Not So Fratty

Introduction
As for Columbia, the social scene is really different, just b/c the city’s here, and there are a lot more fun things to do than just getting drunk in a basement every night. I think 10, maybe 12% of us are actually involved in the frats. There are some frat houses, but they’re all a couple blocks downtown, so it’s not actually right on campus.

Campus Life and Social Life
I’ve heard students date their professors and TA’s, but I’ve never actually seen it myself. My craziest class experience was when I had a professor answer his cell phone in the middle of his lecture and just talk for 5 minutes. Advertisement
Academics
The biggest downside to Columbia is that, I mean b/c people are so spread out and everyone goes around the city, it doesn’t have sort of that really nexus of social life where you meet everyone right away. You sort of have to go out of your way to meet people. But it’s not that hard, really. It just takes a little effort. So long as you’re willing to just go out and just go to different bars and be open and talk with people and do stuff on campus, you got to join a lot of activities if you really want to meet a lot of people, but everyone’s friendly, it’s not like it’s hard to meet people.

Student Body
I’ve met a lot of really cool people, I’ve really enjoyed my classes, I’ve found a lot of things I’m really interested in. I mean, I definitely wouldn’t go anywhere else if I had the choice to do it again.

In Closing...
From other Ivies, one of the big things is the city, so you’re not stuck in the middle of New Hampshire somewhere. I think there’s more diversity here, more different kinds of people, not just like different ethnic groups, but a lot of different types of people and nationalities.