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We visited Columbia just last weekend (the day after a Brown visit) and found it to be a lovely little campus. A nice oasis of green and calmness once you go through the gates. It was a very easy subway commute from the Theatre District.
The buildings were impressive, grand, and interesting. Our guided tour group was way too large. And our student guide seemed a bit 'boxed'---just like the classical core curriculum. Although we understand and can appreciate the beauty and intellectuality of that particular core curriculum, it really didn't appeal to our daughter. The idea of being locked into a rigid system of pre-determined classes for so much of her college years, just didn't cut it with her. To me, the idea that 'every Columbia alum since 1908 has read the same books as you!' didn't exactly give me the idea that the core keeps up with progress, if you get my drift. It brought back memories of reading "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" with my daughter in fifth grade from her middle school's reading list---a book that had absolutely no relevance to her, schools of this day and age, and provided no real background from which she could glean anything other than if one hangs around long enough even a rather unlikeable, disagreeable man may become figure given respect. What I got from the exercise was that Reading Lists DO need to change with the times, not all classics remain classics. LOL
And as my daughter has read the Iliad and the Odyssey twice since fifth grade, she really wasn't too excited to hear that she would be doing it yet again.
On another note, we absolutely LOVE the diving coach!!! He is a jewel!
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