You all are gonna looooooove this….
Misfired sexual pun in lede an unintentionally perfect metaphor for misfired MTV awards show
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Bwog Staff on
Nov 12, 2007 
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42 Comments
@ATTENTION ALUMS THIS IS JUST A SCAM! WE ARE DESTROYING THE SCHOOL OF GENERAL STUDIES, WE WILL CLAIM TO INTEGRATE THEM AND THEN SUBJECT THEM TO CC ADMISSIONS – NONE OF THEM WILL REMAIN!!!! VICTORY!!!
@Zach I was a “nontraditional” at another school before coming to CU, where I enrolled as a freshman. You’re not really subjected to a different set of standards — a few asshats seem to drag down GS’ rep among undergrads, because you don’t think of anybody else as being part of GS. There’s no shortage of 23-year-old GS kids that are exactly as qualified as anybody in CC. Bitching about “dragging down the degree” is the most ridiculous garbage I’ve ever heard… it takes a real complex to place your poorly informed judgment over that of admissions committees, doesn’t it?
@Sohn of Lewi Commenter #37 — I’m not angry at all. There’s no chip on my shoulder. I simply continue to find it ridiculous that people somehow believe that this (or the mere existence of GS) will forever tarnish Columbia.
Commenter #38 — I’m sure you’re well aware that Columbia has evolved considerably from that tiny room in Lower Manhattan. I still fail to see how either merging GS into CC or granting GS the same administrative services would in any way degrade the CC experience. I’m by no means “pleading to be accomodated and to share in said prestige” as I already attend the same university that you do and am working toward the same degree. While GS admissions may be arguably lower (by high school statistics), you’re ignoring the fact that GS is largely self-selecting with an extremely high yield. Those that apply to GS generally have an idea beforehand that the Columbia education is right for them and will almost certainly enroll upon admission, regardless of their financial situation or other life issues. I have yet to come across any compelling evidence (or “article”) showing that GS students do not perform either at or better than their CC classmates. Further, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that GS alumni somehow bring about inferior work.
If you truly believe that GS somehow brings down the prestige of this research university, perhaps you should meet more GS students to find that they belong here just as much as you do.
I had hoped that this would not turn into another GS/CC pissing match, but that always seems to be case when GS is mentioned on here.
@Sohn of Lewi You’d have no idea that I’m in GS. Why would you have no idea? I’m the same fucking age as you “traditional” kids and I’m going to graduate alongside you. Until I tell them, if it comes up, my professors all think I’m in CC. I’m involved in numerous activites on campus and I maintain an extremely high grade point average with a full course load. For unavoidable reasons given some things that happened in my late teens (that made me a probably much better person than those of you bred into this place), I had to apply through GS. As others have indicated, there are countless others in similar situations.
@re: sohn of lewi “I had to apply through GS. As others have indicated, there are countless others in similar situations.”
I don’t understand. Are you asserting some sort of *right* or *entitlement* to be accomodated by a private university and to share in its prestigious reputation built from 250 years of admitting and educating traditional students? If so, please point us to the article in the constitution establishing this right.
If what you’re really doing is *pleading* to be accomodated and to share in said prestige, then surely you should understand that there are countervailing interests in play here. For one, Columbia will become less attractive to many prospective students interested in a “traditional” college experience. Second, given the obviously lower admissions requirements of GS, the academic credibility of the university will suffer when inferior work product produced by GS alumni is attached to the Columbia name. Third, such a move might alienate potential donors (like the above poster) who place value on the traditional undergraduate character of the college, thereby inhibiting the university in its competition with other schools. Your struggles and adversity are touching to all of us, but I don’t see why we should injure ourselves and Columbia’s name to compensate you for your difficult teenage years.
@a GSer This is emblematic of a pervasive GS attitude problem I should’ve mentioned in my last post. Each of us has reasons why getting here wasn’t straightforward so each of us takes our own form of pride in having arrived. (Hey, me too, whoever you are.) Now lose the chip on your shoulder, and maybe you’ll win people over by being awesome without being angry.
@Meangingful comparisons with other ivies have to be quantitative. I don’t have time to find numbers but similar programs at the ives are much smaller.
Yale recently reduced the size of the total non-trad. student body to something like a couple dozen. GS is what, 800?
Making GS something like 1/5 the current size would go a long way toward improving its problems with fin. aid, advising etc; not to mention making the university as a whole, and GS, objectively better.
Personally I don’t see a “merger” happening under any conditions. The real issue here, and this must be apparent to higher up admins., is whether the university is ready to trade the revenue from GS students for an increase in prestige and quality of education it provides.
@cc 07 if CC merges with GS, i will never donate a penny to columbia. this is a fucking ivy league college, for crying out loud. please stop comparing this to quotas on jews, especially in the histrionic fashion which is to be expected, i suppose, from the type of person who fails to enter college from high school. it’s already a major problem that CC has one of the least collegial student bodies among its peer schools, which is largely due to the dilution with barnard/seas. were columbia to further pollute its undergraduate population by mixing yet another inferior class with CC, how could columbia, in good faith, continue to guarantee the most gifted high schoolers the opportunity (afforded by harvard, yale, etc.) to participate in an exclusive community of elite peers? why can’t you idiot nontrads stick with nyu?
@maybe you should consider actually building up a fortune before you attempt to assume it’s power.
i fail to understand what an engineering school and a women’s campus have to do with the fact that you’re lonely, but if you want to blame them, go right ahead. one thing is clear, it most certainly has nothing to do with your attitude.
finally, the college admissions process is noisy at best and downright random at worst. the fact that you place so much stock in it makes evident your own shortcomings. in fact, considering that you were admitted here, yet hold an illogical zealous belief that the admissions process is effective at selecting “the most gifted high schoolers” makes for an excellent example of how it’s broken.
@hmm... “mixing an inferior class?”
I didn’t realize I was reading the Nuremberg Laws here.
@a GSer 1) Most CC kids have their shit remarkably together, considering their age and experience, and are pretty inspiring to be around. For realz.
2) The ones who think GSers are dumb-dumbs are dumb-dumbs.
3) I’m a little disappointed by the inconsistent quality of the GS student body (we do in fact harbor some dumb-dumbs and creepyheads). If a “merger” — whatever that actually means, which nobody can possibly know yet — would result in more stringent GS admission requirements, I’d be all for it.
@eh. For people who are worried about old GS men living in the same dorm as them…that’s a pretty illegitmate fear. Firstly, the only GSers that would want to live in university housing are not the older ones with families and jobs, they would be the ones closer to our age anyway. And secondly, as a resident of Nussbaum (which houses undergrads, grad students, GSers, and regular tenants) I can tell you that it isn’t a big deal really. Doesn’t bother me anyway. The maintenance staff creeps me out more than any GS or grad student or tenant living here.
The one thing I would be worried about is admissions. I am aware that it is just as hard (maybe even harder) for GS students to get into this school as it is for CCers. But many of the GS students are only part-time, and many are post-baccs just returning to pick up some of the extra requirements needed to go to say, med school, that weren’t offered or that they just couldn’t take at their undergrad schools. My point is, if GS and CC were totally merged (which I doubt will happen..I think GS and CC will have a relationbship similar to SEAS and CC if anything), then students applying as post-baccs might take the spots of an HS grad who was looking to get a 4-year, full time education. I would just hope that by integrating admissions they would separate between part-time and full-time students in some way.
@how would financial aid for GS kids work? Would the incomes of their parents still factor into their aid package?
If not, giving financial aid to GSers could provide the incentive for some well-to-do individuals to wait several years before attending college, apply on their own to CC, and get a big package.
@Alex The Durer is a great touch, though I’m not sure what’s apocalyptic about a GS-CC merger…
@Umm This is a perfect opportunity to take over Barnard.
@Trudat Annex Barnard, accept only female GS students, and put them on Barnard campus. Fo shaw.
GS was started to make money. Columbia is not as cash-strapped today as it was once upon a time. Close down GS.
GS decreases the value of a Columbia undergraduate degree, by a LOT. Columbia College can never compete with HYP with old folks on its back.
@Yale has the “Special Student Program” — their version of GS, only SSPs get the SAME DEGREE as Yale College students, not differentiated in any way shape or form.
@nontrad programs brown has one as well, they call it “resumed undergraduate education.” same thing as gs, but not a separate college, same diplomas and aid pool.
umich ann arbor admits non-traditional students to it’s regular undergraduate colleges. (i was admitted to the coe) no distinction when it comes to aid or anything else for that matter. (they sent me an app to apply for dorm housing, ha!)
the university of california also admits non-traditional students both as freshman and transfers. no distinctions there either, and i got an application for dorm housing from them as well.
the fact that gs is a separate college at columbia is a historical organizational quirk. the rest of the world doesn’t issue different dimplomas or deny reasonable financial support to non-traditional students, it’s about time columbia got with the program.
for those of you that are traditionalists… please remember that it’s columbia college tradition to enforce quotas on the number of jews allowed to attend. richard feynman’s first choice for college was columbia, but he was rejected because he was a jew. tradition does not stand alone as a justification for anything, despite the many who have in the past and continue to this day to parrot it as a standalone reason to justify injustices. it’s a bigot’s last refuge.
for those who argue that it will stretch resources and make a sucky administration even suckier, keep in mind that it’s a bureaucracy. regardless of how it’s organized, it will always suck and perform at the minimum level required so that nobody looks too bad. satisfaction with student services will remain at this low bar, regardless of how things are organized.
@the integrator Think about it this way. Roughly 1 out of every 8 students that sit with you in lectures are GS students. Now do you find that 1 out of every 8 of those look like the grimy, creepy, old man? How many times have you been friends with someone in class for months and months, and then quite unexpectedly you find out she is in GS? Its happened quite often. It’s the guy that sticks out in class with the dumb questions (I’ve seen those too)or the 70 year old grandmother who is maybe auditing the class (and not in GS) that give you your impression of what GS is or isn’t. Our average age is 26. And its true, we do have a number of university employees finishing their degrees and self-made entrepreneurs finishing school well into their forties and fifties. But if that truly is the case, and the average age is 26, does that not lead you to believe that many, many of your GS classmates are “traditional” aged-students, who for one reason or another took off for a year or two. Many of your friends that go on to work at I-Banks, go on to law school, or go on to medical school, are in fact GS students. They never lived in Carman, or Wien, or Hartley, or EC – so you never met them in dorms – but you saw them at the same club events, at the same parties, and at the same study sessions. You never knew they were in GS until you had to sign them into a dorm one day or realized that they’re scholarship (or lack thereof) nearly bankrupted them, or realized that they had an apartment out in Brooklyn. We talk so much about “What’s wrong with our campus? Why the hate crimes?” It’s the never-ending battle between superiority and inferiority. Do you really feel that a 20 year old freshman GS student who travelled the world for two years after high school and had a 1390 SAT (old school SAT) is that much inferior? Do you really feel that a 28 year old former New York ballerina who went to prep school with your “older aunts” is that much inferior to you? We feel that we are blessed to be at Columbia – at the most prestigious urban campus in the World; we feel priveleged to be around some of the smartest recent high-school graduates in the world – and we feel priveleged to call ourselves Columbians.
@THE GRAMMARITOR UNTIL THOU REALIZETH THAT “WORLD” IS UNCAPITALIZED AND THAT THY LACKING OF PARAGRAPHS RENDERS THY OVERWROUGHT RHETORIC PROFOUNDLY SOPHOMORIC, THOU SHALT HOLD NAUGHT BUT A PLACE OF DISDAIN IN MY HEART.
@two things bob ast is the shizzle
the many GSers who would actually live with the college are going to be 18, 19, etc. the big issue is financial aid…but why do cc students feel they have first dibs on that?
@alumnus Why do CC students get first dibs on aid?
Because much of it is supplied by wealthy CC alumni (Kluge, et. al.) who earmark it for that purpose. Most would pull their monies if they knew that their support of The College was going to the school of continuing ed.
Until GS alumni start writing bigger checks, GS students don’t deserve more fin aid.
@fuckthisshiz THIS is what you hunger strike about. Combining GS students with CC students is the dumbest idea Columbia has ever had. I feel like the institution I worked so hard to get into has suddenly lost it’s MIND!
Combining the two would make Columbia a third-world university. We would be the laughing stock of the Ivy League. Everyone knows GS students are not as smart as CC kids and it’s frankly insulting that they’re even allowed to study here as it is, let alone giving them the same rank. It only pull down the true undergrads.
@GSer “I feel like the institution I worked so hard to get into has suddenly lost it’s MIND!…Everyone knows GS students are not as smart as CC kids…It only pull down the true undergrads.”
Oh, goodness yes. You sure put us dumb old folks in our place. Shame we can’t be smart like you, and know that its as a possessive can totally be spelled with an apostrophe. Nothing wrong with that whatsoever. And ‘it only pull down’? See, that’s why you’re awesome – my feeble brain totally would have put an ‘s’ at the end of pull. But since you’re CC, and everyone knows you’re smarter than nasty old GSers, guess I was mistaken. Thank god you wise, precocious tots are here to show us the error of our ways. One day, I hope I can be just as smart as you are. Maybe if I drink enough and get bashed upside the head with a 2×4, I can achieve my dream…
@"old" GS students? I’ve found that there are plenty of GS students in their 20’s (early 20’s even) who easily blend into the CC student body and couldn’t be identified as such unless they said so.
@bad idea This is a bad idea. The Core and the CC/SEAS admin is bad enough as it is. Advisors have so many advisees that most people don’t get any meaningful advising. The Core already has a huge problem of staffing. The solution is not to swell the numbers even further. As far as financial aid, where is the extra money going to come from? CC students? If anything, people who have never worked and have no assets (not everybody’s parent foots the bill) probably need fin. aid. need it more than people who’ve had the opportunity to have careers and save up money. And housing? I agree that putting them in with CC would be really awkward. I could see opening up a GS only dorm, but it would have to come from a newly acquired building to continue to guarantee housing to CC/SEAS students.
@Hello Forget GS. The real enemy is racist cartoons. Remember Denmark!
@YES It’s about time.
As Columbia rattles it’s saber and demands LEBENSRAUM in manhttanville, we will achieve undergraduate ANSCHLUSS in the arts and sciences!!
Columbia, Columbia, Über Alles!
@Point getting missed The article never says that housing would be merged; even if the two schools were combined in every other way, it seems more likely that housing (as well as probably financial aid) would remain separate, though “enhanced” and “expanded”
@administrative joinder makes sense.
cc and gs students get the same degree, are by and large enrolled in the same programs of study, and are in the same classes with the same faculty. it’s the same school in everything but administration (and reporting to USNews.)
@... I feel a merger of CC and GS will basically be more of an “acquisition” using Ibanking lingo…
Overtime the type of old people we associate with GS aren’t going to be accepted into CC… that’s what the school of “continuing education” is for… There is no discussion of disbanding the continuing ed program, is there?
Basically, i think the word “merger” is probably just to assuage fears in GS and to accomodate current GS students at the time of the merger…
Moreover, I’m sure they aren’t going to put 40 year old men in the same dorm building as 18 year old freshman……. that’s just another reason why I don’t think this i really a “merger”… that’s just Columbia admin’s strategy of selling this shit to the group that is probably going to get screwed.
@Anonymous If GS is merged with CC it will no longer be GS. Its acceptance rates will drop over the years, just like SEAS did and continues to do, except perhaps even faster, because there will literally be no difference between the two bodies except for the age of students.
I guess my suggestion would be to disband GS and just let older people apply to CC with a quota of acceptance for non high-school students.
@uhh and have MATT SANCHEZ in columbia college, what the fuck!
@Typical CCstudent I’m cc ’10 and yes I dislike GS students. A lot. They are CREEPY, old, and annoying. They remind me of CC but way older, and maybe even more creepy. I’m sorry but they put CC peeps at a disadvantage because they have had more experience, and the way they learned probably differed from ours. I know that we share similarities and all, but I think it’s better to just keep it the way it is. Wouldn’t it be really awkward if you were in Lit Hum for the evry first time and on both sides of you were like some 40 year old GS students? Wouldn’t you think “shit, these people have probably already read the Iliad.”
Okay even if they didn’t merge core classes like CC/Lit Hum/U-dubs . Think about it–they could’ve had their chance at being an undergrad a long time ago, sure some of them might of had circumstances that wouldn’tallow them to. But this is our time to be young undergrads, they’re just “continuing studies.”
I don’t know, maybe I’m not making much sense, but I think the system should stay as is.
@still 5 (CC'10) i say all of this in spite of having 2 good friends in GS — lest I get accused of being an asshole or not knowing what the hell i’m talking about
@but it makes a good housing / donation pitch to CC parents doesn’t it?:
“hey guess what, we decided to merge our school full of older men & women with the one you decided to send your precious little bundle of overachieving joy to. you can thank us in advance for when your daughters come home on break, completely infatuated with men who’re twice their age. i mean what college girl wouldn’t want to date a guy who’s old enough to run for president?”
… i’ve read enough Bwog to know that the idea of a merger — in spite of the validity of the GS complaints — will never happen. CC kids hate them will a fervent, somewhat inexplicable passion. This would not be a popular idea, especially if people thought that their financial aid awards would be hurt.
@Anonymous I think the merger between GS and CC would be a horrible idea. The several administrative departments that are supposed to cover CC and SEAS are mediocre at best and to add GS onto their workload would just bring down the “quality” of administrative action that the various CC and SEAS departments provide.
Additionally, where is the money for greater GS financial aid coming from? With a merger of GS and CC admissions, would CC students who would normally get aid from the school be denied aid so that a GS student can get it? While I am all for giving GS students aid, if you merge the two schools administratively it should not hurt CC in any way, it should only benefit GS (or both schools). I just do not see where this money would be coming from.
Combining the housing departments? The Housing Department for CC/SEAS is notoriously incompetent. The last thing that should happen is to give them more students to deal with. Additionally, where are these extra rooms going to come from? I was unaware that the school had rooms just lying around that they could give out to GS students.
If the university goes ahead with this merger, then they better do their homework and make sure that this plan is airtight. Otherwise, it could be a huge disaster (and knowing this school, chances are they will not plan it out correctly).
@Hmm Why not merge CC and SEAS?
@merging CC and SEAS would be silly. SEAS has it’s own school and faculty. literally. CC on the other hand is dependent on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which it “shares” with GS, the Grad School of Arts and Sciences.
Try reading this as a primer: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/vpaa/fhb/c2/acadstruc.html
@Question Don’t Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford all allow their students to major in anything they want – arts, sciences, or engineering – as long as they fulfill the degree requirements? What is the purpose of the ridiculous divide between CC and SEAS?
@cc09 I think the merger of GS and CC is a great idea. Frankly, I don’t see why there should be a separate school at all – maybe additional advising for students with different backgrounds, but I have yet to meet a GS classmate who wasn’t as qualified or more qualified to be here than many of my CC peers.
@oh no did anyone read the first article in the post?