Core Curriculum
The Core Curriculum is the distinguishing characteristic and hallmark of an undergraduate education at Columbia. Often imitated, rarely credited, and very hyped, the Core is the centerpiece of the undergraduate curriculum at Columbia College. SEAS students take a modified version of the core, as do GS students. Barnard College has an entirely seperate curriculum, the Seven Ways of Knowing.
Contents
Requirements
The Core consists of two sets of requirements. First are the 6 classes that every CC student must take in order to graduate, a collective, shared, experience, the "core of the core," so to speak. These are the year long courses Literature Humanities (Lit Hum) and Contemporary Civilization (CC), and the semester long courses Art Humanities (Art Hum), Music Humanities (Music Hum), University Writing (UW), and Frontiers of Science.
Additionally, CC students must fulfill a series of requirements for which they are free to choose the classes. These are 2 Major Cultures classes, 2 semesters of Science/Math, 2 semesters of PE, 4 semesters of a Foreign Language (placement in an advanced course/placing out are options), and of course the Swim Test.
Criticism
Despite the hype and praise, the Core has a number of critics. The primary charge levelled against the Core is that it's just a collection of "Dead White Men" with a few token minority and women authors.
In addition, the Core is hardly a uniformly positive experience. Your experience in each class will be contingent on two factors: 1) The quality of your instructor and 2) the quality of your classmates. Don't underestimate the impact that the 20 other people in the room can have on your class experience. A good group of classmates can easily redeem a class with an average teacher.
A common complaint about Core classes is the relatively high percentage of sections that are NOT taught by Columbia faculty, and instead are led by graduate students ("Preceptors" is the official term). Landing a section with a graduate student is not the kiss of death- in fact some of the best core class instructors are grad students, and some of the worst are high profile professors.
The Core will ultimately be what you make of it. If you don't do the reading, it's your own fault for finding the classes boring. Then again if your instructor sucks, just grin and bear it, or beg the core office to change your section.
History
Pre-History
The idea of a seminar style class devoted to a weekly reading and discussion of the "Great Books" was first floated by english professor John Erskine in 1917. Erskine's request drew skepticism for a number of reasons, not the least because he also made the near-heretical call for reading the greek and roman classics in translation.
The Beginning
In 1919 Columbia began a course titled "War Issues" in response to World War I, addressing contemporary thinking on a wide variety of subjects in the social sciences. Many of the texts were written by Columbia faculty members who also taught the classes. This was the beginning of the course that evolved into Contemporary Civilization. There was no Plato or Aristotle on the War Issues syllabus though.
General Honors
Humanities A and Humanities B
Major Cultures
Imitators
Columbia's Core Curriculum has often been imitated. In fact two of the most celebrated Core Curriculum's in the country, at the University of Chicago and St. John's College in Annapolis, were established by a columbia graduate, Mortimer J. Adler who had been hired by each school for the explicit purpose of implementing a "Great Books" curriculum.
Further Reading
An Oasis of Order: The Core Curriculum at Columbia College (1995)
