<p>Would appreciate any input, thoughts, on size of classes, access to professors, access to research opportunities. Do students help each other out, are there study groups? Are research opportunities for grad students primarily or intensely competitive or accessible for undergraduates? </p>
<p>Many thanks for any response.</p>
<p>columbia currently has about a 1:1 student to faculty ratio (technically 3:2). a top tier physics department by most ranking and reputation. access to research, check. the columbia physics society + study groups. and a small grad student population, so pretty much they hope you do research cause it helps them out and you get published.</p>
<p>questions about departments are usually solved by checking out the department site. they have bios of their awesome professors and a brief synopsis of the department. unless you have a specific question about either an anecdote (i don’t know of a physics major on here), or about a kind of physics (i wouldn’t know the answer, but maybe someone would). their website is a far better resource than CC.</p>
<p>[Department</a> of Physics Website](<a href=“http://www.columbia.edu/cu/physics/]Department”>http://www.columbia.edu/cu/physics/)</p>
<p>I’ve checked out the website, but I thank you for your reponse. I was really looking for any student perspectives and, yes, any anecdotes are welcome, if there is a passing physics major.</p>
<p>if it helps your decision, I’m also a hs senior and the physics department was really nice when I emailed back in Octoberish. They also called my house and said they were happy to have undergraduates and wanted to welcome me to campus. Though, my brother went to Columbia and said the physics department had a lot of weedout classes. In his words, they are looking for the next Newton, not the next Joe Smith. He had to change majors to geology.</p>
<p>Brian Greene is a leading researcher on string theory. He teaches a class.</p>
<p>Columbia has a spectacular history in the realm of physics - the Manhattan project was so named because the proof-of-concept reactor was in the basement of Pupin hall. A lot of groundbreaking interdisciplinary research goes on as well, particularly with the Lamont facility upstate a little in westchester county.</p>
<p>The undergraduate curriculum is VERY rigorous intellectually. I’m not a dumb guy, but Physics 2601 (quantum mechanics - 2nd-tier track) frickin slayed me. I’ve never worked harder for any class in my life, and never been prouder of any grade than the B+ I got there. That class convinced me I didn’t have the chops for physics, so I went into math. A lot of graduates go into top PhD programs; I can’t speak to what the PhDs at Columbia itself do for themselves professionally but I’m sure it isn’t bad.</p>
<p>research is very easy to get. as a first year, i got research under 2 different physics profs (1 very prominent) just by sending emails out. </p>
<p>I’m not trying to be a jackass, but I have to disagree about the difficulty of the major. If you’re comfortable with calculus all of the higher level electives (quantum included) are pretty straight forward and usually take <10 hours a week for problem sets. Obviously, it can add up, but a single physics major is not outrageously difficult.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info and opinions. All useful and all appreciated. I learn more every day.</p>
<p>
alright pal, let’s talk this through. I’m pretty good at abstract reasoning. I was taking multivariate calc at Harvard Extension when I was a sophomore in HS. I got A’s in about 6 math classes at columbia without showing up to the class more than 2 or 3 times plus exams. I took the AP Physics C (Mech + E&M) class as a freshman in high school, as the only non-senior. Not a slouch, yes? And as you might expect, Physics 1601 and 1602 were pretty easy - knock out the problem set the night before, show up and get A’s on the tests, psets taking maybe 3-6 hours per week, nothing crazy.</p>
<p>The first problem set in Quantum 2601 took me thirty hours. Two straight days, dawn to midnight, doing nothing but that damn set. It didn’t get any easier. I went to every single office hour for the professor and both his TAs, I went to the physics helproom like it was my designated homeless shelter, I made some of my most lasting friendships in school as a result of the shared pain we all had. And the problem sets still bewildered me, and I’m not sure I could re-derive the wave equations for the coupled oscillator if my life depended on it. The B+ was literally all I had in me.</p>
<p>From what I heard, Quantum 1403 was simple by comparison, but Cole’s class was a ball-buster, an’ no mistake.</p>
<p>I’m surprised it took you that long - I never took 1403, but the half a semester of quantum I took (completing all psets, correctly) was a walk in the park compared to 2800. The problem sets for that class would regularly take up to 30 hours, and no less than 15 (damn Cole), but I felt quantum the next year really paled in comparison. The general impression I’ve gotten from students who’ve taken 2800 is that the rest of the physics major is all significantly downhill in both difficulty and time requirement. I really think the issue with physics is having the interest/motivation to work the problems out; the upper level classes will make it more clear whether or not you actually want to be serious about physics. </p>
<p>and come on, everybody can get As in applied math classes without going to them :)</p>
<p>Haha that was a hilarious though egotistical rant.</p>
<p>I see Cole’s workload (!). I can look up his research areas. How is he as a teacher? Were the supports in place,“physics helproom”, office hours, TAs, useful? How large are the physics classes generally? It doesn’t seem like there are lots of physics majors at Columbia. Does that mean you get more attention, or are things geared more toward the grad students?</p>
<p>
gotta have the setup (“I think i’m hot sh_t”) before the punchline (“…but I learned I was dumb”)</p>
<p>it’s true. i got a C in 2802 - i think that was the course that ended my physics career, kind of like quantum for you.</p>
<p>Wasn’t 2800 supposed to be curved to a motherfookin’ A- though?</p>
<p>So, no Rabi Scholar here (nor a JJ, not Global, not a Kluge, or a Davis Scholar). I’m reading and wondering, if all these scholars are guaranteed research and internships and close relationships with the professors and great advising, where does that leave the non-scholars? Particularly a physics major? So maybe I’m just a bit envious while I read, and I know Columbia offers many opportunities, but are there “easy” research spots for all? Or is this something you then have to get MUCH more aggressive about? Would I have to worry about being envious the whole time at Columbia? Or will I just admire and be grateful I have such great peers to work with? (I’m certainly not a genius and have a lot to learn.)</p>
<p>onthebrink, with the exception of the Rabi Scholar of which there are few that have guaranteed funding for research, the opportunities are pretty much the same for all undergrads. the other scholar designations might have access to funding through the program that is non-departmental. but most students who want physics at CU and do well in it are not scholars of any type. they can do research, go to top grad schools with the same frequency of the ‘scholars.’ if you look at the number of recent columbia goldwater winners (one of the top ugrad science scholar awards [Barry</a> M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program: 2008 Goldwater Scholars](<a href=“http://www.act.org/goldwater/sch-2008.html]Barry”>http://www.act.org/goldwater/sch-2008.html)) of late some have been one of the scholar designation, but most have just been awesomely smart students. don’t worry if you are not a scholar.</p>
<p>you’ll pick it up if you’re interested and i know quite a few science folks who are now in top grad programs that were not hard core researchers before campus.</p>
<p>Well, look, nothing’s “guaranteed”. Columbia fosters an entrepreneurial atmosphere, i.e. the way the culture operates, it pushes students to actively go out and seek opportunities like working with professors and summer jobs and advising and so on. You’ll hear the phrase “nobody’s going to hold your hand” so often that it’ll get annoying, but it really does convey the attitude the administration takes. So for scholars, they may make certain opportunities more well-known to people, but you still have to go out and grab the bull by the horns.</p>
<p>The scholar programs still sound like a lot of hand-holding to me. I assume nobody gets into Columbia unless they have grabbed the bull by the horns often enough and followed up on certain opportunities. I really thank you both for your responses, and admissionsgeek, thanks for telling me not to worry; I’ll try. I like to look ahead and consider all the possibilities to whatever extent I can.</p>
<p>Personally, I would recommend UChicago. What are you leaning towards at the moment?</p>
<p>oh Excepted, you, argue against columbia again? shocking.</p>
<p>these are two of the most academic focused institutions in the country. uchicago has fewer distractions in hyde park than columbia and on the nerdiness scale it is far higher. many columbia students are coming from just as academic a background, but the city and the propensity toward fashionability (nightlife, fashion week, the new york lifestyle) they are not as singularly focused once they come to school and there are competing interests. so students who chose between uchi and cu usually are around the idea of whether they want to always be academic in focus, or at columbia where that is one of the layers of the experience they seek to have.</p>
<p>it is telling that more students chose columbia over chicago. (and from the mouth of chicago profs, they don’t care about ugrads, it is a grad-centered institution and even the ugrads know, at columbia they at least try and pretend the reverse).</p>