Fulfilling Barnard’s STEM Requirements as a Non-STEM Student

At first glance, Barnard’s math and science requirements can appear daunting to those who never entirely warmed to STEM, like me. My first year, I worried about this hurdle: What could I take to fulfill two science courses, a quantitative course, and a technological course? The long list of calculus and coding courses that Barnard/Columbia offered didn’t appeal to me at all, so I knew that I would need to get creative to satisfy these essential courses.

I found my first science course entirely by accident. Scrolling through the list of classes taking place on Tuesday/Thursday mornings, my only free slot, I happened across an oceanography course. It was nothing like the typical chemistry or biology lecture course that I expected in my first year of college. Throughout the class, we discussed relevant topics like tides, climate change, paleoceanography, and of course, marine life! Despite the fact that our professor was used to teaching higher-level oceanography courses, she always engaged us in ways that made sense for a beginner level, even bringing in bioluminescent algae one day from her own lab to teach us about glowing algae blooms! This class introduced us to so many different academic conversations in the field of oceanography, but never made the science too difficult for those who were just starting out. 

I took my second science class, an astronomy course titled “Another Earth”, in the fall of my sophomore year. In this class, we discussed what makes our Earth habitable and learned how astronomers seek out other planets that might possess those same characteristics. It was fascinating to realize how far out we could detect planets. We even took the time to debate whether or not intelligent life existed in the universe; the consensus among my classmates was that intelligent life, if it did exist, probably didn’t want to contact us. Moreover, since there was some level of mathematical computation involved in detecting planets, this class double-counted for both the Science requirement and the “Thinking Quantitatively” requirement under Barnard’s Foundations system.

Finally, I happened upon my “Thinking Technologically” requirement through an Art History course. After the fall of so many Confederate monuments in the summer of 2020, I was interested to learn more about the history of these structures, and took a course entitled “American Monument Culture.” This class discussed the history of the construction of these monuments, their social meaning, and the fight to bring them down. We examined monuments of Columbus, Confederate generals, suffragists, and so many more influential figures in history, and we debated how the medium of sculpture worked to depict events or people of the past. In fulfilling the “Thinking Technologically” requirement, we utilized a set of online tools to create digital timelines, podcasts, and story maps. This was an entirely new method of looking at our data sets and it was a fun way to fulfill the tech requirement without any coding!

Overall, Barnard’s General Education and Foundations requirements are incredibly flexible. As a non-STEM student, there are always options to make the science and math requirements work for you. Alternatively, as someone who likes STEM courses, Barnard’s history and English requirements are similarly open-ended! Gen Ed requirements are what you make of them, and Barnard ensures that you can pursue your personal interests while engaging with a broad liberal-arts curriculum.