What do you really love/hate about Barnard?

mardad
Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:52:52 +0000

We had a similar experience with our older daughter. A fairly conservative Republican with a very logical brain (Think Mr Spok in a dress) she had a lot of fun laughing at some of the conclusions her classmates would state during the election season. But with her strong sense of justice there was never any serious conflict.
The location in New York was perfect for us. As parents we are too “hovering”, so it was good for her to be away in terms of independence. Except that there are no more direct flights from Ontario to New York.
At Barnard she did not receive as much personal attention as I would have liked until the last two years, but that is her fault as she didn’t seek any attention. You can get as much as you want.
Barnard also allowed her intellectual freedom and opportunities. As churchmusicmom mentioned her daughter went from dance to neuroscience. Our daughter started as a barely interested premed (because she couldn’t think of anything else) went to economics then to art history. She specialized in non western art, spent a semester in Cairo and a summer in Saudi Arabia, toured Tunisia and Turkey and is now filling out law school applications. Her interest is in Cultural Preservation law.
If you choose to go to Barnard, be prapared for a varied and long intellectual journey. The “nine ways of knowing” are there for a reason. Barnard students are serious intellectuals and as such have a number of talents, so they want you to sample them all. Also women mature in the sciences later than men. I can’t tell you the number of women in Physics I know who hated Physics in high school but loved it in college. Look up Prof. Janna Levin of the Physics department. She started Barnard as a Philosophy major.
In addition, be prepared to study hard: you’ve selected a very strong peer group for yourself. As Dean Denburg said when my older daughter arrived, “This will be the first time in your life you will learn more from your classmates than you will from the faculty.” (And this is not because the faculty is slacking.) Our younger daughter currently at Barnard is loving it even though she is taking 19 hours including an upper level Physics course as a film major.