required reading: academics

From maximizing your Lit Hum experience with a decent professor to not eating alone in Ferris, we’re sure there are many things about being a first-year at Barnumbia that still worry you, despite all our past coverage on Required Reading.

By now you should be pre-registration pros, but what comes next? If you remember from the first part of this two-part registration series, you’ll actually have to do a bit of waiting— pre-registration only confirms your sections for Lit Hum and UWriting/FroSci (Columbia College), UWriting/Art of Engineering (SEAS), or First-Year Writing/Seminar (Barnard). You’ll finally be able to register for the rest of your classes during NSOP, and then you can add or drop any other courses through the fall shopping period, which covers the first two weeks of classes.

It might be the summer, but a lot of you seem to be eager to get back to school. How do we know? Because about 80 percent of the posts on the Columbia and Barnard class of 2021 pages are questions about pre-registration, what it means to shop for classes, and how to pick courses given your AP/IB/dual credit/life experience credentials.

In case the nice weather of late has been making your head fuzzy (or you just haven’t been paying attention), today’s the first day of fall 2017 course registration. If you already have your Thinking Locally and Science requirements squared away (while still making room for some obscure, but interesting classes), make sure you pay some attention to that Arts/Humanities gen ed req. Here’s the best of what’s being offered next semester.

Unlike several of Barnard’s other gen ed requirements (such as Arts/Humanities), there isn’t a super long list of classes that will fulfill Thinking Technologically and Digitally. However, it’s pretty hard to get around this requirement, so you might as well bite the bullet and get it over with. If you’re still struggling to fulfill the more techy side of the Foundations curriculum, here are some classes you should consider taking.

Considering Columbia’s size and number of academic departments, there’s no shortage of libraries on campus. Sure, Butler may feel like an omnipotent presence, but if you’re willing to do a little exploring you might just stumble upon your new favorite study spot. To save yourself a bit of effort, though, you can look through these reviews of a couple of libraries on campus and hopefully get inspired to branch out beyond Butler.

Chances are that when you chose to come to Barnard, one of the draws was the fact that it is in NYC. Lucky for you then that one of your Foundations requirements is called “Thinking Locally—New York City,” but what does that mean? Thinking, in general, as NYC dwellers, or thinking about New York? If the latter, what about it?

Both Columbia College and SEAS have a two-semester physical education requirement. If you aren’t a person who likes to exercise, this may seem daunting. Luckily, there are still plenty of ways to fulfill the requirement. Most of the classes meet twice a week for an hour, but there are a few classes that deviate from the norm. If you’re looking for something that won’t take up too much of your time or is a bit more lax than your traditional run-around-a-track class, you have a handful of options.

For many humanities-oriented Barnardigans, satisfying science Foundations requirements might seem daunting. If you didn’t come into college with much science experience (or like me, forgot everything you ever learned the moment you graduated from high school), even a university’s intro classes can seem intimidating.