Student Life
At Columbia, you’re not just a visitor—you’re part of the community. Access world-class libraries, cutting-edge research facilities, and career services that can shape your future. Join our popular Ambassadorship program and become the face of Columbia’s vibrant summer community.
Enhance your academic experience by extending your learning beyond the classroom. We offer four different Focus Areas that pair curated workshops and events with your academic interests. Attend specialized programming in a designated focus area and earn a Certification of Participation and a LinkedIn badge that highlights your related experiential learning.
Summer 2025 Focus Areas:
- Foundations of Pre-Medicine
- Public Affairs & Sustainable Futures
- Wall Street Prep: Economics, Finance, & Analytics
- Culture & History in NYC
On-Campus and Around-Campus Events
At Columbia’s Summer Session, our vibrant on-campus programming keeps you engaged and connected throughout your stay. Kick off your adventure with our Summer Mix and Mingle, where you’ll forge friendships with fellow students from around the world. As the summer heats up, so does our Sounds of Summer concert series, bringing NYC’s hottest up-and-coming artists right to campus for exclusive performances. Expand your intellectual horizons with special lectures by Columbia’s renowned faculty, who offer insights into cutting-edge research and thought-provoking ideas across various fields.
Make lifelong friends from around the world while exploring one of the most dynamic cities on the planet. The Visiting Students Program takes full advantage of Columbia’s New York City location, offering an exciting array of cultural excursions unique to the Big Apple. Take a whirlwind bus tour of NYC, debate global issues at the United Nations, or discover hidden street art in Brooklyn. Visiting students can expect to access some of the city’s most impressive arts and cultural experiences, from Broadway shows to museums.
Don’t just spend a summer studying—have the adventure of a lifetime at Columbia University. The Columbia University Summer Session connects students with one another, Columbia faculty, and New York City through special lectures, on campus activities and events, and citywide excursions. Past activities include faculty-led museum trips, panel discussions, movie screenings, Broadway shows, a live concert series, and more.
Senior Faculty Events
Each summer, Columbia University faculty lead a series of discussions and activities around their areas of expertise. These opportunities are designed to spark academic curiosity and exploratory learning while providing the broader Columbia University community–students, faculty, staff, and the public–the opportunity to be in conversation with esteemed Columbia faculty and one another
Past Summer Events
Summer 2024 featured a panel and reception event that explored how sustainable futures are being shaped through public policy, sustainable infrastructure design, and finance for renewable energy. Moderated by Senior Vice Dean Steve Cohen, director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, the panelists included:
Susanne DesRoches: Vice President, Clean and Resilient Buildings of the New York State Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA); Lecturer, Columbia University School of Professional Studies M.S. in Sustainability Management program; previously Regulatory Director, Energy Policy, NYC Office of Sustainability
Curtis Probst: CEO, New York City Energy Efficiency Corporation (NYCEEC); Lecturer, Columbia University School of Professional Studies M.S. in Sustainability Management program; previously Managing Director, Rocky Mountain Institute
- Adam Freed: Principal, Bloomberg Associates; Lecturer, Columbia University School of Professional Studies M.S. in Sustainability Management program; previously Deputy Managing Director of the Nature Conservancy’s Global Water Program
Learn more about the "World Environment Day - Public Affairs and Sustainable Futures" event.
Summer 2024 also featured a conversation between Professors Winnie O’Kelly, Bloomberg Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Journalism School, and David Henry Hwang, Professor, Theatre School of the Arts, Columbia University, who discussed the challenges of uncovering financial stories—especially that of the greatest fraud in history, perpetrated by Jho Low and captured in the book Billion Dollar Whale—while exploring the elements that make this such a compelling story to adapt for television. The conversation covered O’Kelly’s experience reporting the story for The New York Times. At the same time, Hwang shared his experience in adapting the book for television.
Learn more about the "The Whale of Wall Street" event.
In summer 2023, Karen Green, curator for Comics and Cartoons and lecturer in English and Comparative Literature, led public panels on the history of graphic novels, featuring Columbia faculty, movie screenings, and discussions. This series included exclusive tours of Columbia University’s groundbreaking Comics and Graphic Novel Collection, which contains roughly 20,000 titles in more than two dozen languages.
Learn more about the Experience Columbia series "A History of Graphic Novels".
Throughout summer 2021, Professor Josef Sorett, Chair of Columbia’s Department of Religion and Professor of Religion and African American and African Diaspora Studies, along with his students and fellow experts, led the “Religion and the History of Black Music” series that took attendees on a tour of the music that reflects the spiritual and social experiences of Black Americans across generations. Attendees learned about the mutual influences of music and history, from the Great Migration to the struggles of the Civil Rights era, up to our current moment of social demonstrations against systemic racism.
Watch and listen to the Columbia Summer series “Religion and the History of Black Music”.
The Columbia University ID
In addition to learning from respected scholars and gaining access to University facilities and programs, Summer Session students receive a Columbia University ID, which grants them access to museums around New York, including the Asia Society Museum, the Intrepid Museum, El Museo del Barrio, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. See the full list of participating museums on the Columbia University Arts Initiative website.
The New York City Experience
Columbia University School of Professional Studies (SPS) students get the benefits of being in a global city of museums, cultural landmarks, performance spaces, and sporting venues. Students are invited to attend Broadway and off-Broadway shows throughout the summer, with a variety of performances to suit all tastes. And, of course, there are the professional opportunities that come with being in one of the world’s most dynamic and diverse cities.