| Come on people, Columbia isn't perfect. Since everyone else is working on all the good things, here are some things that I would change about Columbia:
- No sports / school spirit / rah rah mentality. The football and basketball teams are horrible. Wein Stadium is not the Big House or the Rose Bowl on Saturday afternoons.
- Alumni network is weak (relative to other Ivies / top schools). I think this is partially because there's no rah rah spirit that unifies Columbia students. Columbia's alumni relations office doesn't seem to get it (<20% of alums donate), and I don't know why. They're trying to work on it, though.
- No intramurals. Since there's no major athletic facility on campus, there's no baseball, flag football, etc. league as there would be at other cooleges.
- Administration is bureacratic and full of red tape. It could be worse (it isn't close to what you'd experience at a huge state school), but they manage to annoy most people. The advising at Columbia isn't anything to write home about.
- Some math/science/engineering professors are horrible teachers (some have pitiful English). This is a problem with *all* research universities -- not just Columbia -- since hiring/tenure decisions are based on research quality.
Every college has strengths and weaknesses. I've named pretty much all of my gripes with Columbia. The positives overwhelm the few negatives, of course. |