The School of General Studies, commonly known as General Studies or simply GS, is one of the three official undergraduate colleges at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. It is a highly selective Ivy League

Ivy League

The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...

 undergraduate liberal arts college designed for non-traditional students

Non-traditional students

Non-traditional student is an American English term referring to some students at tertiary educational institutions. The National Center for Education Statistics acknowledges there is no precise definition for non-traditional student, but suggests that part-time status and age are common elements...

 and confers Bachelor of Art and Bachelor of Science degrees in over seventy different majors. GS students take the same courses with the same faculty, are held to the same high standards, and earn the same degree as all other Columbia undergraduates.
Most GS students commute to campus from all over the New York metropolitan area, while others, many of who moved to the city from around the U.S., live in University residences. GS boasts 17% international students hailing from over 75 countries. The school has a joint degree program with List College of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Academics

A Columbia undergraduate class could include students from any of the following colleges or schools: GS, Columbia College, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Barnard College or the School of Continuing Education. GS students, who comprise of approximately 25% of all Columbia undergraduates, have the highest average GPA of all the undergraduate schools at Columbia. GS is unique among colleges of its type, because its students are fully integrated into the Columbia undergraduate curriculum. However, all of Columbia University's schools have different diplomas. (The Columbia GS and SEAS diplomas are in English while the CC diploma is in Latin.)
GS is also home to Columbia's Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program, which is the largest and oldest in the United States. Students enrolled in the List College Joint Program with Jewish Theological Seminary of America

Jewish Theological Seminary of America

The Jewish Theological Seminary of America is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism, and a major center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies.JTS operates five schools: Albert A...

 are awarded two Bachelors of Arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degrees (one from GS, one from JTS) on graduation.

Admission

Admission to Columbia GS is highly selective. According to the College Board, GS accepts 23% of all applicants. Admissions officers examine high school records, test scores, extra-curricular activities, resumes and essays. They conduct interviews in person and on the phone. They also consider college-level work and real-life experience. For transfer students, most successful applicants attain GPAs of at least 3.8 according to the GS admissions office. GS also requires standardized test scores for entry. The school will use scores from the SAT, ACT, or the school's own General Studies Admissions Exam. A list of admissions requirements and procedures is available from the General Studies website and statistics on application, admission, and matriculation are available at the website of Columbia's Office of Planning and Institutional Research. GS admissions statistics are not reported in conjunction with CC/SEAS statistics. This is related both to GS's different admission deadlines and the fact that CC/SEAS and GS have different applicant pools.

Applicants to the School of General Studies must have a break of one academic year or have compelling personal or professional reasons for part-time attendance to be eligible to apply for admission. GS students have the option to attend part- or full-time unlike Columbia College

Columbia College of Columbia University

Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1754 by the Church of England as King's College, receiving a Royal Charter from King George II...

 students, who are required to attend full-time. Also, scholarships at Columbia GS are merit based rather than income based like that of Columbia College or SEAS. In the 2006 class, the average age was 27 for incoming students, and the majority attend full-time.

Nontraditional students

GS enrolls world-class dancers, Olympic athletes, and musicians; investment bankers and small business owners; published authors and military veterans; and people who come from as far away as China, Israel, and Germany. Many students work full-time while pursuing a degree, and many have family responsibilities; others attend classes full-time and experience Columbia's more traditional college life.

Many have enjoyed successful careers in fields such as investment banking and information technology and quite a few are nontraditional due to previous conscription or community service requirements in their home countries. A substantial portion of the population enter as transfer students; the previous schools of these students range from community colleges to Columbia's peer institutions.

Science Po Columbia University Dual BA Program

The Dual BA Program is an intensive, transatlantic course of study for which undergraduate students earn a Bachelor of Arts from Sciences Po and Columbia University. Students will spend two years at one of three Sciences Po campuses, each of which is devoted to a particular region of the world and offers a heavy linguistic and cultural focus. After two years, students will matriculate at Columbia University School of General Studies in New York City to complete the interdisciplinary social sciences curriculum. Admission to the program is most competitive. High school students may apply.

Background

While Columbia University's mascot is a lion, the School of General Studies has another mascot on its coat of arms: the owl, which was selected for two reasons. First, it represents a connection to night classes, although the vast majority of students today take classes during the day. Second, the owl represents Athena and thus knowledge and wisdom; an owl can be found hiding in the robes of the university's central Alma Mater statue. The school also has a separate motto - "Lux In Tenebris Lucet," Latin for: The light that shines in the darkness.

The school's name refers to its diverse student body by alluding to medieval universities, which were also known as studia generalia

Studium Generale

Studium generale is the old customary name for a Medieval university.- Definition :There is no clear official definition of what constituted a Studium generale...

. Studia generalia were degree-granting institutions that served a much broader, often international group of students and scholars.

History

Nontraditional education began at Columbia in the 1830s. A formal program, Extension Teaching (later renamed University Extension), was created by Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler in 1904. GS's evolutionary ancestor, however, is Seth Low Junior College, which was established in Brooklyn to help alleviate the steady flood of applicants to Columbia College

Columbia College of Columbia University

Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1754 by the Church of England as King's College, receiving a Royal Charter from King George II...

 when the College was limiting the number of Jewish applicants.

In 1947, University Extension was reorganized as an official undergraduate college and designated the School of General Studies, with an influx of students attending the university on the GI Bill. GS has become one of the three undergraduate schools of Columbia University with Columbia College

Columbia College of Columbia University

Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1754 by the Church of England as King's College, receiving a Royal Charter from King George II...

 and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science

The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science is a school of Columbia University which awards Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, Master of Financial Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Science, Doctor of Engineering degrees in engineering, applied physics and applied...

.

In December 1968, the University Council first decided to allow GS to grant the B.A. degree in addition to the B.S., over the objections of some members of the Columbia College Faculty. The Board of Trustees authorized that decision in February 1969.

In 1990, the CC, GS, and GSAS faculties were merged into the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. As a result, GS and CC students are academically indistinguishable - they both receive degrees conferred by the Trustees of Columbia University through the Faculty of Art & Sciences.

More recently, as a result of the passage of extended GI Bill coverage in 2008, the school hosts many U.S. and international veterans. In the 2010-2011 school year, the school hosted about 150 of Columbia's nearly 300 studying veterans.

Some GS students are veterans of the U.S. military, and have their own group, the U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University (or "MilVets"; see link below). In addition, there is a significant population of former Israeli soldiers who have completed their pre-university military duty. A January 2010 news article in The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

discusses the strong military veteran presence in the GS student body. In addition to a large body of former military students, many students have held full-time jobs before matriculating at Columbia.

Myths

• GS is a night school.

GS students attend the same classes as students in other colleges at the university. Columbia offers some classes at night, but they are available to all students.

• GS is an extension program.

GS is a degree-granting college. Students are expected to pursue a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree. The separate Columbia School of Continuing Education

Columbia School of Continuing Education

The School of Continuing Education at Columbia University offers thirteen master's degrees, courses for advancement and graduate school preparation, certificate programs, summer courses, high school programs in New York, Barcelona and Jordan, and a program for learning English as a second...

 offers individual courses on a non-degree basis. (Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 and Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 nontraditional student programs do not have full-fledged undergraduate colleges devoted to nontraditional students, though Brown's RUE Program and Yale's Eli Whitney Students Program

Eli Whitney Students Program

The Eli Whitney Students Program is an admissions program designed to attract students from non-traditional backgrounds to Yale College. Students admitted through the program study either part or full-time and receive either a B.A. or a B.S. from Yale College...

 are considered among the most integrated nontraditional student programs in the Ivy League. The College of Liberal and Professional Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

 also serves nontraditional students and offers heavily discounted night classes taught by a faculty that includes tenured professors, adjunct professors, and advanced graduate students (though LPS students also have the option to take day classes).)

• GS is a back door to CC.
• It is unclear whether anyone has ever successfully transferred into CC or another Columbia undergraduate school from GS. The official policy reads:

Undergraduates enrolled in the School of General Studies, including Joint Program students, who are interested in transferring to another Columbia or affiliated undergraduate school (Columbia College, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), Barnard College, or List College/JTS) should not submit a transfer application to any of those schools without prior consultation with their GS advisors.

Transfer applications from GS to Columbia College, SEAS, or the Joint Program with JTS will not be considered by those schools without a written endorsement from the GS Dean of Students. Endorsements are limited to those students in good standing who have sound academic reasons for seeking to transfer from GS. Joint Program students who are considering the submission of a transfer application to one of the Columbia undergraduate schools, including GS, should also discuss the matter with their GS and JTS advisors; transfer to GS is not automatic for Joint Program students and requires a new application to GS through the Office of Admissions.

Deans

• Frederick H. Sykes, (1904–1910) Director of Extension Teaching.
• James Chidester Egbert, Jr.
  James Chidester Egbert, Jr.
  James Chidester Egbert, Jr., Ph. D. was an American classical scholar and educator.He was born in New York City. He graduated at Columbia University in 1881, and took a doctorate there in 1884. He then became a professor of Classical studies and was dean of the School of Business there from 1916...
  
  , (1910–1942) Director of Extension Teaching/University Extension.
• Harry Morgan Ayres, (1942–1948) Director of University Extension (re-established as School of General Studies in 1947).
• John A. Krout, (1948–1951) Acting Director of the School of General Studies
• Louis M. Hacker, (1951–1958), former student of University Extension. First Dean of the School of General Studies.
• Cliford L. Lord, (1958–1964)
• Clarence C. Walton
  Clarence C. Walton
  Clarence C. Walton was the 10th president of The Catholic University of America and the first layman to hold the position. He was also the first to hold the title 'president' and not 'rector.'-References:*...
  
  , (1964–1969)
• Aaron Warner, (1969–1976)
• Ward H. Dennis, (1977–1992)
• Caroline W. Bynum
  Caroline Bynum
  Caroline Walker Bynum is an American Medieval scholar. She is a University Professor Emerita at Columbia University, where she still teaches, and a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She was the first woman to be appointed University Professor at Columbia...
  
  , (1993–1994)
• Gillian Lindt, (1994–1997)
• Peter J. Awn, (1997–Present)

Notable alumni and attendees

The following list contains some of the notable alumni and attendees of the School of General Studies and its extension school predecessors only. For a full list of people associated with Columbia University as a whole, please see the list of Columbia University people.

An asterisk (*) indicates an attendee who did not graduate.

Alumni of the School of General Studies and its precursors

• Ira Gershwin
  Ira Gershwin
  Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
  
  * (1918) Attended pre-medical classes, Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.
• Amelia Earhart
  Amelia Earhart
  Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...
  
  * (1920) Attended one semester, American aviator and early female pilot.
• Simon Kuznets
  Simon Kuznets
  Simon Smith Kuznets was a Russian American economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who won the 1971 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his empirically founded interpretation of economic growth which has led to new and deepened insight into the economic and...
  
  (1923), Nobel Prize
  Nobel Prize
  The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
  
  -winning economist.
• David O. Selznick
  David O. Selznick
  David O. Selznick was an American film producer. He is best known for having produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca , both of which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture.-Early years:...
  
  * (1923), Hollywood Producer, King Kong
  King Kong (1933 film)
  King Kong is a Pre-Code 1933 fantasy monster adventure film co-directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and written by Ruth Rose and James Ashmore Creelman after a story by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. The film tells of a gigantic island-dwelling apeman creature called Kong who dies in...
  
  , Gone with the Wind
  Gone with the Wind (film)
  Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
  
  
• Federico García Lorca
  Federico García Lorca
  Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
  
  * (1929), Attended briefly, Spanish poet and dramatist.
• Isaac Asimov
  Isaac Asimov
  Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
  
  (1939), science fiction
  Science fiction
  Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
  
   writer and biochemist
• Jane Jacobs
  Jane Jacobs
  Jane Jacobs, was an American-Canadian writer and activist with primary interest in communities and urban planning and decay. She is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities , a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States...
  
  * (1940s), Attended for two years, author The Death and Life of Great American Cities
  The Death and Life of Great American Cities
  The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, is a greatly influential book on the subject of urban planning in the 20th century...
  
  , urban theorist and activist.
• Baruj Benacerraf
  Baruj Benacerraf
  Baruj Benacerraf was a Venezuelan-born American immunologist, who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the "discovery of the major histocompatibility complex genes which encode cell surface protein molecules important for the immune system's distinction between self and...
  
  (1942), Nobel Prize
  Nobel Prize
  The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
  
  -winning immunologist.
• Telly Savalas
  Telly Savalas
  Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz...
  
  (1946), Actor, Emmy-award winner and Oscar nominee.
• Ossie Davis
  Ossie Davis
  Ossie Davis was an American film actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, and social activist.-Early years:...
  
  (1948), Actor and social activist, Emmy- and Golden Globe-award nominee.
• John W. Backus (1950), Developer of Fortran
  Fortran
  Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
  
  , the first true computer language.
• Anthony Perkins
  Anthony Perkins
  Anthony Perkins was an American actor, best known for his Oscar-nominated role in Friendly Persuasion and as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho , and its three sequels.-Early life:...
  
  * (1950s), Actor and writer.
• Donald Clarence Judd (1953), Artist.
• Donald Richie
  Donald Richie
  Donald Richie is an American-born author who has written about the Japanese people and Japanese cinema. Although he considers himself only a writer, Richie has directed many experimental films, the first when he was 17...
  
  (1953), Film Critic.
• Sandy Koufax
  Sandy Koufax
  Sanford "Sandy" Koufax is a former left-handed baseball pitcher who played his entire 12-year Major League Baseball career for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers...
  
  * (1955), Hall of Fame pitcher for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers.
• Mike Gravel
  Mike Gravel
  Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel is a former Democratic United States Senator from Alaska, who served two terms from 1969 to 1981, and a former candidate in the 2008 presidential election....
  
  (1956), Former US Senator from Alaska and candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President of the United States. Released full Pentagon Papers
  Pentagon Papers
  The Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967...
  
  .
• Pat Boone
  Pat Boone
  Charles Eugene "Pat" Boone is an American singer, actor and writer who has been a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He covered black artists' songs and sold more copies than his black counterparts...
  
  (1957), Singer and actor.
• Gerard W. Ford
  Gerard W. Ford
  Gerard William "Jerry" Ford was an American businessman who founded Ford Modeling Agency with his wife Eileen Ford in 1946 in their apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City.- Life :...
  
  (1957), Founder of the Ford Modeling Agency.
• Hunter S. Thompson
  Hunter S. Thompson
  Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...
  
  *, (1958). Writer.
• Mary McFadden
  Mary McFadden
  Mary Josephine McFadden is an American fashion designer and writer.-Family:McFadden is the only daughter of Alexander Bloomfield McFadden, a cotton broker, and her mother was the former Mary Josephine Cutting, a socialite and concert pianist. Her father died in 1948, when he was killed in an...
  
  (1959), Fashion Designer
• Stewart Rawlings Mott
  Stewart Rawlings Mott
  Stewart Rawlings Mott Born in Flint, Michigan was a philanthropist who founded the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust...
  
  (1959), Lobbyist and Philanthropist
• Edward Klein
  Edward Klein
  Edward Klein is a bestselling nonfiction author who has written about the Kennedys and Hillary Clinton.Klein is the former foreign editor of Newsweek and former editor in chief of The New York Times Magazine. He frequently contributes to Vanity Fair and Parade; he has a weekly column in Parade...
  
  (1960), Author.
• R. W. Apple (1961), The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
  
  associate editor.
• John Tauranac
  John Tauranac
  John Tauranac writes on New York history and architecture, he teaches the subject and gives tours of the city, and he designs city maps and transit maps....
  
  (1963), Chief designer of the New York City subway map of 1979.
• Jehuda Reinharz
  Jehuda Reinharz
  Jehuda Reinharz is the former President of Brandeis University, where he is Richard Koret Professor of Modern Jewish History and Director of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry. On September 25, 2009 he announced his resignation as president; at the request of trustees he stayed...
  
  (1964), President of Brandeis University
  Brandeis University
  Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
  
  
• Malcolm Borg
  Malcolm Borg
  Malcolm Borg is chairman the North Jersey Media Group, which is owned and operated by the Borg family.-Early life and education:Malcolm Borg graduated from The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He was awarded a B.S...
  
  (1965), Chairman of North Jersey Media Group
  North Jersey Media Group
  North Jersey Media Group is a newspaper publishing and media firm serving northern New Jersey and headquartered in Hackensack, with a second office in Woodland Park . The firm, owned by the Borg family, publishes The Herald News, which covers Passaic County, out of West Paterson and the state's...
  
   (formerly Macromedia, Inc.) owner of The Record (Bergen County)
  The Record (Bergen County)
  The Record is a newspaper in northern New Jersey. It has the second largest circulation of New Jersey's daily newspapers, behind The Star-Ledger. Owned by the Borg family since 1930, it is the flagship publication of the North Jersey Media Group. Stephen Borg is the publisher of The Record...
  
  
• Jacques Pepin
  Jacques Pépin
  Jacques Pépin is an internationally recognized French chef, television personality, and author working in the United States. Born in Bourg-en-Bresse, Lyon in France, Pepin was raised by a father and mother who jointly owned a restaurant, where he later credited the start of his love for food. He...
  
  (1970), French Chef.
• Edward Cecil Harris (1971), Creator of the Harris matrix
  Harris matrix
  The Harris matrix is a tool used to depict the temporal succession of archaeological contexts and thus the sequence of deposition on a 'dry land' archaeological site. The matrix reflects the relative position and stratigraphic contacts of observable stratigraphic units, or contexts. The Matrix was...
  
  .
• Peter H. Kostmayer
  Peter H. Kostmayer
  Peter Houston Kostmayer is a Democratic politician who served eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Bucks County, Pennsylvania.-Biography:...
  
  (1971), Former (D) Congressman Pennsylvania.
• Roger Pilon
  Roger Pilon
  Roger Pilon is Vice President for Legal Affairs for the Cato Institute, and an American libertarian legal theorist. In particular, he has developed a libertarian version of the rights theory of his teacher, noted philosopher Alan Gewirth...
  
  (1971), Constitutional scholar and legal theorist.
• Kristi Zea (1974), Production designer and producer. Academy Award Nominee for Best Picture, As Good as It Gets
  As Good as It Gets
  As Good as It Gets is a 1997 American romantic comedy film directed by James L. Brooks and produced by Laura Ziskin. It stars Jack Nicholson as a misanthropic, obsessive-compulsive novelist, Helen Hunt as a single mother with an asthmatic son, and Greg Kinnear as a gay artist. The screenplay was...
  
  . (1997)
• Howard Dean
  Howard Dean
  Howard Brush Dean III is an American politician and physician from Vermont. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S...
  
  (1975), Postbaccalureate Premedical Program. Former Governor of Vermont and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
• Howard G. Chua-Eoan
  Howard G. Chua-Eoan
  Howard G. Chua-Eoan was News Director for Time magazine in Europe. Born in Manila, The Philippines, Chua-Eoan migrated to the U.S. in October 1979 at the age of 20. He received a B.A. in English from Columbia University School of General Studies, receiving the John Angus Burrell Memorial Award as...
  
  (1983), News Director, Time
  Time (magazine)
  Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
  
  .
• Gil Shaham
  Gil Shaham
  -Biography:Gil Shaham was born in Urbana, Illinois, while his parents, Israeli scientists, were on an academic fellowship at the University of Illinois. His father Jacob was an astrophysicist, and his mother, Meira Diskin, was a cytogeneticist. His sister is the pianist Orli Shaham. He is a...
  
  (1990), Violinist.
• Ted Rall
  Ted Rall
  Ted Rall is an American columnist, syndicated editorial cartoonist, and author. His political cartoons often appear in a multi-panel comic-strip format and frequently blend comic-strip and editorial-cartoon conventions. The cartoons appear in approximately 100 newspapers around the United States...
  
  (1991), Syndicated cartoonist.
• Patrick Gaspard
  Patrick Gaspard
  Patrick Gaspard is the Executive Director of the Democratic National Committee, and served as Director of the Office of Political Affairs for the Obama administration from January 2009 to 2011...
  
  * (1994–1997), Obama Administration - White House Political Director.
• Josh Waitzkin* (1999), Child chess prodigy and author.
• Princess Firyal of Jordan
  Princess Firyal of Jordan
  H.R.H. Princess Firyal is a Jordanian princess. Married to Prince Muhammad bin Talal from 1964 to 1978, she is the mother of Prince Talal Prince Ghazi and Princess Mia bin Muhammad. Princess Firyal is known as a socialite and philanthropist...
  
  (1999) Jordanian princess, socialite, and philanthropist
• Philippe Reines
  Philippe Reines
  Philippe I. Reines joined the State Department as a Senior Advisor to United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she was sworn into office in January 2009, and was later promoted to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.In its Dec 2009 profile of Hillary Clinton, Vogue...
  
  (2000), Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
• Jonathan Taylor Thomas
  Jonathan Taylor Thomas
  Jonathan Taylor Thomas is an American actor, voice actor, former child star, and teen idol...
  
  * (2010), Actor.
• Lena Park
  Lena Park
  Lena Park, also known as Park Jung-hyun, , is a Korean-American R&B singer. Early in her life, Park showed talent for singing, mainly in the choir of her father's church in Downey with her siblings Brian and Uriah. She also learned to play saxophone and piano...
  
  * (2010), famous Korean American singer

Student groups

• Columbia Dramatists.
• Columbia University Postbaccalaureate Premedical Association.
• Columbia Producers and Directors Club.
• General Studies Student Council, the student governing body of GS.
• General Studies Theatre Company.
• Non-Traditional Students Action Coalition.
• The Observer, a literary magazine.
• The Blue Notebooks
• The Hedge Club - Unofficial Financial Economics Group of Columbia University.

Further reading

• Time article from 1952

External links

• Columbia University
• The School of General Studies of Columbia University
• History of the School of General Studies
• School of General Studies Student Council (GSSC)
• Columbia University Postbaccalaureate Premedical Association

New York City°N date=June 2009°W