Barnard v Columbia

DigitalDad
Sat, 01 Jan 2022 19:51:06 +0000

mynameiswhatever:

Anecdotes, … would all be appreciated

For some, one of many criteria to choose one college over the other is either the attraction to, or rejecting the rigidity of, a strict “Core” curriculum of very specific courses, even very specific pieces of literature, that every Columbia College student must study, regardless how well it fits with one’s interests or ambitions.

In comparison, Barnard’s “Foundation” is a distribution matrix, furthering breadth of knowledge. Barnard offers literally hundreds of courses spread across all disciplines and departments that will fulfill one or two distribution areas.

From that expansive list, Barnard students choose their own courses; many will satisfy more than one area of “exploration”, and possibly even apply to their major/minor at the same time. While “foundations” might sound like just another word for “core” - they are not.

Example: My daughter satisfied her “Thinking Technologically and Digitally” by choosing a very applicable Computer Science class that developed an interactive experiment for a Psych lab. She also took a neat planetary movement course, that fulfilled “Thinking Quantitatively and Empirically” and another (Science?) requirement. So, typically Barnard students will find course offerings that are very much in line with their areas of interest (or related to a minor/major) that also happen to tangent one or two “foundations”.