<p>Would you object to a graduate of Gallatin or Stern or Tisch also putting “NYU” on their resume?</p>
<p>lol</p>
<p>Barnard is ranked lower than NYU. Columbia is ranked fourth. Columbia is a member of the ivy league. Barnard is not. A Barnard student who puts on her resume that she has a degree from Columbia University is breaking the law…the same doesn’t go for a Tisch student with respect to NYU. </p>
<p>Barnard is a fine school, but it’s not nearly as competitive or reputable as Columbia. </p>
<p>Integer. Barnard students receive degrees from Columbia University. That is a fact. It is true now and it was true in 1898. The ONLY degree that Barnard students get is the one that is awarded by Columbia University. (Neither Barnard College nor Columbia College offer degrees of their own).</p>
<p>Obviously there is no “law” being broken. I am rather appalled that student who aspires to attend Columbia College would make such a ridiculously stupid and ill-informed assertion.</p>
<p>The Ivy League is an athletic conference. Barnard athletes play as member of that athletic conference.The name of the participating school is “Columbia/Barnard Athletic Consortium”. I would think that Barnard athletes should rightfully be proud of playing on an Ivy League team.</p>
<p>If you want to try to slip through some loophole, then I guess you can technically say you have a degree from “Columbia University”. But any Barnard graduate who lists a B.A. from Columbia University on her resume, and nothing else about Barnard, is being extremely disingenuous. </p>
<p>Getting into Barnard is a cakewalk compared to getting into Columbia. Plenty of Columbia-rejects gain admission to Barnard, and any Barnard girl who tells people she goes to Columbia is plainly being dishonest. Which is what you are essentially advocating by continuing to claim that Barnard is just as much as part of Columbia as CC or SEAS…it isn’t.</p>
<p>Maybe one day the two will be fully merged together, but that day hasn’t come yet. </p>
<p>Again, you don’t seem to understand how universities are generally structured. Most universities are composed of several different undergraduate colleges, as well as a number of graduate schools and divisions. Generally each school has its own administration and admissions committee, and each operates semi-independently. That’s why, for example, some New York residents who attend Cornell pay private tuition, and some pay a different, in-state rate – it depends on which school they choose to enroll in. </p>
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<p>My thought is basically that I just don’t get it. I understand a friendly, good-natured rivalry – after all, as the daughter of a Yale alum, I grew up with the Yale/Harvard rivalry – and I am familiar with all of the light-bulb jokes related to all of the different colleges - <a href=“http://www.aaaugh.com/jokes/light_bulb_jokes.html”>http://www.aaaugh.com/jokes/light_bulb_jokes.html</a> - but I don’t understand why any student at any university would be hung up, upset, or see themselves in serious competition with students in a different school or college on the same campus – or seriously believe themselves to be the beneficiary of some sort of entitlement that has never existed. (For example, the concept that other students who enroll in a class are somehow taking a “slot”).</p>
<p>I also don’t understand how a student can enroll in a college or university without having a basic idea of its history and structure before they get there. Why is it a big surprise to Columbia students to learn of an affiliation that has existed for about 120 years? </p>
<p>You said that you really don’t care that much… and that I understand. Why should you or any other CC student care? It’s just part of the fabric of your college life - not something that should cause angst and resentment. </p>
No Barnard student would – she would most likely list the name of the school, “Barnard College, Columbia University” - because that is the NAME of the school. </p>
<p>It seems to me that Columbia itself enforces some of the “class divisions” between its (undergraduate) schools. From their official legacy policy in which “applicants are considered to be “legacies” of Columbia only if they are the children of Columbia College or Columbia Engineering graduates,” one can infer that they clearly consider CC and SEAS graduates to be on a different “level” than alumni of Barnard and General Studies. We can argue over semantics and names all day, but there’s clearly a distinction being made here.</p>
<p>That’s a pointless distinction. No one is claiming that Barnard and Columbia are the same colleges --the point is that they both operate under the umbrella oft the same university. </p>
<p>That’s not what I think. I do not know either way. I’ve taken exactly 1 Barnard class in my life, and it was a ton of Columbia students in the class (happened to be a very popular econ elective), and its difficulty felt very normal. </p>
<p>However, its definitely the general sentiment around Columbia that taking Barnard classes is easy. This is something that was told to me by upperclassman when I first entered, and I’ve heard consistently throughout my undergrad. It’s notion is also encouraged by the idea that Columbia majors limit you to how many Barnard classes you can take (and I haven’t really been convinced/heard for a better reason as to why other than perhaps academic standards are different). Now this obviously depends on professor, and whether its true on average or not, I have no idea and I have no evidence, but it’s clearly how many students feel on campus.</p>
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<p>No I totally understand this. But can’t you see that the Columbia Barnard distinction is a little more “distinct” than the other ones? Isn’t that the reason this debate even exists? And to take your example these debates even exist in NYU with NYUPoly, just to a lesser extent right? Sure, if you presupposed Columbia and Barnard are the same umbrella then sure all these naming and resource debates are meaningless. </p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way, there’s a lot of distinctions that I just have never seen between two undergraduate departments: </p>
<p>BU and CU have separate rankings on USWNR or any other ranking system for that matter.<br>
BU and CU talk about mergers, and I don’t mean language like “CC and Barnard” merger, I mean “Columbia University and Barnard College” (how do you merge if you’re the same school already?)
BU and CU have separate board of Trustees
BU students get a diploma signed by both the Columbia University President and their “college head”. (Generally other undergraduate colleges have deans, BU has a “president”. I would say it’s hard to argue Dspar has quite the same job description as say, Mary Boyce).
BU is legally and financially separate from CU</p>
<p>There’s obviously no legal or concrete place to draw the line between the division, so whether Barnard or Columbia are the same comes down to a matter of perception in peoples’ minds and perhaps a subjective opinion. Maybe to you it’s clear cut that these distinctions don’t matter enough and Columbia to Barnard is like Stern to CAS or Tisch or whatever, but a lot of people would disagree with you, myself included. And if they don’t think they’re the same, that’s where all these “entitlement” problems come in. </p>
<p>Columbia University has a great recruitment program, some of the top firms in the world come for the best and the brightest, we all know that. Some of these firms also happen to be extremely difficult to get in. One sector that happens to recruit very heavily at Columbia (and many top institutions) and basically floods our OCR system are financial firms, so let me shed some light from this perspective as I’ve had some experience here.</p>
<p>A lot of financial firms due to their popularity, will subject their applicants to a baseline filter by undergraduate institution. This is where they select the so called “target schools”. If you’re a non-target, your resume will be thrown away before its even looked at. No commentary on if this is good or bad I’m just saying this is the way it is.</p>
<p>Now given that Columbia is basically a target everywhere, Barnard is much less of a popular target, we have a population of ultra competitive, (in many cases for finance) ultra-preprofessional students, given how prestige loving finance is, how hand waving resume writing and recruitment is in general, do you really think everyone would put “Barnard College, Columbia University”?</p>
<p>Not saying every Barnard student does this, but to think that it doesn’t happen is just…wrong. Nowadays we have two separate recruiting systems…</p>
<p>.Masochist, I would assume that in a competitive employment environment, the employers would check the information on a resume. It’s easy enough to verify enrollment or graduation from an institution. A person would have to be pretty stupid to falsify easily verifiable facts on resume or employment --though I admit that there are some famous cases of people who have gotten away with exactly that. But I would think that a large, well funded firm that is targeting certain schools for recruitment would also have someone on staff with the job of verifying the academic credentials early in the hiring process - either before the first pre-screening interview or immediately after. If they didn’t do that, then they would have problems a lot worse than Barnard women claiming to be Columbia grads. </p>
<p>Actually, I’m wondering whether these top firms ask to see college transcripts. </p>
<p>I’m starting to wonder if you ever really attended Columbia. “BU” is Boston University.</p>
<p>Any Columbia student would use the conventions BC, CC, GS, and SEAS. </p>
<p>And again you are failing to make the distinction between Columbia University (CU) and Columbia College (CC).</p>
<p>BC is already a subsidiary of CU and operates subject to the terms of an agreement that gives CU a substantial level of control over BC affairs, particularly with respect to faculty hiring and tenure.</p>
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<p>I doubt that Boston University students get degrees signed by anyone at Columbia. </p>
<p>BC students get a diploma signed by the CU President and their college head (currently Debra Spar)
CC students get a diploma signed by the CU President and their college head (Valentini)
GS students get a diploma signed by the CU President and their college head (Awn) </p>
<p>And so on. </p>
<p>Again,if you really were a CC alum you would know that. You would know that there is no such thing as a CU diploma that does’t have two signatures, one by the President and one by the respective President or Dean of each school or college. You would know that at a Columbia commencement, the head of each college/school in turn gives a short speech and then formally requests the conferral of a degree from CU. </p>
<p>Usually the background check comes after the offer. Also (see: this thread) there’s some semantics involved as to if a Barnard student putting Columbia is actually wrong or not. I don’t think it’s as clear cut as someone lying about their alma matter.</p>
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<p>Most on-campus firms do, but many non OCR firms do not (they are pure resume drops). However note that a lot firms due to the sheer amount of volume of applications, won’t read anything beyond a resume even if they have a cover letter or transcript.</p>
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<p>It’s not black and while where everything comes to one school but no one comes to another. I’m saying Columbia grads recruitment is stronger, not that Barnard doesn’t get anything. Furthermore, these info sessions don’t mean anything unless you specifically know what they’re recruiting for. Not to get too deep into how it works, but basically in finance roles are divided up by whats termed “Front”, “Middle”, and “Back” office. Generally front means you have a client facing role, and it’s the desirable/high paying roles of the firm (for example, Goldman Sales and Trading is FO, and did not recruit on Barnard OCR for internships last year, although they did offer a few off campus interviews). Alternatively, a BO role would be like a technology analyst, or operations. They typically get paid a lot less than FO and the career advancement opportunities are limited. Forget about Barnard, even many large state schools have bulge bracket investment firms come for recruitment sessions, but it’d be hard pressed to see a top firm recruit for say, their investment banking role at a low ranked institution. And Barnard does get a lot of FO roles, just not as much as Columbia.</p>
<p>Also an info session doesn’t mean they’re OCR for the school, and OCR generally means there is basically an interview quota (which is a good thing, for example, 1 day of OCR means they have to at least talk to 10-12 students), more so than pure resume drops which can mean a resume black hole. Although in this case I’m sure both of the firms you mentioned are OCR for at least some role (but BAML would not be what I consider a top firm).</p>
<p>Barnard specifically would lack a lot of quant firms FO (prop trading, quant funds etc.) because they’re not seen as quantitative as Columbia (as CU has SEAS, specifically a very quant finance heavy, and very popular IEOR program). </p>
<p>No this is a great point to make. For anyone thinking I’m bashing Barnard recruiting, I’m definitely not. Don’t get me wrong, Barnard recruitment is really, really strong for a LAC, and much of it comes precisely from the ability to tap both alumni networks. I also wouldn’t doubt Barnard career services provides more support than Columbia’s. Ours suck TBH (but that doesn’t mean our OCR selection sucks). </p>
<p>Also re your other post, this is just silly, especially from a CC veteran like yourself. You know what I mean you don’t have to bite my head off for a typo. I’m beginning to doubt you went to Columbia or Barnard. Oh wait!</p>
<p>I’m not talking about an issue with a background check to make a determination about the honesty of the applicant; I’m talking about the simple process of degree verification. Employers would go to the National Student Clearinghouse to verify degrees. Barnard is listed as either “Barnard College” or “Barnard College, Columbia University” with a code of 002708. Columbia is code 002707-- and the Barnard degree wouldn’t verify with that code. So it would be the equivalent of sending your FAFSA to the wrong school-- the job applicant is going to want to supply information that will verify. And I think that you are very mistaken if you think that employers delay degree checks until after making offers – the hiring process often involves a series of multiple interviews. A college degree is something that is easy to lie about and also very easy to check – I’d think that the HR departments would do some checking fairly early on in the screening process. Columbia vs. Barnard isn’t their problem – there are probably plenty of applicants who falsely claim to have Harvard degrees.</p>
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<p>That’s why I am so puzzled by the sort of differentiation between the schools that takes place on CC threads. Like: Barnard students can’t use LionShare. Do they even want to? If so, why? What’s on LionShare that isn’t essentially duplicated on the system that is available to them via Barnard Career Services? </p>
<p>Only a small fraction of students want jobs in finance, and only a tiny fraction of available jobs or internships are filled via OCR. It definitely make sense for students to attend info sessions and participate in OCR for the practice and/or networking opportunities. But students who rely heavily on OCR for job seeking are competing for a small number of spots among candidates who by definition have similar credentials as their own. In that environment, any edge their college name gives over other candidates is eliminated – whereas the student who has the skills to reach out beyond the campus is going to have a much wider array of opportunities. That’s the part my d. really appreciated from Barnard Career Services: they gave her those skills. </p>
<p>I understand that there are some very real and important issues that cause frustration for Barnard students, such as issues with housing.</p>
<p>But at the same time, I know that Columbia students have their own set of frustrations and issues. And whenever there is a Columbia v. Barnard thread – no one posts about the real, on the ground issues that students talk about. Instead it’s all trivial points, like whether a college alum can keep their undergraduate email address (I’ve yet to ever meet anyone who wants to – all the Columbia grads I know use gmail, as do the Barnard grads, as does just about everyone else on the planet – unless they are actually on the faculty of whatever college corresponds to the .edu address they are using). </p>
<p>So that’s why I have my doubts about these CC threads. A lot of what is posted seems to come from kids still in high school who are caught up in juvenile debates over the prestige of whatever colleges they wish they could get into. For a high school senior it’s a BFD to get admitted into a top-ranked school. But it’s pretty meaningless once the student is actually in college and everyone around them is also in the same school. </p>
<p>I don’t think it was a “typo”. It was an error repeated 6 times over, and not one that I would expect someone accustomed to the conventions used to refer to the schools would make - especially not in the context of a discussion over the difference between colleges and universities, and the typical structure of a university as being comprised of many different undergraduate and graduate colleges and school.</p>
<p>That, coupled with apparent ignorance of the fact that all CU diplomas bear two signatures, one of the CU President and one of the titular head of the student’s specific school or college - raises questions in my mind. </p>
<p>This is an anonymous message board and I think that there are a fair number of posters who are not who they claim to be – students who make false claims about which colleges have accepted them, or inflate their SAT scores, for example. </p>
<p>I’ve got no way of verifying whether or not a given poster is who he or she claims to be-- but I certainly can take note of details that don’t ring true. So I just didn’t see how someone who had seen the initials “BC” used for Barnard over and over again on a daily basis for 4 years of their life would repeatedly refer to the college as “BU.” </p>
<p>I certainly am not trying to make any sort of accusation. I just think that it detracts from a poster’s credibility when they get those sort of details wrong. </p>
<p>Look, I’ve been through who knows how many interviews from CCE and I currently do recruiting for my firm (that’s a CU OCR firm). </p>
<p>I’m not talking about random people who send applications through a resume drop website, I’m talking about OCR applicants. Just think about it. In the pre-2011 system, Barnard was the same OCR as Columbia. If you’re not Columbia affiliated there is no way you can get a LionShare account, you have to have a registered UNI and everything. Given this, why in the world would HR go through a background check to distinguish between a CC and Barnard student on first round, or think that there is a possibility of a fake Harvard student going into a Columbia OCR? That’s the whole point of OCR; Columbia has already screened the student.</p>
<p>Let me provide another example. I’ve seen “Columbia University” (only) written on many girls’ Linkedin pages. You can say Linkedin is a silly site that’s nothing like OCR, but Linkedin (and your Linkedin profile information) has legitimate consequences when it comes to networking and headhunters contacting you.</p>
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<p>Maybe my view is too narrow; I admit I studied econ, know a lot of finance (finance here is being loosely used to include consulting, which in itself is a very diverse field) people, and was part of a lot of preprofessional organizations, all of which ended up being finance heavy (whether the title of the club suggested so or not). But it really does seem to me like finance dominates the recruiting here, and I don’t mean everyone ends up doing finance, but it sure does seem like everyone tries sooner or later. This is a common complaint for non-finance people at Columbia that our school is too finance orientied; heck its a common complaint by higher education in general that too much of the best and brightest are getting recruited too heavily for Wall Street rather than doing other things (another debate altogether).</p>
<p>So you’re right, OCR represents a small fraction of the jobs that people end up getting after graduation, but it doesn’t represent a small fraction of the *applicants<a href=“at%20least%20I%20don’t%20think%20so”>/i</a>. Look at it this way, when you’re a freshman or sophomore and you start thinking about your future, you go to CCE for advice, you naturally stumble upon finance (and related fields) as the first option you see just because of how prominent they’re advertised and how popular they are among students. If you visit our CCE center, the main conference room is named the Goldman Sachs room or something. If you look at our info session schedule, it’s 90% finance (just look at what kind of firms get private info sessions versus a little table in the corner at a giant career fair). If you go to a career fair its relatively diverse on paper, but when you actually go the non-profit table is empty and the McKinsey line is out the door. Also I want to mention tech is really well represented, but its honestly a lot more niche of a group of people interested (not everyone can program, but everyone can be an excel monkey at a bank), and interviews are a lot less competitive to get (Google interview is much, much more easier to get -emphasis on to get, not to get hired at -than a Goldman FO interview). </p>
<p>In all honesty for 90% of students they don’t want this for themselves, but a lot of people sure think they do. Most of the investment bank gunning types do not represent a general student body, but if I had a penny for every random major student who wanted to be a “management consultant” I’d be rich. It’s the ultimate no skills required (on paper, not in actuality), high prestige, without the IB kill-yourself-hours. </p>
<p>So I guess what I’m trying to say is for most people the difference isn’t going to matter because they’re not going to make it to the offer anyways, but its about the chance to work for the best (best here meaning highest paying, or most prestigious). Now this is ENTIRELY not the approach I advocate when going for a job, but given this reality, this is when the Barnard Columbia OCR distinction matters. These firms aren’t about leveraging a name brand vs lesser schools, your name brand is by default assumed if you even want a chance to get your resume seen. And that at the end of the day is what OCR is about, getting your resume seen and not in a black hole. You can apply outside of OCR all you like, but barring exceptional networking skills you will not get yourself in front of these firms for an interview. Sure, you can leverage your brand name at a lesser firm but just think about the student population we have here on college confidential that freak about rankings, its the same way for preprofessional students. Sure they can go apply to state schools but man they want to at least convince themselves they have a shot at Harvard. Also once again, Barnard ISNT BAD at recruiting, but people want the smallest edge they can get, just like elite college admissions, and this is the OCR distinction. No matter how good your career counselor is, its exceedingly hard for them to get you in front of an elite firm that doesn’t recruit at your school.</p>
<p>For people who aren’t even interested in finance or consulting forget about everything you just read OCR difference isn’t going to impact you at all, but you’d be surprised what you think you want when you become a student in this kind of environment.</p>
<p>I agree most of the actual day to day distinctions between the two schools extremely minor. I would say the OCR issue is one of the few distinctions that I would consider non-trivial, and as I said before it’s only going to apply if you’re into that kind of industry. </p>
<p>But the point of this thread at the end of the day is people have all kinds of views on what the relationship is like on campus, and if you care at all (maybe you don’t that’s fine) about peoples’ perceptions of you recognize that its more sensitive of an issue than simply two schools under the same umbrella. People can, and will judge you if you’re too overboard with it. For example, there’s this pre-frosh on the Barnard forums that keeps going around telling people how Barnard is an Ivy and you should consider yourself so and tell people about it. You know what maybe that’s technically true, but its sure as hell going to make you look bad in practice. I don’t really think this would be the case if you went around and told people you’re NYU if you’re from some of the smaller NYU schools, for example. </p>
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<p>Do you know how often a Columbia student says “BC” in their time at Columbia? Probably zero. Why would I ever use BC to refer to Barnard outside of this particular forum setting? BC is Boston College… Apologies for the mistake I just didn’t feel like typing out Barnard every time. </p>
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<p>Right I understand this I’m just saying attack the argument not the person. Obviously you’re not an alumnus, and I haven’t raised that against you. My point is not that there are two signatures, its that Barnard has a president and it’s dual signed by two “presidents”. And regarding this you haven’t addressed my other points, and I don’t expect you to (in the sense that it’d be too much effort and too small of points to argue anyways), but in general I don’t think your characterization of the school is accurate if you can’t come to terms that the distinction is greater than simply two colleges under the same umbrella. It’s a complex relationship with no clear dividing line, and you should acknowledge this. </p>
That’s not a very positive statement in CC’s favor.</p>
<p>My daughter was a poli sci / IR major. She came into school undecided as to major, but was always leaning toward IR. When she was a sophomore she was setting up an internship abroad with a UN agency. When she was senior, career services set her up with a Barnard alum mentor who worked for USAid or a similar agency. </p>
<p>My d. had friends who were pre-law, pre-med-- or a whole array of other interests. Many could not afford to go to grad school immediately after undergrad, but certainly would be interested in looking at work opportunities related to their personal interests and career goals. </p>
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That’s not true at all. The Barnard Career Services teaches those networking skills and provides students with avenues for networking. My d. was hired for a what was essentially a dream job for her interests, the day that she graduated. (Private agency, working with the UN). As far as I can tell, the agency hadn’t hired anyone straight out of undergrad for her position in the past; she has now moved on and all the people now with the same job title have master’s degrees. So yeah, I think her Barnard degree was probably something of an asset. Along with that overseas internship she did the summer after her sophomore year.</p>
<p>The situation you have described is one of tunnel vision and dependency. If the student sees their employment options as limited to what their school offers via OCR … that’s an extremely narrow set of options. If there were CC students who didn’t even know the first step about networking back when my d. was on the phone setting up informational interviews for herself… then I don’t think those students were being well served by their career office. That is especially true for the students who fit your description of essentially choosing to go into finance because they see it as their only option, due to peer pressure combined with dependency on OCR and on-campus job fairs. </p>
<p>I was thinking that a CC student would SEE the letters “BC” in print to refer to Barnard day in, day out, over and over and over again. It;s the convention used to identify students in The Spectator and on the Bwog, and it is code that precedes course designations for all Barnard-courses. </p>
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<p>How did Millicent McIntosh’s job duties change the year that her job title changed from “Dean” to “President”? Are you saying that all Barnard grads who graduated prior to 1952 had valid Columbia University degrees because their school was headed by a Dean – but a change in title of the head of their faculty changes that? What about the other Columbia schools that are headed by a “President” rather than a “Dean” – are their degrees similarly suspect? </p>
<p>It’s not a positive statement, but it’s also not a statement about CC. First of all, I’m going to assume you’re using CC to reference the general Columbia undergraduate body rather than specifically the college. Secondly, this isn’t about CC or even Columbia specifically, it’s a statement about elite higher education in general, especially these large research universities. Columbia isn’t special in any particular way compared to the other Ivies. Barnard also isn’t off the hook here. Even if the OCR is different (and only recently), their close ties with Columbia at large exposes them to similar (albeit lesser) environmental influences. Once again, you can’t have it both ways. This kind of influence is exactly what makes Barnard so great at recruiting versus other LACs.</p>
<p>Generally, I’m not trying to make strictly positive statement about Columbia. I love the school of course, but I want to have an accurate portrayal for incoming students of at least what is my perspective on different aspects of student life. I’m not going to sugarcoat Columbia’s less than stellar (in individual support, not in other ways), finance ridden career center. Similarly I wouldn’t want anyone to believe there’s no divisiveness about the Columbia Barnard issue on campus.</p>
<p>You know what also makes me sad, the way you phrase that. Back to my point earlier about how the divisiveness comes from Barnard taking all the positives of Columbia but then throwing themselves aside when it comes to Columbia’s issues, what do you mean “not a very positive statement in CC’s favor”? Whether Columbia and Barnard is the same school is a debate on semantics (and as you said, mostly a debate over trivial issues and perception), but at least in day to day student life in the 4 year undergrad experience, Barnard and Columbia are as intertwined as any undergrad colleges under the same university. We go to the same info sessions, we tap the same alumni networks, we were even on the same recruiting system until recently, but somehow now it becomes CC’s problem and not Barnard’s. </p>
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<p>Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I mean “these firms” specifically to refer to the (majority of) OCR firms. I have no knowledge of nor am I attempting to speak to your daughters experiences in whatever firm. I’m saying barring exceptional networking skills, you would not be getting an interview for example, that Goldman S&T internship I spoke of previously that didn’t recruit on your campus. </p>
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<p>I think tunnel vision and dependency is a good way to put it. I’m not saying there isn’t anything out there, but people don’t see it out of ignorance/laziness/reliance on CCE. It’s a similar analogy to college admissions, and similar “tunnel vision” about Ivies when there are plenty of other “lesser” schools that might be great for them. I also don’t believe that Barnard has a magical career center that turns all the ignorant/lazy/dependent students into passionate, go-getters. </p>
<p>It sounds like your D was particularly proactive about her career process personally, even if the career center was a good resource. A career office can’t motivate people to ask for informational interviews, even if people do know about them. I don’t entirely even understand what it is that makes Barnard career services seem better (as in I really don’t know, not like a negative statement). When I was a freshman/sophomore, my experiences with CCE weren’t mind blowing, but it was mostly expected, given a school this size. For example, they gave us information on basics (writing resumes, CLs, networking), but beyond that they could help very little. They offered 1 on 1 sessions for resume writing or interviews but I didn’t find it very helpful because IMO if you don’t work in the industry it’s hard to give advice on technical interviews (which most are at least to some extent). Resume writing advice at CCE was also very basic and they once again couldn’t tailor to an industry. I get Barnard has a mentorship program, but this kind of stuff is common among the dozens of pre-professional clubs on campus, so I don’t think it’s a deficiency that can’t be made up given a moderate amount of proactivity by the individual. </p>
<p>It’s interesting you bring up networking as an example because I would have thought networking is the hardest to teach (versus interviews/resumes). What exactly does Barnard do in this respect?</p>
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<p>If you’re talking about the student body, I think I addressed that in the previous post. If you’re talking about me, its because that’s what the pre-professional student body is focused on.</p>
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<p>Alright whatever. I thought you were the one that mentioned too many of these debates are in trivial territory…</p>
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<p>No idea, what’s your point? They did change? They didn’t? </p>
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<p>I don’t know what the perception was like 60 years ago, maybe it changed things maybe it didn’t I have no idea.</p>
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<p>What, like teachers college? Are we really about to make this comparison?</p>
<p>Do I need a 60 year comprehensive education of Barnard’s history to make the argument that it’s a little odd both undergrad schools have separate rankings on USNWR?</p>
<p>The point (that you’ve been skirting around) is that even if I take what you say to be true in that you have some 60 year old corner case, there are simply too many anomalies between the relationship to justify it as a normal one between two colleges of the same university, and this is how the subjective line drawing happens.</p>
<p>Networking is a skill. There are useful things to do, and things that are not so useful. For example, I don’t know whether my daughter knew what an “informational interview” was – how to set one up,what to say or do at one, how to follow-up – but for what she learned at workshops or via training material provided by the career center. Maybe she did… but I never heard that phrase until my daughter was telling me about it her senior year, and it’s fresh in my mind now because my son is now completing grad school, and my d. has been prodding him into setting these up, and my son is now relating to me his “success” stories of the ones he has set up. (Success in quotes because an the purpose of the interview is to make a connection and develop leads, not to get a job – and, as my daughter learned, it was sometimes a very good way of eliminating certain agencies or companies from her job search, which of course doesn’t lead to a job at all but might prevent someone from making a serious mistake). </p>
<p>I didn’t participate in the training myself so I cant detail everything she learned - but the point is that a person who thinks that networking is elusive is hard would be the type of person most likely to benefit from specific workshops, guidelines, role-playing sessions, etc.</p>
<p>So I would take her feedback as an endorsement – that is, you can go to the web site and see what the program claims to offer, and you have one graduate of the program who gives it 5 stars. The high ranking of Barnard’s career services on the Princeton Review survey-based list suggest that others give it similar rave reviews. That doesn’t mean that everyone is using it or has 100% satisfaction – but basically they are teaching job-getting skills and students seem to be happy with what they are teaching and the way they are teaching it. </p>
<p>It’s not an either/or thing in any sense. I’m not playing the “my school is better than yours” game – I’m responding to the assertion that Barnard students are somehow left out of the loop because they aren’t using a specific service that is provided to Columbia undergraduates. That is one of the things that is handled separately- and that may be an asset for Barnard students because of special issues that face women. There is still a huge amount of discrimination against women in hiring and in career advancement in some fields – and I am under the impression that finance is one of them. By discrimination I don’t mean overt discrimination, but rather systematic discrimination – for example, if in the course of a day an OCR recruiter interviews an equal number of male/female candidates - but then there is a significant disparity in the gender balance of the candidates who end up being hired – that would suggest some level of discrimination. If it were overt, then there wouldn’t be much that women could do about it – but if it is a result of more subtle factors, then workshops that give women skills to anticipate and overcome various biases that work against them and impact the way they are perceived would be very useful. There is no reason that Columbia can’t offer such workshops to its students - I’m just saying that it is one benefit that Barnard students get from having a women-focused career center. </p>