Columbia University is a member of the iconic Ivy League, and one of the best-known universities globally. Based on the island of Manhattan in New York City, it has the unique characteristic of being a traditionally laid-out university in the middle of a fast-moving urban center. Step off campus, and taxis are whizzing by. Step onto campus, and you’re immediately surrounded by grand classical architecture. We’d call it calming, which it is most days, but Columbia is also known for being deeply social-justice motivated and students aren’t shy about making their opinions known. Sometimes, it gets quite lively. It’s a community, though, through thick-and-thin, and many members of our team at TKG are proud to call Columbia our alma mater.
Columbia has multiple undergraduate colleges:
Columbia College
Columbia Engineering
Barnard College
Jewish Theological Seminary
and the School of General Studies
For this post on our top 5 majors, we’re going to focus on Columbia College, the liberal arts undergraduate college that most traditional prospective undergraduate students apply to. This means majors like engineering and computer science are off the list not because it isn’t awesome at Columbia (because it is), but because it’s pursued through Columbia Engineering, not through the College.
Columbia received over 60,000 applications for the class of 2028, and the acceptance rate was only 3.85%.
Below, we share and break down our 5 favorite majors at Columbia College. We hope you’ll use these as a jumping off point for envisioning your potential future at Columbia!
If you can see yourself at Columbia, send us an email. Getting in isn’t easy, but we can help.
What do we mean by best major?
Before we present our top 5, you should know what criteria we used to pick 5 from the over 50 areas of study available to undergrads at Columbia College. When assessing which are the best, we look at the depth of the resources available to undergraduate students, the focus that is available to students (whether they have to go broad and stay broad, or whether they can zoom in), and the post-graduation resources available as students approach the next step in their academic or career paths.
Columbia College is best known for providing all students with a classical foundation, called the CORE, that puts the liberal arts on a pedestal. Our favorite majors there play to this strength, building on and augmenting what Columbia holds so sacred. All students take classes in art history, literature, music theory, and science, and there is a strong writing emphasis across the board. Without further ado, here are our top five.
Art History and Archaeology
Columbia is serious about art history. Every student in Columbia College is required to take an art history course, called Art Hum, that creates a piece of the shared foundation we’ve been emphasizing in this post. For those who want to go further, the Art History & Archaeology department is one of the best resourced art history departments in the world with one of the best faculty rosters and one of the best sets of resources globally. That’s a lot of bests.
This program attracts rockstars, and that impacts every level of the program from PhD candidates to undergraduates taking their first-ever art history course. Students in the major “explore the history of art, architecture, and archaeology across a broad historical, cultural, geographic, and methodological spectrum.” You’ll get to dig deep into areas that fascinate you, informed by broad exploration. The study abroad options are also fabulous, from Paris to Venice to Greece, and courses range from “The Making of Global Contemporary Art: Exhibitions, Agents, Networks” to the travel seminar “Medieval and Renaissance Venice.”
Political Science
Founded in 1880, the political science department at Columbia was the “first of its kind in the country.” They address the major through four subfields: American politics, comparative politics, international relations, and political theory. Courses options include “Justice” (yes, that’s the name of the class), “Racial and Ethnic Politics,” “Russian Propaganda,” and “Chinese Politics.” In short, we want to take them all.
The most powerful part of the program, though, is the faculty. The people who are in front in your classroom are powerhouses. They are some of the biggest thinkers and most progressive minds in the field, people like Ira Katznelson and Gregory Wawro. Students in the program can also apply for early entry to the master’s degree program, fast-tracking their graduate studies. Interdepartmental majors are available in partnership with the Departments of Economics and Statistics.
Creative Writing
Columbia College is one of the only top colleges in the country with a proper undergraduate creative writing major, not simply a concentration or focus within a broader English major. The writing program at Columbia is buoyed by Columbia’s iconic writing MFA program, and the world-renowned journalism school. You’ll be taught by professional writers who are actively involved in the craft outside the confines of Columbia.
Students take a combination of intensive workshops that require students to write substantial bodies of work, and seminars that dig into particular styles, forms, or subjects. The program is made more interesting by the diversity of the student body. In a given writing workshop, you’ll have an 18-year-old undergrad in Columbia College sitting next to a 45-year-old military veteran in Columbia General Studies. While this is true across Columbia, it is perhaps never more noticeable nor more special than in a creative writing workshop where the sharing of story is sort of the whole point. Students chose to focus in on non-fiction, fiction, or poetry.
Economics
New York City is considered to be the financial capital of the country and, by some, of the world. Where else, then, to study economics? The Economics program at Columbia is both rooted in tradition and pushing boundaries. The faculty is stacked with big names in the world of economics and business, and undergraduate students benefit from that roster. Students can pursue a pure economics or financial economics major, or a joint major with math, philosophy, political science, or statistics.
Students in the economics program compete to win undergraduate prizes including the Romine Prize, awarded for best honors thesis or economics seminar paper, and the Parker Prize for Summer Research, which provides financial support for underclassman to undertake unpaid summer internships focused on research.
Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Ever heard of the Cloisters? It’s just one of the most astonishing places to experience medieval art, or art of the middle-ages, and it’s just a short subway ride from Columbia. You could even walk if you were up for a workout. The proximity to this material at museums across New York City and in the Columbia collection itself makes studying Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Columbia an astonishing opportunity to immerse yourself in history.
It’s important to note, though, that this is technically a concentration. It’s a program you pair with a major, or another concentration — and you have a wide range of options to choose from including Classics, Art History and Archaeology, Philosophy, a range of languages, and more. The program is small in student body but large in influence. And students are able to learn from the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia, which is a remarkable experience on its own. There is a language requirement, as students in the program are required to “demonstrate an ability to work with original language sources (other than in Early Modern English) from the medieval and/or Early Modern periods.”
Every program at Columbia College is at the top of its field, but the five above are our favorites. Honestly, though, you can’t miss.
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