<p>^this thread has been done many times before, do a search, but two of the many things:</p>
<p>1) balance of personalities and career interests in the student body, good proportion of people who want to go into: law, medicine, engineering, finance, consulting, international affairs, journalism, theater / entertainment, politics, scientific research, social science/humanity research and a few others. </p>
<p>This makes for the best kind of microcosm: where you meet people with very different interests from you who are driven and talented to succeed. You walk out with a better perspective and ability to deal with different kinds of people, you make some great connections and you are not fumbling over one another for the same internships and opportunities like you would be at more specialized schools.</p>
<p>This is an uncommon strength to Columbia because no one field dominates campus, and we have top academic departments in every broad area of study. A school like Wash U or Johns Hopkins, will have a much higher concentration of pre-meds, a school like Georgetown will have a concentration of people going into finance, law, international affairs. A school like MIT will have a strong slant towards science and engineering. Every school has every type of person, but it is the balanced proportions at Columbia which make it special.</p>
<p>2) The tension between intellectual pursuits on campus and gritty reality outside the gates:</p>
<p>Again, Columbia is one of the few place where people who plan to be die hard intellectual academics are challenged by people who want to be no-nonsense practitioners in a field and vice versa. I’ve seen this especially in politics, finance, economics, sociology. The average intellectual savant constantly encounters the average greedy future banker or lawyer and often they are friends (sometimes not so much). Intellectuals come because of the core the small classes, and the strong academic departments. Practitioners come for the internship opportunities, a fast paced NYC, grad school and job placement and general prestige. </p>
<p>You can constantly see people fighting over academic concepts vs. complicated reality, expediency vs. ideals. </p>
<p>The way I see it: whether you want to be a no BS practitioner or elite intellectual it benefits you to be challenged and sometimes even ridiculed. Your ideals become more practical and your practice becomes more philosophically grounded.</p>