Student Life
Life in New York City
New York is one of the great cities of the world - an exciting place to live and study. Visit the major museums, at student rates - the Met, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, the Whitney - but also stop in at the Morgan Library to see how you would decorate your study if you had $100 million after taxes. Go to Lincoln Center for the Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, or chamber music at Alice Tully Hall, or opera at the Metropolitan. Discount tickets are available for many performances, or wait until summer when the same programs come free to the city parks.
There is of course the theater: Broadway, Off-Broadway, and the so-called Off-Off-Broadway theater, which flourishes wherever three actors can find a room and a dozen folding chairs. There are modern dance companies, folk, and ethnic dance companies, and five major ballet companies; there are two major opera companies, the Met and the New York City Opera, and each borough has its smaller companies; and as for film, New York is a permanent festival. Almost any film you might want to see, from the past or the present, is playing somewhere in the city this month.
Serious eating is also a part of the city's culture. The city is a large delicatessen, with sections for each of the world's cuisines. For under $10, you can dine superbly in Chinatown or be fed to exhaustion in Little Italy. Just south of campus, there is good shopping and nightlife and a concentration of cheap and excellent restaurants.
The campus on Morningside Heights is located in the Upper West Side of Manhattan Island. The Heights is a pleasant and lively neighborhood, about four miles north of Midtown, situated on a scenic bluff (from which it takes its name) overlooking the Hudson River to the west and Morningside Park to the east. Virtually all students and most faculty live in the neighborhood, within easy walking distance of the campus. The campus itself is spacious and still quite faithful to the original design, now almost one hundred years old, but the famous architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White. The Department of Biological Sciences is housed in the Sherman Fairchild Center for the Life Sciences. It is a modern facility, designed by an internationally famous architectural firm, Mitchell-Giurgola. Nearby is the University Physical Fitness Center, with two gymnasiums, two swimming pools, saunas, squash and handball courts, a running track, and other facilities. There are tennis courts on campus and in Riverside Park, a block away, and the park provides a pleasant environment for jogging.
Student Testimonials
From Bella Succi:
“I feel lucky to live in New York in subsidized student housing. And you’re never going to get to the bottom of New York. You could live here for a lifetime and not feel like you’re done.”
“Being in the biological sciences program, it feels easier to foster an environment of support because it’s so different. The program is by nature so diverse so you can stoke curiosity in so many more areas of the field than other, more specialized, programs. It’s actually hard for things to feel competitive. Plus, getting diverse perspectives on your work is so important and reveals areas of your research you wouldn’t normally think of.”
From Erica Hurley:
"Although the process of finding a thesis lab can be a bit intimidating in some ways, I feel really lucky to have gotten to explore a diverse set of labs during my rotations. The process taught me a lot about different areas of research and what I wanted to pursue in my thesis lab. My cohort and lab have both been very collaborative and supportive—I feel really lucky to get to work with a group of scientists who are also my friends."
From Anna Plank:
“I have definitely gained a lot of confidence being here. I was worried about starting out as a scientist, especially coming straight out of undergrad, but I was very supported. I'm super enthusiastic about my research: I know a lot about it, and I'm getting better and better at public speaking. Every other Friday we do like 4th-year talks where we all get together and we get to listen to people practice presenting their science. And it's great to be able to keep in touch with people both in your cohort and in different cohorts, and get to know everyone in the program.”
“I've really enjoyed getting to be in New York City and explore this bigger city with all the people that I've met and all the opportunities just all around me. One thing that I think is really unique to Columbia is that it does kind of have a bit more of a campus-y feel, and you can very easily get downtown if you want the downtown lifestyle for the night.”
To learn more about what our students are working on here in the Biology Department, check out our Student Spotlights.