Hello all,
I haven’t been able to find much on this forum or elsewhere specifically about studying sciences as an undergrad at Columbia. My D isn’t sure what science field she wants to major in and, unfortunately, Columbia requires students to apply to either CC or SEAS. So, she’s focusing on CC and possible majors are biochem, biophysics, physics, or biology. THe Columbia website touts a low student:teacher ratio in the sciences, but this number may or may not reflect anything about the science undergrad experience.
So, can anyone comment on what it is like to be an undergraduate majoring in these areas? Are you able to connect with professors (or are you dealing mainly with TAs)? Are research opportunities available for undergrads? Do you feel the focus is on graduate students more than undergrads? Do you feel like you are getting a good education and appropriate support?
I know that astronomy grad students has recently started a program to better integrate undergrads in that dept., so that raised the question if there was an underlying issue - and if there was an issue in a presumably small group like astronomy, are the issues even greater in other science depts?
Finally, do science majors find it more difficult to keep up with classwork than other majors? I assume yes since this is generally the norm. Is anything done formally to address this?
Columbia is a great place to be an undergrad major in the sciences. Of course, the intro classes (General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Intro Biology, Intro Physics) will be relatively large lectures due to the Pre-meds. In these Intro classes, the professor will have office hours, but mainly your direct contact would be with a TA, especially in the Lab course that goes with the subject. But once you get into the more advanced classes beyond that, then you would be in small classes in direct contact with the professor.
There are plenty of research opportunities for undergrads. Depending on the individual professor, the department, and how big their lab group is, you may be working directly with a PhD student or a post-doc or with the professor. Columbia has leading departments doing major research in these sciences – so of course, they have strong graduate programs. To ask whether the focus is on graduate students more than undergrads is a common question, but which has always seemed nonsensical to myself. It’s not a complete zero sum game, so the fact that there is large amount of graduate research/education, does Not detract meaningfully from your undergrad experience. Now, if what you want is to go to a college where even the Intro science classes have 30 students, and where a professor is doing so-called “research” by him/herself and you would be the only one in their “lab group” if you joined – well, you would need to go to a free-standing LAC for such a quaint experience. The structure and ethos of Columbia is that of a relatively small LAC (Columbia College) but contained within a major research university, with all the benefits and limitations therein.