<p>Any comments on the of social life at Columbia? Quality of ladies, prevalence/abundance/lack of alcohol? Lot of time spent studying on Saturday night? High-school-esque cliquiness? Preppiness/anti-preppiness?</p>
<p>Let's hear it all.</p>
<p>I'm pretty interested in the above as well...</p>
<p>I'm an ex-Columbia dad, and I'll leave the specifics to those with first-hand experience. I'd say that in general, social life at Columbia is much more outward-looking than the typical college campus. I.e., a student is more likely to go off-campus with friends than to on-campus parties or events. With the whole of NYC on their doorstep, Columbia students rely less on school related events than those who attend small-town colleges.</p>
<p>This also means more flexibility, so students will choose what to do based on their personal inclination as opposed to having to participate in a social scene dominated by drinking, Greek parties, etc.</p>
<p>CU didn't strike me as particularly preppy... more like eclectic.</p>
<p>As a current Columbia mom, I don't know whether I should even touch this question. I think the gist of RD's comments -- that there are many different directions to go on any given night for social life -- are correct. Not everyone will congregate at the frat parties. However, there is plenty of drinking in dorms and at bars. Too much, in my opinion, but I am a MOM. There are also many choices for those who do not drink, including a lot of student theater and music groups, as well as all the music, theater, etc off campus. My son tells me that on any given weekend night, there are probably four student groups performing (he's in a couple and he goes to performances that friends are in as well). So, unlike many colleges, you will not find everyone congregating at one event, though they may head off in different directions in small groups and end up early in the morning at the West End, which is a first year hang out. I know he never studies on either Thursday or Saturday nights. Probably not Friday either, but I don't ask, cause he's taking hard classes and doing fine. I'm sure he would not consider himself preppy -- he avoided applying to or turned down schools he considered too preppy -- but I don't know about anyone else.</p>
<p>any current CU students care to comment?</p>
<p>the above comments are helpful but they also come from parents. it's not like parents even know half of what's going on with their child's life in college anyway. if you're a parent, you need to realize your child is only going to tell you the good things/the things you would want them doing. haha they're not gonna tell you about things you wouldn't approve of, which are the things most ppl our age want to do haha. it is nice that CU has the on-campus functions but from what i've heard from many friends attending colleges over the US, not many ppl actually attend those hehe.</p>
<p>Hey, I graduated columbia a couple years ago but I'm still around..now a med student here. The social life is great. Yes, it is focused on the city more than other schools. Freshman hit up bars around Morningside but that gets old fast. Venturing downtown is much easier than people on this forum have claimed. Ooooo you have to go through Harlem. Umm, no you don't. It takes forever! Nope, wrong again. (I still go downtown as a med student and I'm even further north...it takes me like 20 min on the A train) I would go out downtown to lounges and concerts, movies and just hang out searching for vinyl and chillin in the village all the time. I was a neuroscience major and had well enough time to explore the city. Brooklyn, Queens you name it. Sports at Columbia aren't that great but they are getting better. So whether you are a frat gal or hipster guy the one thing that binds the social scene for ya is exploring the city.</p>
<p>o.k, I will withdraw from this thread and leave it to students (assuming they aren't too busy with their social lives to reply:) Suffice it to say, my kid does tell me he's having a great time -- everything from exploring museums to bartending for the student-run bartending agency -- and I don't inquire about the details.</p>
<p>good good good good</p>
<p>come on, it's manhattan. you'll never ever be out of things to do.</p>
<p>It's no so much the stuff to do that interests me because it is NYC and all the schools in NYC have the benefit of Manhattan. It is the people at Columbia I will be doing this stuff with that I am interested in. I think that is what is going to make the social life at Columbia better for me than somewhere like NYU.</p>
<p>yeah, i totally agree. i dislike NYU strongly.</p>
<p>I went to Columbia for a year (tranferred to Dartmouth) and am back there for grad school. I personally was more into a campus scene, but I really enjoyed my first year. All freshmen dorms, a great morningside heights bar scene, and a predominately freshmen dining scene created a decent sense of community. Carmen Hall (with 52 people per hall) is a lot of fun.</p>
<p>My issue with Columbia was in fact that this scene sort of dies after the first year. Many of my Columbia friends agree, they liked first year the best. On the other hand, I felt as if Dartmouth fostered a sense of community for all four years (obviously, since socializing is the biggest thing there). I felt as if NYC would be there after graduation (and it is!), and personally Columbia was a great grad school choice for me.</p>
<p>Hmm...I agree with slipper1234 on the Freshmen theory. I was once reading an insider college handbook and it was interviewing random students and speaking about about extremes from all sides of Columbia social life, and most students answered that Columbians are very much independent and most of the them all have their own life, undisturbed by others.</p>
<p>If what you didn't understand what you just read, I guess I'm trying to say is that Columbians become New Yorkers, a sense that they don't need to be pampered (for a lack of a better word) that much by a community environment.</p>
<p>It's always good to be mentally prepared.</p>
<p>My d, a hs junior, is thinking about Barnard. Anyone have any info on how integrated, or not, Barnard is with the rest of Columbia? Also, she would plan to attend Julliard for music classes. I'm wondering if that will isolate her from her fellow students (taking so much time traveling between the schools for classes, especially)...and, as I notice the sat averages are lower for barnard than columbia, are barnard students stigmatized by this? Do columbia students look down on barnard girls as lesser beings? Or is it one big happy family?</p>
<p>First of all, my anecdotal experience has been that Barnard courses are even more diffucult than Columbia courses. I took genetics, an Asian Religions course and bioethics there and whew! I think there might be some headbutting between Barnard and Columbia students but that erodes after first year. Rarely do freshman talk about scores after first semester. (You have to realize that any abrasion between the schools is paralleled by the same amount between Columbia College and SEAS). </p>
<p>It varies for Barnard students whether most of their friends go there or to Columbia. There were a number of girls that went to Barnard who I thought for years went to Columbia. I see no social harm in taking Julliard courses. It actually can be more refreshing considering Barnard has a pretty small first-year class.</p>
<p>The education at Barnard is not watered down and stigma (if there is any) is baseless. In my med school class there are a number of Barnard students (higher ratio than that of Columbia considering class size). Socially, it depends on how outgoing your daughter is.</p>
<p>thanks, ccgrad. Did you know anyone who did the barnard/julliard thing? (or even cc/j?)If so, did they stick with it through to graduation, or is there a lot of attrition. Like, do people find it to hard to run back and forth across town to classes at 2 different schools, or do they find that they really need only bc, or only j, and decide to drop out of one school and stick with the other? Or do most manage to balance everything and stay with it for all four years?</p>
<p>I knew some students who did the combined Julliard program, albeit very few. And they did stick with it. I have no idea what the attrition rate is nor how they felt about going cross town. Invariably, these students were really really talented. It was great to watch them in the varsity show (big columbia student production) and one friend of mine played Simba in the Lion King in Chicago after graduation. I think one thing they might have enjoyed was that they really stood out in terms of their talent...at Julliard, I dunno.</p>
<p>I worked for two years across town at 69th and york (just east of first ave) and didn't feel burdened by the commute. The balance might be hard initiallly and I would recommend her taking a light courseload to feel out the situation.</p>
<p>slipper1234:</p>
<p>how are you liking columbia so far? how is it socially? how is living on morningside heights? and if you don't mind me asking, what department are you in? I got accepted into grad school there and am seriously considering it. they give me a good financial aid package but im also wondering how bad/good the cost of living is.</p>
<p>bump ffffffffffffffffffffffffff</p>
<p>With a beautiful campus like Columbia's, I'd never want to leave!</p>
<p>I hope to hit up Columbia for grad school, though. From what I hear from friends and people in this board, Columbia's undergraduate experience is not the college community type experience I feel I get and enjoy at my own undergrad alma mater.</p>