Barnard - Social Scene and Academics?

JADDAD
Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:42:21 +0000

Well, my D is in her second year at Barnard and is generally happy. My D was primarily interested in attending a woman’s college and Barnard seems to have been the perfect choice. I’d describe her experience as being that of Barnard essentially being an all-woman “residential college” that is part of a major university. She has a few male friends from “across the street” as many Barnard students like to say. But the relative small number of male friends is due to her personal choice (she started as a shy 16 year old her first semester) rather than lack of opportunity. She took a fair number of her classes at CC (Columbia College) and found little distinction between classes at CC versus BC.

My D finds the workload significant, but not overwhelming and the professors (both Columbia and Barnard) accessible and friendly. In fact, she is very friendly with one of her profs from last year, whom she will take another class with next fall.

We live in NYC, so my D comes home most weekends even though she lives in one of the dorms. She has a part time job in the library. And she loves the food, which is notable because my D is both a vegetarian and a picky eater.

In sum, with only minor exceptions, my daughter is very happy with her choice. She plans on going to grad school and is considering Columbia as one of her leading choices given that it is, as she says, “the devil she knows.” I suspect that if you are looking for a serious and stimulating college experience that offers both a small LAC/large research university experience, you will be very happy with Barnard as your choice.