Columbia University in the City of New York

Main takeaway: spending $50,000 per year on tuition at an ivy league school does equate to a good education and a positive experience. Being extremely unsatisfied with the program is a consensus among the class of 2019, 2020, and 2021. It's important to note that I'm only speaking about my experience in the OT program, and have no idea about the quality of other programs at Columbia. Starting with the professors: I've been very impressed by two professors. The professor of neuroscience and pediatrics... Read More are extremely knowledgeable and caring. They are challenging, but in a way that allows you to build a lot of knowledge. That being said, I've learned next to nothing in several other classes. In geriatrics, the PowerPoint slides are usually 50-100 slides long with almost no useful information. They often have spelling mistakes, conflicting statistics, and are filled with common-sense information, such as "older adults have many challenges with technology use". The test questions are purposefully confusing. She justifies this by saying it is to prepare us for the NBCOT exam questions. Unfortunately, they are often confusing in that they can be interpreted in more than one way, or simply don't make sense at all. The same is true with her feedback on assignments. Her comments show she hasn't fully read the paper and often don't make sense at all. They often are written like someone who is trying to learn English, yet she is a completely native speaker. My fieldwork experience has been even worse. The coordinator in charge of placing you at level II fieldwork is completely unconcerned with what you're looking for and doesn't even know our names. With limited choices, you have to create a "wishlist" with ten placements. For example, even if you're looking for an acute care placement, you have to add several other settings to your "wishlist" because there are limited options. From there, you're randomly assigned to a placement from that list. For most students, it isn't what they were hoping for. They tell you that you are not supposed to spend your own money to run groups, but for many placements, it is simply the only option. For one placement, I was told that I'd be reimbursed, which never happened. At another, I was told that there was no budget at all at to "be creative", with no supplies. At another, I was called "unprofessional" by my Columbia supervisor for spending my own money for a group, which I had been led to believe from past fieldwork was the norm. In the same sentence about professionalism, she spoke about how Bernie Sanders was going to ruin the country's healthcare. For many of my fieldwork placements, particularly mental health, the experience was about logging a certain amount of hours, and not at all about how we filled our time. There was often nothing productive for us to be doing and we learned very little.

There's no getting around it, New York City is expensive. However, the close-knit, supportive community the program fosters made it a wonderful and enriching academic experience. The faculty are just as passionate about the subject matter as they are teaching, continually going above and beyond to help the student's find success. The quality of the courses and workload varies significantly from professor to professor, however the program actively seeks out feedback from the student's and makes appropriate... Read More changes accordingly. Communications from the program can be un-timely and disjointed at times, but that is nothing that a simple email cannot handle. Overall, I am more than satisfied with the academic preparation I have received and the community I have become a welcomed part of.