Lasting two days, is Columbia Business School's Open House.  The Open House is aimed at introducing the school to admitted students and winning-over those students who have yet to accept an offer from Columbia.

Lasting two days, is Columbia Business School's Open House.  The Open House is aimed at introducing the school to admitted students and winning-over those students who have yet to accept an offer from Columbia.  Approximately 300 people attend, with many bringing their other halves, where a special agenda is created for them.

What's in store?

A two day reasonably intensive program will greet everyone, covering everything from academics, career counselling and social aspects.  From an academic perspective there were addresses from the vice dean, Amir Ziv, on how the program is structured.  This covered the new "flexi-core" program that Columbia is introducing in which, rather than choosing core subjects, they must choose from a range of subjects within "core streams".  It really opens it up for flexibility.  One thought, that came to mind was that if you want to take two subjects from the one stream that may be difficult/impossible.  Will have to wait till August to find out!

Also, on the academic front, we were placed in clusters and "teams" which mirror the real Columbia experience.   It does provide some idea of what we'll be experiencing for the first year, although it was a great way to meet so many other fellow applicants and hear their stories.

The final part on academics involved a sample class visit in which a case study was done on Walmart, by one of the professors.

The career counselling sections included not only speakers from the Career centre, but also from one of the executives-in-residence, various alumni and receptions all over NY (from Bloomingdales to the Columbia Club!).  It was exciting to feel these connections to the alumni.  To date, the "power of alumni" has been a theory in my head - this was my first time to witness it and through it, it became real.

The final part was the student club, which was covered by a club fair.  Although interesting, there will be (to my understanding) a real club fair when we join, so this wasn't too important.  Nevertheless, after speaking to several club representatives, I did pick up on a few clubs I wasn't even considering and rule out some that I was - so overall, not a wasted experience.

An optional component in the agenda was an International students Q&A session with the International Students & Staff Organisation (ISSO) and various current, international students.  This was a great session in which we were able to talk about various issues from visas to financial aid to significant others.  It was a very frank and informative session that I would recommend to all international students.

Some thoughts?

 Overall, the open house was quite a valuable session, in that it allowed me to meet not only the faculty and admissions staff (who I'd been in correspondence with for over a year!), but also other fellow, prospective students.  Although we were provided with temporary business cards, I avoided using them as (in my opinion) it's a tad obnoxious (call it my Australian roots!).  Nevertheless, I did trade contact details with many people and with almost everyone on facebook that did facilitate establishing contacts.

A couple of things that were announced during the open house that were not advised previously include:

I hope this information gets out to other international students who are unable to attend, but it would be good if this extra information was on the admitted-students web site.

Finally, as an international student, I had some concerns about the sample "class" in which we visited.  As it was a "mock-up" of the real class and only had predominantly (>95%) domestic students, I am giving it the benefit of the doubt.  My concerns were about the US-specific (& irrelevant) material that was raised during the session.  I spoke with some other international students who also had similar thoughts.  I understand that there is a learning curve for international students, but I seriously question the relevance of asking what people "felt about working at Walmart".  By making it so specific, it excludes international students and also makes it far too specific to be able to apply to other case studies in the future.  Nevertheless, as I said, it wasn't a real class, so I'll wait and see the real thing in August. 

If you have been accepted and did not attend, I suggest you try and make the next one, which is slated for April.

All I can say now is, New York, here I come!

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