Originally posted by hrq
I'm wondering whether I should fill out the Columbia Secondary though. I hear that Columbia has an ultra-competitive learning environment. Is this true? Also, I hear that Columbia is much further from the fun parts of NYC. I don't know New York so well, but I would love to hear all of your thoughts on this. Any Columbia students out there? Do you all love your school, or are you just waiting to get the hell out?
I guess, I don't really know why I would want to apply to Columbia given the ultra-competitive reputation it has. I know it doesn't hurt to apply, but I need to have some reasoning so that I can feel good about putting the effort in.
I'm a first year at Columbia, so I think I can answer some of these questions...
First off, the ultra-competitive thing is patently untrue. But this depends on what you mean. There's no competition between classmates, because the first year is only pass/fail. I haven't heard any second years "stepping it up" or anything to get honors, so I can only guess that the first year breeds some comraderie. Just last week, we had an assignment due and a big group just randomly convened to work together and help each other with questions. So no, I don't see it as being competitive at all in that sense.
Here's a caveat, though: People in my class tend to work really really hard. And sometimes that gunner mentality shows up in small groups. However, that's not a big deal. The whole class isn't like that, and I think you can probably expect that at most medical schools you'll have a certain percentage of students who are like that.
The main point is this: don't ever judge a school based on whether or not its supposedly competitive. You can be happy anywhere, really. Your happiness in your personal and academic life depends on you. Classes vary from year to year on how "hardcore" its members are (the second years say that we work a lot harder than they did), but in the end that's not really what matters in terms of your medical education. You can't go wrong with either Columbia or Cornell, quite honestly.
In terms of location, I find Washington Heights to be very quaint. There's lots of culture here and its very family oriented. To that end, there's not too much to do for the young person. However, going downtown is just a quick jaunt downtown on the A, which runs express. It only takes about 20 minutes for me to get down to Times Square from here. And, it's not like you're going to be going out all the time. Well, even if you do, there are some bars around here as well.
So, whether or not you apply is up to you. But ditch the emphasis on competitveness. I think that in the end, it's pretty irrelevant. If I were you, I'd do some looking into the things that you're interested in. Both Cornell and Columbia have lots of resources. See which one that you feel like you'd like to be a part of when you get to medical school. Look around Columbia's site to get a good feel of the amount of opportunities and decide from there.
Despite my inital misgivings about Columbia (like you, I leaned towards Cornell, too), I really love it here. I think it's a great school. But so is Cornell. So just decide which one is best for you. But I think it's worth it to check Columbia out.
vigils: Why the NYC hate?
edit: One more thing about the learning environment: The professors here are awesome, as well. They are really focused on helping you learn and will do whatever they can to make sure that you understand. So, to the contrary of what you said, Columbia is an extremely supportive environment. People send out notes to the class listserve to help people learn, we form study groups....it's a very nice place to be. Also, the Student Success Network runs workshops for the first year class, to make sure they can pass their exams. It's really not competitive at all. Unless you get intimidated by classmates you sometimes seem to be constantly prepared for lecture/lab. Which some people in my class (myself included) were....at first. But after a week or two, you get into your groove and don't really worry about what they're doing, because you're just trying to do your best.
I apologize for this excessive length. I know this is probably way more info than you wanted, but I hope it's helpful!
