Columbia is located in the New York City, just below Harlem on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The area around the school has a real neighborhood feeling, which students appreciate and become a part of. What’s more, all the excitement of the “city that never sleeps” is just a few blocks away, and students looking to experience the city’s thriving culture will be richly rewarded. When you think of New York, you probably think of Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, and Yankee Stadium. If your tastes are a little more eclectic, you might think of Canal Street and Little Italy. But whatever you think of, you probably don’t think of the Upper West Side. But what it lacks in notoriety it makes up in personality. Columbia University is located on West 116th Street and Broadway, in a small neighborhood called Morningside Heights. The surrounding community is mostly made up of students, professors, and families, most of who are somehow connected to the university, which creates a small college town feel in one of the largest cities in the world. But don’t worry—it’s still the city, which means that from the occasional screaming of taxi horns to the purpose-driven strides of the people on the street, it’s impossible to forget that you’re living in a thriving, bustling metropolis. The Columbia neighborhood is manageable enough for students who are experiencing big-city living for the first time. That said, however, students who are comfortable navigating their way in the urban environment will not be disappointed. There’s a wide range of shops, cafes, and restaurants nearby, and the extremely accessible subway system makes finding and getting to what you need ‘easy as pie.’

Columbia’s main campus is located between West 114th and West 120th Streets on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Surrounding the campus are university-owned apartments which house faculty, graduate students, and staff members. The majority of first-year students can be found at the southern end of campus in an area known as South Lawn, near Columbia’s main library, Butler, and the student center, Alfred Lerner Hall. A pathway known as “College Walk” cuts across the main campus quad between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues. A common place for students to hang out before class would be on the steps of Low Library in front of Low Plaza and College Walk, where studying and tanning occur as other students protest or speak out on various issues. West of campus are the mathematics department and Dodge Hall, home to Columbia’s School of the Arts. On the east side of campus is St. Paul’s Chapel, a nondenominational church that provides weekly religious services and is used for special events and lectures. Northeast of campus is Fayerweather, where the History and Sociology departments are located. A cluster of buildings on the north end of campus makes up the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. Below the engineering buildings is Dodge Physical Fitness Center, a multi-purpose athletic facility used by students and staff members when they get the urge to hit the gym.

Columbia students are guaranteed housing for their entire time at the school. All first-year students are housed on South Lawn, near Butler Library, Alfred Lerner Hall, John Jay Dining Hall, and Health Services. They always say that your first year of college is the toughest—not only are you getting used to a new lifestyle, you’re also on the bottom rung of the ladder that is class seniority. That also usually means you get the dregs of everything from mailboxes to classes to housing, right? Wrong. At least, wrong at Columbia. Here, we care a lot about our freshmen—first-years, as we prefer to call them. To make adjusting to college life easier for new students, Columbia provides five housing options specifically for first-years. Hartley and Wallach together form the LLC—Living Learning Center. They are suite-style buildings, which means that you’ll feel more like you’re living in a very small neighborhood than on an anonymous college dorm floor, and while the majority of students living in the LLC are first-years, sentimental upperclassmen who don’t want to say goodbye to the convenient location and the tight-knit feel are allowed to apply to remain in the building. If suites aren’t your thing, John Jay, which is right next door, is entirely composed of singles—a major draw if you look forward to having your own space—and also has the dining hall, which means that you get to go to breakfast in your pajamas. Carman is made up of small, four-person suites and is the most social of the dorms. Floor pride is an integral part of the Carman experience, and shouts of “Carman 11!” or “Heaven on Carman 7!” aren’t unusual, even from the sometimes lethargic upperclassmen crowd. Furnald is both the last option for first-year housing and its best-kept secret. Most first-years are told to avoid Furnald because it is the “anti-social” dorm. The building is corridor style, which admittedly is less personal than a suite, and every room is a single, which means you aren’t going to be buddy-buddy with a roommate. But the rooms are big, every floor has a full kitchen, and the facilities are well maintained. The real trouble comes as a sophomore, when a bad lottery number may land you in a place that is somewhat less than you desire for living quarters. Count on having a double in Schapiro or McBain unless you have a very high lottery number, in which case you can take a single in Furnald, which is also a sophomore dorm. Location is key in choosing upper-class housing because most of the buildings, though still dubbed “on-campus,” are geographically removed from the main campus by anywhere from one to four blocks. As a junior and a senior, singles become more obtainable. Schapiro and Broadway offer corridor-style living and Ruggles offers a suite option. East Campus is known for its exclusion suites, which are tailored to those first-years lucky enough to make friends with the right people, and the other suites in the building go to groups of seniors with high lottery numbers. A final appealing option for juniors and seniors is apartment-style living, brought to you by Watt and Woodbridge. While you may have to have a roommate, you also have the luxury of your own bathroom and kitchen, and you are not at the mercy of other people’s living habits, an inherent drawback in corridor-style living.

The Columbia Lions compete at the Division I level of the NCAA and there are 29 varsity sports teams. “Many college campuses across the country pride themselves on the excellence of their athletic teams. At Columbia, we pride ourselves on the excellence of the effort of our athletic teams. Most people come to Columbia because of the academics, and that means that athletics usually take a backseat. That said, however, we still value our athletic teams, and student turnout at events is nothing to smirk at. Basketball games are undeniably the most sporting attended event—due in part to the fact that they play right on campus in Levien Gymnasium, while any sport that requires a field must be played 100 blocks uptown from campus at the Baker Field Athletic Complex—and they are the team in which most of our hopes for athletic success reside. That doesn’t mean, however, that we don’t do well in other areas. The women’s soccer team has recently performed very well, even clinching the Ivy title in 2006. Likewise the Ultimate Frisbee team—an intramural club sport—has made waves in its conference as the team to beat. Other popular teams include crew, field hockey, and track and field, and among the varsity and club sports that exist on campus, you’re sure to find something to fulfill all your sporting needs.” — With special reporting by Stephanie Baker '10