<p>it asks you to list 5 or less interests at columbia</p>
<p>one of them is academic journals</p>
<p>does this refer to working in a lab and publishing or something else?</p>
<p>as in reading academic journals. Like Physics Today, etc.</p>
<p>academic journals are peer reviewed scholarly publications in which new research is first presented to the world. They are the most rigorous format for the exchange of ideas and the life blood of the international university system. They exclusively publish the results of scholarly research, including but not limited to laboratory sciences. It refers not to having worked in a lab, per se, but more specifically to the published and peer reviewed results of having done so. </p>