CCRA | CC Research Ambassadors

When reflecting on what is most valuable about the Core Curriculum at Columbia, I always think about the community it fosters. But a closely related benefit of the core, which is both a product of and a contributing factor to that sense of community, is a more internal effect that comes from the specific type of learning that takes place in most core classrooms. While this kind of learning applies to liberal arts education more broadly, Columbia’s Core is, in many ways, a shining example of the benefits of including the humanities in higher education.

Rainbows over Riverside Park, Photo Credit: Juliet Paiva.

In my experience with the Core, the unique sense of community it fosters has always stood out the most. I think back to freshman year and starting college after spending the last thirteen years at a small suburban all-girls school where I grew up alongside the same group of sixty-something other girls in my graduating class. A place where I felt like I knew everyone and everything. It was jarring to find myself in college as one first-year student out of thousands within a university of tens of thousands and all within a city of millions. Taking Literature Humanities during my first semester at Columbia allowed me to get to know a small group of my peers in a more contained setting that felt like we were all part of one collective thing. But then, even beyond my specific section of Lit Hum, almost every other Columbia College first-year student I met took the same class and was reading the same texts, but just with a different instructor in another section. Love it or hate it, the collective experience of the Core defines the Columbia College journey in a way unlike any other aspect of college life. Continue reading →