EduDev

I just talked to some people at Columbia and thought it would be good to share. TC is actually very well-regarded among Columbia schools. Some TC students are not happy with the fact that some of their classes are rather crowded ( 40-50 students/class!), but considering that some classes at SIPA and Fu School of Engineering ( where people I communicated with are attending) may reach up to 100-150, I think that's not too bad. Still, it's funny because Columbia is a private school; I expect smaller-sized classes. Other than that, as dpgu800 pointed out, TC students can freely register classes at Columbia, and many people take advantage of that. Sounds pretty good to me.

Hi, I plan on studying social affairs with concentration on education policy. Would SIPA or Teachers College be a better choice here? I heard Teachers College is only an affiliate and not really Columbia, so they may not receive the same kind of resources that Columbia students have. Any insights?

Does anybody know if SIPA or Teachers College is a better choice if somebody wants to go into social policy? TC does have an education policy track, which is related to what I want to do, but I don't know how their program is perceived by recruiters compared with SIPA.

Does anybody know how well-regarded the international educational development program is at TC compared with similar concentrations at other schools of public policy (SIPA for example)?

I'm leaning towards TC for the same reasons too. The only scary thing is that as the class size is comparatively large, I'm afraid it may be hard to get strong recommendation letters from your professors afterwards, and since I may be doing further education after my masters, it's very important to get strong support from them. Penn has Richard Wagner, and he worked for UNCESCO in France for a long time before coming to Penn. The school is obviously very proud when they advertise about their "special relationship" with UNCESCO on their website. I guess they want to stress that as their uniqueness if people want to put their program and that of TC side by side. Funny and smart.

How did you come to choose Penn over TC? I am still torn between the two... Penn is smaller and seems to be very friendly, which is what I like, but TC program in Intl Development is more comprehensive. I really don't know what people do to eventually choose one over the other.