<p>That is mostly correct about the Core classes at Columbia. Columbia hires several adjunct (part-time) professors and advanced graduate students (it’s actually a competitive fellowship for advanced graduate students, mostly in the humanities, to teach Literature Humanities, University Writing, or Contemporary Civilization). It all depends on the section you get, though; many sections ARE taught by tenured/tenure-track professors, and last year my husband took Lit Hum with a dean. I believe that the Music Hum, Art Hum, and Frontiers of Science classes are mostly taught by professors. But anyway, I’m not sure how much it matters…the Core is standardized, and the Lit Hum curriculum is going to be the same regardless of whether you take it with the dean of the college or an 8th-year philosophy graduate student. They’re also largely discussion-driven, so it’s really about the texts and what they say. Plus, Columbia has some of the most capable graduate students in the country, and there’s honestly not a whoooole lot of difference between an advanced graduate student and a brand new assistant professor. In fact, the advanced grad probably has more time for you.</p>
<p>I am always bemused by the extreme logical conclusion of mild stereotypes that happens on these boards. I’ve heard that Stanford is techie (because of its location near Silicon Valley, I presume) but never that humanities/social science students completely don’t fit in there. I’m willing to bet that humanities and social science majors make up the majority of undergrads, for example. (College Board seems to support that; only 34% of Stanford’s students major in the combined fields of engineering, computer science, biology, and the physical sciences.) Stanford has some top programs in several social science fields - their graduate psychology program is in the top 5, for example.</p>
<p>Columbia’s residence halls aren’t bad. I used to work in res life here and some of them are quite beautiful. I think there’s an acceptable threshold that you should cross when it comes to res halls and after that, they shouldn’t really be a consideration anymore. There’s also a diversity of places - for example, social first-years can choose to live in a four-person mini-suite in Carman or can choose to have a single in John Jay or Furnald. Furnald, in particular, is a really beautiful res hall and located right next to the student center. John Jay has the dining hall on the first floor, so you don’t have to go outside to eat. The upper-class halls are a mix of qualities and different living styles (doubles, corridor-style singles, suites. Housing selection is hilarious to watch from the outside, here. I have a friend who works in housing and he walks around during April like a zombie.) Besides, if you want to step out of your res halls and be in a major city…this is the place to be.</p>
<p>Pomona’s in an urban area.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>On the advantages of SLACs - I think they are oft-repeated. Small class sizes, personal access to professors, a tight-knit class community. It’s hard to put across to a student, but I can see the contrasts between Columbia and my own mid-ranked SLAC. Columbia certainly has more resources - better libraries, better study spaces, better residence halls, and professors who are world-class researchers. But the fact of the matter is…professors at Columbia come here to be researchers. It’s not that some of them don’t enjoy working with students - many of them do. (Some of them truly DON’T, though.) But that’s not their key concern and their departments straight-up tell them that teaching doesn’t help them get tenure, their research does. Professors at big research universities often spend time trying to figure out how to get OUT of teaching classes. As a result, you’ll flip through the department and see all of these impressive, amazing professors who have done great things, but find out that they don’t actually teach any undergraduate courses. There’s a professor in my department who invented a method in my field, but he doesn’t teach undergrad courses. Another professor teaches a really interesting course, but he’s been on leave most of the 6 years I’ve been here.</p>
<p>And if you take any science or social science classes with labs, that professor is not teaching the lab. I am. Or a fellow grad - not even necessarily advanced! Like I said, most of us aren’t bad teachers, and we may actually want to be in the classroom more than the professor. But we are new, inexperienced teachers. And let’s say that you want some research experience for grad school. You find a lab on the bleeding edge of your field, discovering new things and doing great science. Well, you can join that lab, but chances are you aren’t working directly with the professor/PI of the lab group. You’re working with one of his graduate students or a post-doc. His signature will be in your recommendation letter, but he didn’t write it…his grad student did. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, since thousands of students get excellent educations at these top national universities and head to great, great graduate programs. Just…the thing.</p>
<p>The difference at a SLAC is that if you see a professor listed on the department’s webpage, that professor IS teaching classes for undergraduates and IS willing to take you into his lab to supervise you. You will develop a close relationship with that professor if you want, because there are no grad students and only the occasional postdoc (and even then, postdocs at teaching colleges are there to learn how to teach, not do research). He will be the one penning your recommendation letter. And honestly, it helps a lot in graduate school. I felt like I was very independent and self-sufficient, and knew how to relate to my adviser, because I had a very similar relationship in undergraduate school. I’d worked on a senior thesis in development with her, and a dissertation is really just a really big senior thesis.</p>
<p>My seminar classes in undergrad were pretty similar to my seminar classes in grad school, except the level of the material was just different. Because my classes were small (15-20 students), my professors assigned 15-20 page papers in pretty much every class - even on the introductory level! I wrote a 20 page paper for freshman sociology and freshman psych - so I was well-versed in the world of the seminar paper before coming to graduate school, and had gotten a LOT of feedback on my writing. Honestly, I feel like in many ways attending a SLAC is a microcosm of the grad school experience. But I also think it can help students who want to go straight to work, too, as you learn to relate to your advisers/professors like people in a similar way to how you will relate to your manager or boss. You view them as people rather than the shadowy figure who shows up, lectures, and leaves, and who has 1 office hour a week at a time that’s designed to make it difficult for you to bother them (or worse, “by appointment only.”)</p>