| I am a grad student and am TAing here, so I won't publicly comment about the education or the students, but I can make a comparison to my ugrad school Cornell.
The administration at Columbia is really bad and is mired by tons of red tape and ineptitude. I've had nothing but bad experiences with them.
The campus is gorgeous. It's very small and compact so when you walk around, it's kind of nice seeing a bunch of people everywhere. Also, it's nice not having to walk 20 minutes just to get to class. It's very easy to be where you need to be.
However, campus is usually dead on the weekeneds. It seems that all the undergrads disperse around the city. I guess it's nice if you LOVE the city, but I liked it in ugrad when I could walk around a small college town and run into a bunch of people at bars or at house parties. I guess the party scene is different. I'm not saying one is worse than the other - it's all about personal prefs - but there seems to be a lack of the "traditional" college experience.
Let's see, what else... professors here are very accessible but you'll find that at any top school to be honest with you.
The libraries close really early. It's actually a big problem and a big pain in the neck for me because I have no money to buy books so I constantly have to check out books from the reserve.
The gym facilities are nice and the hours are great. It gets pretty crowded though but the equipment and facilities are very good.
It's reallly expensive living here. The only way to get a cheap drink is to go during happy hours. Restaurants here rip you off and the quality isn't worth the money at most of them. |