the military. This is America buddy, where war service for your country gives you a louder voice, an easier path to the American dream and a right to not make grammatical sense, besides people like you complaining about grammatical sense rather than observing big picture reality is what we are banking on</p>
<p>har har har. you got me. nice gimmick account, skrub.</p>