<p>To current Columbia students or Columbia alumni...</p>
<p>What would you say is so great about the Core? Why do you like it? What kind of atmosphere does it create on campus? What is so unique about the Core that outweighs the curricula of other elite colleges?</p>
<p>And for any Core haters, why do you dislike the Core?</p>
<p>To follow up on my post in the other thread, and to mention one other aspect of Columbia's intellectual atmosphere, one is more likely to encounter debate about what the Core is and means than discussion of the actual authors, outside of class. Columbians are big on theory, and the value of general education/Great Books is probably one of the more controversial subjects on campus. Case in point: the freshmen inducted onto the debate team last year would propose to debate the merits of the ore curriculum at almost every practice held! Additionally, it seems like every two years that another group springs up accusing the Core of being racist, Eurocentric, artificial, stifling, or simply boring. But it has its stalwart defenders as well. </p>
<p>This will probably be one's experience of the Core far beyond late-night study sessions of Virginia Woolf on a Carman floor freshman year. </p>
<p>Additionally, many Columbians enjoy comparing professors and classes, regarding Core classes especially, as the content is so similar. Because each professor is allowed to introduce one or two works of his or her own selection each semester, a lot of debate circles around given professors' choices and their "fit" into the general curriculum. For example, my second semester of CC my Poli Sc oriented instructor assigned Rawls' Theory of Justice and Arendt's On the Human Condition. Many others were reading Fanon or Habermas instead. Many will have an opinion on which of the optional texts is the best culmination of the course. Additionally, each professor will import his or her special knowledge and it will be reflected in the teaching of the set books, such that speaking with a professor of South Asian history he noted that he thought a discussion of Edmund Burke's involvement in Indian politics was "indispensable" to the teaching of his views on the French Revolution (I won't get in to why he believed this). In any case, he said not that he would "teach" this perspective, but that he would "argue for it" among his students, indicating the professors are generally aware as well that students will have different approaches to the Core or different opinions on its meaning. This is really the spice of the curriculum, and makes up for what may be perceived as an otherwise faulty lack of uniformity with fodder for intellectual exchange among students.</p>
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Additionally, it seems like every two years that another group springs up accusing the Core of being racist, Eurocentric, artificial, stifling, or simply boring. But it has its stalwart defenders as well.
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<p>Well, the Major Cultures requirement was added to combat the complaints about the Core being all about "dead white men." My guess is that they're never going to liberalize the Core to the extent of eviscerating it. The Core is Columbia's niche.</p>
<p>Yes, but everyone knows MC is a joke compared to the real core classes...I mean, it's just a distribution requirement. It would be better if CC implemented Prof. de Bary's suggestions and made the two sections of Asian Hum (East Asian and Middle East/India) mandatory junior year requirements, though that probably would invite complaints from those who felt their underrepresented culture of choice had been even further marginalized...</p>