Life at Columbia

mikesown
Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:31:37 +0000

Disclaimer: I am not a Columbia student(yet, hopefully I’ll get accepted after being deferred ED), but I have been to the campus many times, talked to students currently attending, and have hung around these boards a lot.

What I have heard is that Columbia has much less of a central social scene than most other ivies(or most other schools for that matter). Whereas in other schools, the majority students participate in fraternities/sororities, this is not the case at Columbia. There is a greek scene, but it is not nearly as ubiquitous as many other schools’, and (to paraphrase someone on these boards) if you don’t participate in it, you’ll never know it exists, but if you’re in the greek scene, you’ll have a lot of fun. There really aren’t many “Animal House” parties at Columbia from what I’ve heard, mostly just close groups of friends hanging out.

What a typical Columbian does on a Thursday/Friday/Saturday(remember, Columbia students for the most part have Friday off!) is go downtown with a close group of friends. Maybe you’ll see a movie, go shopping, go to a club, go to a play, anything. It’s New York City. Whatever you want, it’s there. What you do is completely up to you. NOTHING is the “norm”! A $2($4 roundtrip) subway ride gets you almost anywhere in the city in a matter of minutes.

On Sunday, most students sit down and study instead of going out(not really a surprise). Likewise, the same holds true for Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday. So, 4 days of hard work, and 3 days of play. A pretty nice schedule to have, if you ask me!

Oh, also, one thing that the Fridays off from school(save for labs and recitations) gives you is the freedom to do an internship during the year. This is a very nice opportunity to have which almost no one else gets(you’re in the financial capital of the world, attending an ivy league school, and have Fridays off). Working Fridays alone, you can probably do a 10 hour/week internship easily. That said, it is (from what I’ve heard) a bit of a drag to get up on a Friday for 9AM work after you’ve been partying with your friends all night.

In case you don’t know, Columbia athletics are a joke. If you are care a lot about athletics(other than inter-murals) don’t come to Columbia! Columbia’s teams are really pathetic, and they are not at all the focus of campus life as is the case in other colleges.

Hope that helps. If you have any other questions feel free to post here.