Columbia vs. Princeton

tirakon
Sun, 17 Jun 2012 10:03:09 +0000

I have several points to make. As for UChicago, the only school you mention with a comparable core system, do you really think there’s a substantive difference between 19 and 22 students in a classroom? This is the sort of statistical difference that seems meaningful on paper, but which makes no practical difference. They are roughly the same. What you’re seeing here, by the way, is UChicago blatantly gaming the USNews rankings, which give credit for percentage of classes below 20 students. Columbia chooses not to play that game, yet still manages to provide nearly 2% more classes under 20 than UChicago (79.7 vs. 77.8). That 79.7% beats Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford respectively by: .2%, 8.4%, 3.9%, and 9.3%. If Columbia were to cap their core classes at 19, its lead in this category would skyrocket. So, we have plenty of small classes here.

As for Yale and Princeton, I don’t think it’s fair to compare their ability to cap optional humanities seminars, which only 100-200 students attend, with Columbia’s ability to cap core classes which are provided for roughly 1400 students. In any case, it’s a completely different experience at Columbia. At Princeton and Yale, if you take one of these Humanities classes, you are in a select group of people who care about these topics. At Columbia, everyone is in the same class at you at the same time. When you go to John Jay for dinner, you see hundreds of people who are carrying the same books that you’re reading at that very moment. You can walk up to any student, even a complete stranger, and immediately start discussing the same books and the same classes. This is unique among top tier schools, even at Uchicago, where students have more of a distribution requirement and don’t actually take the same classes. Columbia’s experience is incredibly wonderful and extremely bonding.

Another benefit that Columbia’s core classes have over self-selective and optional programs at Princeton and Yale: you get much more science/math people in your classes, who provide very different and interesting perspectives to the table. One example from my experiences that immediately jumps to mind: having an Econ-Math major in the room when we were discussing Adam Smith was wonderful.

This is not to say that there aren’t math/science students in the programs at Princeton and Yale. But, those kinds of students are probably much rarer.

Now, does every student at Columbia love the core? No. Some people come here in spite of the core, not because of it. But, I think a significant majority does love the core. And the people who aren’t into it don’t speak up in class, which can make a 22 person seminar feel several students smaller.

In any event, not every core class actually has 22 people in it. But, in the ones of that size that I’ve been in, there’s never been a lack of conversation or a difficulty getting my voice heard.

I also want to dispel the notion that NYC destroys any opportunity for bonding. This is a big myth that really ****es me off. Columbia’s campus is extremely vibrant. You can go to school here, never enter the city, and not realize you’re missing anything. Most people don’t run off campus all the time. In fact, I’d say most people don’t leave more than once a week.

What the city is great for is supplementing the college experience. Every music hum student goes with their class to see an opera at the Met. Every Art Hum student goes with their class to several of NYC’s amazing museums. In my Postmodern Poetry seminar, we would study a famous and influential poet, and then go downtown together to see him or her give a poetry reading. In my Shakespeare seminar, the professor got us tickets to the hottest Shakespeare production in the city at the time that was sold out to the general public. Living in the city also has allowed me to intern on an NBC show that I consider to be the funniest on television (I don’t want to give away too much personal information).

You’re going to love Columbia. Stop worrying and get cracking on the Iliad.