It’s too big, it takes up too much time, it’s annoying to get around, and always, always on the back of your mind when you do scheduling. Behold, the Columbia Core! Let me just start off with a quick disclaimer. I actually like and enjoy the Core. Repeat: I. Actually. Enjoy. The. Core. So, although I may gripe and moan about it, let me start off by telling you what I actually enjoy about the Columbia Core.
Although a “standardized” Columbia experience would be contrary to everything the University stands for and believes in, it is nevertheless important to have some common aspects for students at Columbia. In this sense, the Core does a marvelous job of providing a common struggle and joy for Columbia students. Furthermore, the Core also provides an opportunity to explore subjects that we may otherwise never pursue. In what universe would a pure Math major care so much about taking several literature classes? Similarly, someone fully immersed in the humanities may be missing out on important cutting-edge scientific reasoning and rationale. Finally, the Core offers stability to the populace as a whole. When we feel like we never know what to take or how to move forward in our academic career, the Core at least gives us a starting point for the rest of our academic future. To some extent, rigidity is nice. After all, this isn’t Brown University!
Good-natured barbs against Brown aside, the Core does have some significant problems. For one, it takes up nearly a third of our time here at Columbia. Although this may not sound like that significant a time commitment, let’s see if we can put this into perspective. With one-third of our time already allotted to classes, we must take just to graduate, that leaves only two-thirds of our time available for our major and even less for electives. And, if we choose to double major, even if we can double-count classes towards both areas (a fact that Columbia conveniently forgot to mention) we still have an inordinate amount of our time focused on the Core. Oftentimes, they are in subjects that students utterly lack interest in. To put it more bluntly, if Person X is a Math Major, would their time be better served by studying second semester Literature Humanities, or would an additional math class be more beneficial? And, to put it even more bluntly, a complete lack of aptitude in a Core class can easily wreak destruction upon one’s GPA: an essential factor in getting into graduate school and beyond.
My supported solution would be to take the Core down from one-third of our time to one fifth of our time. Although this would, unfortunately, require the cutting of some “vital” classes, the potential benefits are essentially too good to pass up. More time for majors, more for electives, more for extracurriculars, and (for the lazy person in me) more time for me! So, I implore you, Columbia. Make the Coreless core.
