As a Columbia student, you have a remarkable support network to help you achieve your full academic potential: advisers, tutors, librarians, writing coaches, and professional staff. Remember, the most successful students don’t wait until they need help – they form relationships with these experts early on to learn how to study smarter, plan ahead, and fully utilize the many opportunities the University provides.
From now until graduation, your adviser in The James H. and Christine Turk Berick Center for Student Advising (CSA) will be your source of information for all things academic: course selection, the Core, major declaration, requirements, tutoring, internships, preparing for graduate school, and getting the most out of your Columbia education. Advisers are also your allies in achieving academic success. Their priority is to help you excel in a course of study about which you are passionate.
To make the most of this relationship, you'll need to actively engage with your adviser, which means responding to your adviser's outreach, speaking up when you need help, acting on advice, and following up on referrals to other sources of information they give you. We recommend building a connection to them early and taking advantage of their personal support from the start.
By mid-summer, you will receive your CSA adviser assignment and you can then reserve a meeting to begin designing your plan for the first semester of classes. Your CSA adviser assignment will be sent by email in mid-July. Advisers are available over the summer to answer any academic-related questions you may have and can be reached by phone, email, and virtual appointment.
A few ways your adviser can help:
Preprofessional Advising helps College and Engineering students and alumni identify and refine their interests in pursuing careers in the professions (law, medicine, and other health professions such as dentistry, veterinary medicine, and public health), and provides guidance and support throughout the professional school application process.
The CSA provides free private peer tutoring in a broad range of courses. Students should meet with their academic adviser to request a tutor as soon as the need becomes apparent. Some academic departments offer private tutoring as well.
Additionally, the CSA also provides Peer Academic Skills Consultants, who are trained upperclass students available to meet individually with students to discuss effective learning strategies. They can assist with time management and test-taking strategies, goal setting, note taking, and other study methods.
Academic success seminars are also presented throughout each semester. The topics of these seminars range from time management and note taking to stress management. Seminars are open to all students. Speak with your CSA adviser at any point for more information.
Help Rooms serve CC and SEAS students seeking extra academic help with subjects such as chemistry, physics, statistics, mathematics, and more. You can drop in during open hours to ask questions of faculty and graduate assistants and receive help with coursework. Help Room schedules are available on department websites.
Each academic department also offers a number of resources. For additional information regarding what they may provide, refer to an individual department’s website.
Faculty and teaching assistant office hours are posted on course syllabi, departmental websites, and faculty office doors. Office hours are times set aside by a faculty member to meet with students to clarify concepts, discuss assignments, and mentor potential majors. Take advantage of these hours to ask questions, address concerns, and connect with faculty.
The Writing Center provides writers of all levels and abilities — from first-year students to seniors working on their theses — with the opportunity to get help from writing experts. Writing consultants will work with students at any stage in the writing process.
The Language Resource Center (LRC) supports students throughout the course of their language study at Columbia. The LRC provides flexible physical and virtual spaces for language learning, facilitates access to resources and connects students to language-related opportunities at Columbia and beyond.
The LRC is also home to the Shared Course Initiative, which connects language classrooms at Columbia, Cornell, and Yale via high-definition video conferencing so students can learn less commonly taught languages.
Columbia University Libraries also offers workshops, training programs, and personal consultations. From in-person appointments with research librarians, to consultations with subject experts on discipline-specific projects, to workshops on library software and research citation management, our top-tier libraries can be a major part of your academic support ecosystem.