9 Ways of Knowing

primefactor
Thu, 24 Feb 2005 11:38:59 +0000

Regarding pre-med… in addition to biology, the chemistry department also has a pre-med track that adds the extra courses you need to apply to med school (if that doesn’t make sense, blame my reporting, not my friend’s information). For what it’s worth, my friend said the health professions advisor is great. She doesn’t know what Columbia’s requirement track is like, but rest assured that 1) you’ll know what classes to take to prepare for med school and 2) you can take more advanced or varied classes above and beyond requirements if you’re so inclined.


This is very hard to answer from my own experience. I’ve had only two classes that were all Barnard students–my transfer writing seminar and my senior thesis seminar. The rest, even classes that count for nothing but Barnard major credit, had at least a handful of visibly non-Barnard students (as for the girls, who knows where they were enrolled).


But with that caveat, I’ve almost always been impressed with the level of discourse. Although I think the economics department attracts a higher % of people who aren’t that passionate about the subject, but just want a good job after graduation, the discussions have still been great (there’s nothing quite like 20 college students debating whether higher education is really a productive input to human capital formation). The thing I’ve noticed most is that as long as you support your opinion, people will respect it and consider it. They might challenge it, but they’ll never dismiss it, and I really appreciate that. Although everyone cares about every class they’re taking, usually enough people care about each class to make things interesting.

Overall, I’ve found the students to be very dedicated to what they do. They work for clubs or campus publications relating to their interests, participate in research, internships, volunteer work, activism… Of course, not everyone has a passion, and I can’t even say if there are more or fewer students here who really care, compared to other schools. But there are a lot, in every field.

And thanks, both, for the appreciation! It’s great to help the right people find Barnard.