<p>If this has been posted before, I apologize:</p>
<p>I am a rising senior contemplating applying ED to Columbia. I plan to major in some facet of the biological sciences while at college (biochemistry, molecular bio, etc.) but I also have a strong passion for literature and philosophy. I love the core and all the reading material, but I want to be sure that students in Columbia College have at least some time to pursue electives… How much time does the combination of major-specific classes/prereqs and the Core leave for electives? Or, is the average CC student so worn out from reading and discussing Kant and Hume that they generally evade additional classes?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>It really depends on your major. The core takes up 50-60 credits (although science majors obviously can double count required courses for their major as science core), and a major takes up anywhere from 29 credits to over 50. I imagine that the bio majors are all around 45 or 50 credits (which we also call points, so if you’re looking at the CU websites, that’s what “points” means). So give 50 credits to the core and another 50 to a major, that leaves you with about 24 credits (or 6-8 classes) for electives. I don’t think electives are a huge part of the average schedule, but people do take them–this semester I’m taking a class on Russian lit purely because I love the professor. Additionally, some majors (although I’m doubting this is true for bio majors) have “additional/related course” components to the major. For example, I’m an american studies and nonfiction writing double major, and about 18 points of the two majors combined are basically electives (of 66 total, 36 for writing and 30 for american studies). There are also a lot of good student orgs to make room for extra interests that might not fit into an academic schedule–if you like philosophy, you should check out Philo ([Philowixian</a> -](<a href=“http://www.columbia.edu/cu/philo/]Philowixian”>Philowixian -)).</p>