A business concentration strengthens Columbia

When I was a senior in Columbia College, I attempted to cross-register for the introductory course in capital markets at Columbia Business School. The bulletin made it seem simple enough. I found forms, obtained signatures, and easily jumped through the hoops. Until it came to get one final sign-off, that of the professor (no longer at CBS), who responded to my eager email with a terse “no undergrads.” I persisted, cajoled, charmed, coaxed, wheedled, and persisted some more. After a few more attempts to get me to go away—including an on-the-spot, 30-minute math test—he grudgingly approved my petition. Approval in hand, I went to the first class, where I was promptly and unceremoniously ejected from my assigned study group for being an undergrad. The other rejects (a School of International and Public Affairs student who didn’t speak English and a Journalism School student who didn’t own a calculator) and I banded together. At the end of the semester, we three, unloved and unwanted, had the highest grades in the class.

That experience and the new special concentration in business management are the difference between night and day. For the first time, possibly since CBS was an undergraduate school—which it was until 1949—unprecedented access is being given to the undergraduate community. The special concentration adds options and choices to the college curriculum. The key words are “options” and “choices.” The college is not being fundamentally reoriented along pre-professional lines, or fundamentally reoriented period. The Core Curriculum endures, and 50,000 alumni remain committed to its future. The special concentration is a simple affirmation of the college’s mission to promote intellectual mobility, social mobility, and career mobility. In other words—relax, the Achaeans are not at the gates.

But, a word of advice: Have clear expectations of what Business School classes can and cannot do for you. For starters, they won’t get you a job or teach you how to do that job. While a senior, I also worked downtown for an institutional securities firm. It became clear very quickly that first, one should not spend 30 minutes drawing a binomial tree to price an option when a Bloomberg terminal can do it in 1/700th of a second, and second, nobody cared.

What exposure to Columbia Business School courses will do is give you opportunities to pursue your interests, whatever they are, not just in a group, but also actively with a community of equally talented and driven individuals. When you graduate, your textbooks and notes may not survive, but the relationships you’ve built will last a lifetime. My favorite Columbia memories will include late-night Core discussions. But they will also include the trials, travails, teamwork, and triumph of the amazing, agrarian Cluster A (a “cluster” is a 70-person unit with whom you eat, drink, study, work, and party during your first year at the Business School) when we won Cluster Cup (a series of somewhat silly competitions that perhaps matter only to those engaged in them). They will not include sitting in class learning about binomial trees. Or Hegel.

If you like what you see and choose to pursue a business career after college, then when the time comes—and only you can know when it does—you might find yourself in a position to get something even further out of a business education. If that’s the case, give Columbia Business School a look. There are a good number of us here on our second stint, and all of us, without exception, are glad we came.

In elevator pitch-speak—part one: The special concentration is an excellent program to further enrich the already rich educational platform of Columbia College. Part two: Have a clear understanding of what the special concentration can and can’t do for you. And part three: If business is the path you want to pursue, when the time comes, give us a good look—because you’ll like it here.

The author is a member of the Columbia College class of 2007 and the Columbia Business School class of 2011.