Columbia College v. MIT

AstroLion
Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:55:10 +0000

Hey, I’m a senior astrophysics major, and I’ve posted some stuff about this in the past around here, so this is just copy and paste, but feel free to ask more questions:

General science/research:


Students can and are encouraged to start research as soon as you arrive. There are even programs to get your feet wet if you’ve never done research before! See [Frontiers of Science?Trying Out Research (FOSTOR) | Columbia College](Frontiers of Science—Trying Out Research (FOSTOR) | Columbia College)
Overall student to faculty ratio at Columbia is less than 6:1, and in the sciences it is closer to 2:1. Not only do I get more individual attention in class, but the small classes allows professors to get so personally know me, easily leading to research opportunities and letters of recommendation. All my research experiences I have was through just talking to professors during office hours, you will be surprised at how much they are interested in you!
One of the best undergrad biology research programs in the world is Columbia’s SURF program, where last summer Nobel laureate Eric Kandel mentors three undergrads in his lab at our med school. See [SURF[/url]


There are also many other Columbia-specific research programs, for example from just poking around the Columbia website, I found:
The chemistry department has a summer research program:
[url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/chemistry/undergrad/REU/]NSF REU Program](Biology)
As does Nevis lab, Columbia’s high energy physics lab in the Palisades:
[Nevis Labs REU Program](Nevis Labs REU Program)
There is also one for nanotechnology/materials science:
[Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Nanotechnology :: Columbia NSEC](Columbia Nano Initiative)
And in the engineering school:
[Undergraduate Research Involvement Program | The Fu Foundation School of Engineering & Applied Science - Columbia University](http://engineering.columbia.edu/undergraduate-research-involvement-program)


The core curriculum is something that scientists will got get at any other institution. Not only will you graduate a much more well rounded student by reading and thinking about great humanistic questions that have shaped our civilization, but it is also directly beneficial to you as I’ve found that my writing skills have been greatly improved after having gone through the literary bootcamp that is the core. What’s also awesome is that while there are a large number of required courses, it is carefully designed so that you will not be constrained to take lots of courses in your major, leaving you plenty of time to do research at the same time.


Physics/Astrophysics specifically:

Columbia really emphasizes research for its undergrads, much more so than other schools. I don’t know what branch of physics and astrophysics you are interested in, but columbia has a few large research groups in physics/astrophysics that love undergrads. In particular, I will point out Szabi Marka’s experimental gravity group, who work on detecting gravitational waves from black hole mergers and other extreme phenomena by using mile long underground interferometers.
See [GECo[/url]

Another large research group in the physics department that does work in astrophysics is Amber Miller’s observational cosmology group, who work on observations of the cosmic microwave background, which is light from the very early universe when the density dropped low enough to be tansparent to photons, and important in the study of structure formation in the universe.
See [url=http://calvin.phys.columbia.edu/group_web/index.php]The Miller CMB Group at Columbia University](http://geco.phys.columbia.edu/)

If you are interested in astroparticle physics, Elena Aprile has a large dark matter detection group, which builds and uses liquid xenon and argon detectors in the race to detect dark matter as predicted under supersymmetry. The detectors are build at columbia’s Nevis experimental particle physics lab, which is quite large and a lot of undergrads work at.
See [The Aprile Group at Columbia University](http://xenon.astro.columbia.edu/group.html) , http://www.nevis.columbia.edu/

There are also some very very famous theorists in the departments, who have worked with undergrads in the past: Andrei Beloborodov (theoretical high-energy astrophysics, general relativity), Lam Hui (physical cosmology, early universe physics), Zoltan Haiman (cosmology, structure formation), and of course Brian Greene (I don’t think he needs an introduction) .

As you can see, a fairly large portion of the physics department is devoted to astrophysics, and you can definitely work in astrophysics as a physics major. Columbia’s physics department has one of the best graduate placement rates around, and perennially has some of the best students at columbia. A lot of columbia college valedictorians and salutatorians come out of the physics department, including last year’s, who was chemical physics, and the year before, who was physics, and is now in the infamous astrophysical sciences phd program at princeton.

In the physics department, there are ~45 professors and ~30 undergrads, and in astronomy, ~15 faculty and ~10 undergrads. Class sizes are very small and everyone gets to do research in whatever group and field they want, since there is no competition for spots due to the student:faculty ratio. The faculty all love the undergrads, as we’re all pretty smart (I think?), and the undergrads have their own office and lounge so it’s a very friendly environment.