| In my opinion Positives:
- Access to NYC, a hop-skip-and-a jump.
- The Professors, espeically in the Core, are great and certain departments especially in the arts are absolutely top notch due to location (film, music, etc)
- The campus is unique in that its an urban oasis. The Upper West Side is beautiful in the spring/ early fall and the area around Columbia is on a bigtime rebound.
- The student body is veryaccepting of all walks and types of life, its cool to be open minded
- Because of the large urban community, for minorities there are large "cliques" which can be comforting
- If you are a male, the male/ female ratio is strongly in your favor
Negatives:
- The student body is large, its a big university with many grad departments, so undergrads don't necessarily control the feel of the university
- Housing can be iffy, some are pretty bad, others are nice.
- There isn't much social unity. The bar scene is OK but its nothing like the laid back "house party" experience you get on other campuses. It isnt rare for the campus to be pretty silent on a Friday night.
- No cafeteria. There is Lerner but Columbia doesnt have the large cafeteria common hours that other schools have (except freshmen)
- Expensive. The UWS isn't cheap.
- The library is silent. Whereas other schools have big 24 hr open social spaces in the library, for some reason Columbia's library isn't the social gathering place that libraries are at other schools. Interestingly, before renovations a few years back the library was much more social.
I think Celebrian's picture is pretty accurate. Columbia isn't going to offer the mardi-gras feel of Franklin Street at UNC ot the laid back friendliness other places offer. But conversely it is tremendously open to all types of students and is a wonderful school that has really built itself up in the last ten years in terms of facilities and surrounding area. And NYC provides some amazing resources. |