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- Hi, I'm Ryan from Singapore.
I am a freshman at Columbia University
in the City of New York.
I will be majoring in either
Economics or Computer Science.
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- So, what is it like, academics at Columbia?
- I think academics at Columbia are
naturally challenging, being an Ivy league institution.
So far for most of my classes, I will say
that, the content is generally interesting.
I think having come from Singapore,
the contrast between Columbia and a Singapore education
to some extent, I feel the faculty
are a lot more enthusiastic.
- Here?
- Here.
And the a lot more passionate about their work.
The passion is definitely palpable when you hear them teach,
when you hear them talk about stuff that
they are interested in.
And I feel that they don't just see teaching as a job,
they see it as a way of sharing what they love.
And I think that's really contagious,
and that's what makes classes here so enjoyable.
there's naturally like challenging,
you hear a lot of peers talking about like
getting GPAs of, like four and stuff.
But I think, it's just a way of life that
you eventually get into.
And maybe, in some sense, the pressure
kind of motivates you to push yourself
a little bit harder and I think on
retrospect it will always be a great experience.
- That makes sense.
So, what has been your favorite class here so far?
- My favorite class here is probably Computer Science.
It's a introductory class in Java,
so I think, for me personally, I dabble a little bit of,
Computer Science back in Singapore
when I was in the military.
But, I've never done any Java,
so I came in with a little bit of worry
of whether I will catch up with like the content and stuff.
The pace for introductory class at Columbia
is really suitable for the term
introductory class because I am having
not much difficulty catching up with it.
It pushes you, but at the same time is manageable.
- Very cool, and so, have you decided yet
what you're gonna major in?
- Currently I am kind of undecided
between Economics, I came in with
the impression I'd be doing Economics,
but having so much fun in Computer Science class,
I'm actually kind of wondering whether
I should switch to Computer Science.
- Can you tell me a little bit more about,
like the requirements for freshman
and just sort of like staring out academically at Columbia?
- To give an entire scope on Columbia,
in order to graduate as an undergrad
you need to have 125 credits and this
125 credits must be split between your major,
as well as what Columbia calls a Core.
So the Core is basically a series of basically
a form of like a checkbox you need to fill.
And various classes fill various, to, varying degrees,
this various criteria.
So for example, are the science requirements.
There are arts requirements, there are
writing, literature, music requirements.
- Right.
- So, the idea's that you're supposed
to leave Columbia as a holistic individual.
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I'm about to be heading for my first class of the day.
this is a university writing course,
it's the freshman writing course
that all freshman are required to take.
It's, typically requires writing a four
entire essays throughout the semester on various topics.
For mine, I chose one on Data Science,
so we're examining texts such as
Turing's, Imitation Game.
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- So outside of classes, what is life like at Columbia?
- Outside of classes, I would say
half the time we spend probably around campus
because, there's quite a lot of activities on campus.
Recently we just had our new Student Orientation Program,
so yeah, also within the school there are
a couple of clubs that, you could join.
I'm kind of like in a Ball Game club
where we just play ball games on Fridays
really chill and I'm in a like
pre-professional club, as well.
- And, what does that club do?
- So, basically, what we do is we find people
who are working in Venture Capital as well as
Entrepreneurship and we invite them over
to Columbia in order to give like sharing sessions
for students, such as ourselves,
who are interested in such endeavors in the future.
Yeah so, kind of like, because this club's motive
is to bring Entrepreneurship and Venture together
as, quite often these two entities seem
a little bit separate even though
they are actually intertwined in real life.
So, yeah, and outside of school,
we would probably be exploring New York City
because it's pretty awesome,
we, as Columbia students, we get entry
free entry into quite a few museums,
including the big ones like MoMA and Metropolitan.
So yeah, we are maximizing the use of that,
since, like, you can't really explore
the whole Met in like one day.
- How do you balance your extracurriculars
and your academic work?
- I think it takes a lot discipline.
Every class in Columbia is about three to four credits
and they would say that for every credit,
you need about three to four hours
of extracurricular work in order to--
- [Interviewer] Oh, yeah.
- To in order to prepare yourself for that class.
So, yeah, I think you just need to
not be distracted by the lights of the city and...
(laughs)
Just be aware that there's work.
So what I always do is, I just make a to-do list
and I just check it off and every time
I check some item off it feels super satisfactory.
Columbia has this tradition where they try not
to put classes on Fridays, so for myself
I do have classes because I took some electives,
but generally there are no like
lectures or tutorial style classes on Fridays.
So Fridays are usually a day for people to either
catch up on work or like go to some cool electives
and, just, explore the city as well.
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Being a huge foodie myself,
I'm definitely glad to be in Manhattan
because of the very high diversity.
There are plenty options to choose from for food.
Typically I usually eat at a take-aways outside
of Columbia or some of the locations with Thai.
Great Thai food, great Vietnamese.
Today, I will be having Shake Shack.
Can't go wrong with Shake Shack.
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- [Interviewer] So, what has the transition
been like from Singapore to New York?
- With regards to New York City itself
I think, since Singapore is a city as well
it's pretty similar in the sense of like
the metropolitan feel.
So, yeah, I think the transition for me
is particularly easy because I'm going from
an urban environment to another urban environment.
Um for New York itself, I think the great thing is
if you want to explore new cultures
you can because it's very much the heart of America.
But on the other hand, like if you're missing
home like I do sometimes, finding a place
similar to home, a place that sells like
Singaporean food is never too far away.
- Right, because it's such a international city.
That's really neat.
And, what have been your favorite
places to explore in New York?
- Okay for the tourist attractions,
I would definitely say I enjoyed walking
across the Brooklyn Bridge and exploring Brooklyn itself.
The cool thing about New York is that every
district is a little bit different.
- What has surprised you the most about Columbia itself?
- For Columbia itself, I guess I always
thought that Columbia would be a little difficult
for them because being such a high level
institution and I was always having this
impression that everyone here is incredibly
like on top of things and I think there's
always this feel that sometimes
you don't belong at a institution like that.
But like after spending a couple of weeks here,
I think you realize that actually
people aren't overly competitive and I think
there's pretty good bond between
all the students here.
And I think that really helps with like
integrating into the school itself
and making yourself feel like Columbia is your new home.
- So, what advice would you have for students
coming from Singapore or from other countries
who are thinking about coming to Columbia
or school in the States more broadly?
- with regards to Columbia itself,
I think very importantly you need
to meet the Core, see what's in the syllabus itself
and decide if there's something that you
want to do because, while the Core itself does
enable you to explore many different fields,
it is rigid in the sense that you cannot
drop anything from within the core,
so you need to know that you are ready
to explore the world in this particular sense.
For America, for education in America itself
I think the American system stands out
in the fact that you have a lot of flexibility,
so you don't need to decide on your major
right after high school which for me
itself, it was a challenge right after high school.
I didn't know what I wanted to do
and I think that that's the strongest
part of the American education system.
Giving you a chance to explore before
you actually make a decision
what you want to do for the rest of your life.
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- My dorm is right next to Central Park,
so it's a great place to chill
after hard days at work.
(Ryan plays guitar)
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