Student Life
The student body in the Political Science department is stunningly diverse. Currently we have students from all over the United States, and also from Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, England, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Puerto Rico, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey and Vietnam. There are 10 men and 8 women in our first-year Ph.D. class. Improved fellowship opportunities will provide funding for five-sixths of the first-year Ph.D. students. Most students are funded in subsequent years as they continue in the program.
Columbia is located in Morningside Heights, a lively and livable cosmopolitan neighborhood centered on Broadway and extending from 110th Street to 125th Street. Many students, as well as members of Columbia’s faculty and administration, live in the neighborhood, which is also home to a number of other leading educational and cultural institutions, including Barnard College, Union Theological Seminary, Jewish Theological Seminary, the Manhattan School of Music, Teachers College, the Interchurch Center, Riverside Church, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The area is also host to a number of inexpensive restaurants, coffee shops, and excellent bookstores. Transportation to other parts of the city is easy, with subway stations conveniently located at 110th, 116th, and 125th Streets and bus stops all along Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.
While much student life centers around the campus area, the city of New York is full of interesting and inexpensive places to go and things to do. Ethnic restaurants and unique cafes abound in the city, as do shops and theaters which cater to just about all conceivable interests and tastes. Live music events take place daily at many concert halls, jazz clubs, and bars, and world-class museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), are usually open late.
Within the department, students often get involved in a variety of student-run networks, like affinity groups and dissertation workshops. Affinity groups are small groups consisting of two senior graduate students and four or five first-years who get together over dinner to get to know each other and to learn about surviving and thriving in the department. Dissertation workshops give advanced students a chance to review each other’s research proposals and to get feedback on their own work. Many regional institutes also run dissertation roundtables, which allow students to interact with people from other departments. Other social events include barbecues, happy hours, softball, basketball and soccer games, as well as meetings for support groups like International Students and Scholars, Women in Political Science, and the Lesbian and Gay Studies Group. A number of student-run conferences are also organized each year.
