graduate

Breaking from its longstanding policy, the Ivy League will permit current senior athletes to compete as full-time graduate students next academic year. The news, which comes after the application deadline for many Ivy League graduate schools, was confirmed by Matt Panto, the Ivy League associate executive director of strategic communications and external relations, on Thursday afternoon.

If you’ve just completed your undergraduate degree or are currently pursuing it, it’s never too late (or early!) to consider graduate school. In the face of Columbia’s whopping 17 graduate schools, each with its own set of unique requirements and degrees, choosing the right program might feel like an overwhelming decision. To help you through your selection process, Spectrum has answered your most pressing questions and compiled a guide to every Columbia graduate school.

The cast of characters at bargaining meetings between the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers and the Columbia administration is almost always the same. Ludda Ludwig, a second-year doctoral candidate in earth and environmental science and a bargaining committee representative for GWC, listens patiently to yet another explanation of why Columbia believes that health benefits are outside the scope of a collective bargaining contract. Bernie Plum, the University’s outside counsel tasked with delivering these arguments—he previously represented Disney, the NBA, and the New York Times in their negotiations with employee unions—looks downward toward his screen as he speaks, glasses perched at the end of his nose.

In front of an array of posters emblazoned with red and black slogans, the Columbia-Barnard Young Democratic Socialists of America mounted a rally in support of its tuition strike. The rally began with a press conference in front of University President Lee Bollinger’s 60 West Morningside Drive home and culminated in a march to the steps of Low Library.

While some students may apply for jobs and move on from academia after they graduate, others may be considering graduate school. If you’re looking to expedite that process and stay in New York after completing your undergraduate degree, consider applying to one of the following special programs offered by Columbia and Barnard. These programs allow you to start your Master of Arts or Master of Science requirements during your senior year, so that you can graduate with a B.A. or B.S. and an M.A. or M.S. in 5 years.

When Jenna Gould answers my phone call, it is with an apology. She is holding her baby as we speak, and while she believes that he won’t make too much of a fuss over the course of the next thirty minutes, she’s sorry in advance if he does. I hear a sleepy murmur behind her voice—the hushed kind that only a child nestling into his mother’s arms makes—and then he falls quiet, just as Gould predicted.

Students and faculty erupted in protest this weekend after Columbia announced that it would require graduate students to return to the United States to keep their teaching and research positions regardless of their citizenship status. Following widespread criticism, the University has since announced that it is exploring other options to the policy, though no update has been released.

Student Financial Services started issuing registration holds for graduate student tenants on July 21, which barred them from registering for academic classes in the fall term until they paid their outstanding rent.

When Columbia switched to online instruction in March, Eduardo Vergara Torres’ computer died. His aging laptop could not handle the bombardment of videoconferencing, and he could not afford to fix or replace it. Normally, this would be a major inconvenience for a Spanish instructor and second-year Ph.D. candidate in Latin American and Iberian cultures—but in a world transformed by COVID-19, a broken computer spelled catastrophe.

Faced with unsustainably dire housing and work conditions, graduate workers at Columbia are now joining thousands of other workers who have responded to the economic and public health impacts of COVID-19 by going on strike. In over 20 departments, many primary instructors and teaching assistants are refusing to teach Zoom classes, grade assignments, and administer exams. Other graduate workers are participating in collective actions such as teach-ins, petitions, and socially-distanced protests, and several hundred workers have committed to not paying rent in University-owned apartments come June 1.