Undergraduates hoping to register for graduate-level courses this spring will soon see how difficult that task can be. University policy allows undergraduate cross-registration at Columbia's graduate schools, but vague exceptions and restrictions render this program practically useless. With the advising period for spring course registration beginning today, administrators across the University should enhance and standardize the kind of access undergraduates have to graduate-school courses.
Students are encouraged to take advantage of the University's resources to further their academic and professional goals. For this reason, students at Columbia College may take up to four professional-school courses that count as elective credit for their 124-point degree requirement. School of General Studies students may receive up to six elective credits at the University's graduate schools. Though students in CC and GS are allowed free access to courses at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University's other professional schools are not as welcoming. The graduate schools of Architecture, the Arts and Sciences, Social Work, Journalism, and the School of International and Public Affairs allow undergraduates to register for graduate classes under certain conditions, but priority heavily favors graduate students and often makes this impossible. Moreover, graduate students are also given registration priority for some of the most popular undergraduate courses, particularly those in foreign languages.
The administration should address this one-sided cross-registration imbalance by outlining specific graduate courses and programs that will regularly be made available to undergraduates. Columbia Business School has already begun such a program, offering a "two-year pilot suite of business courses," faculty lectures, and a mentoring program geared toward undergraduates interested in management and marketing. Though the scope of this program may not be applicable to other graduate schools, introductory courses must be as welcoming to undergraduate students as the University advertises. Even the limited number of courses undergraduates have been granted access to at the graduate level can be vital to students' pre-professional development, and academic deans should encourage them to take advantage of this resource. Finally, study at a graduate school provides CC and GS students a window into the life of a graduate student.
Columbia may encourage undergraduates to explore its 13 graduate and professional schools in theory, but must better award them this opportunity in practice. CC and GS administrators should advocate undergraduates' best interests, instead of allowing graduate schools to dominate the registration process.
