Departments and Programs

Mathematics is wonderful training for the mind, a great training if you are thinking of being a lawyer for example, and it has an increasing range of applications, from the study of the genome and climate change to financial mathematics and medical statistics. Mathematics has always been the language of physics, and, with the advent of computer modeling, is an essential component of almost all science. An undergraduate degree in mathematics opens the door to many professions and to graduate study in a wide variety of disciplines.

The Medieval and Renaissance program at Barnard College is designed to enable students to acquire both a broad knowledge of the European Middle Ages and/or Renaissance and a richer and more detailed understanding in one area of concentration chosen by the student. Students can elect to concentrate in one of the following disciplines: art history, history, literature, philosophy, romance languages and cultures, music, or religion. 

The Barnard Music Program provides the vocal program for the university, which includes the Barnard-Columbia Chorus and Chamber Choir, solo studio voice lessons and two levels of limited-enrollment vocal classes, Technique in Singing, and the Vocal Repertoire Class. In addition, the program provides a music history course, Introduction to Music, which is a year-long survey of Western European art music, from sixth-century Gregorian Chant to the work of living composers. The course fulfills the Fine and Performing Arts requirement of the General Education Requirements and also serves as a pre-requisite for the music major. Students may complete a senior project in music repertoire by presenting an hour-long recital, or may write a fifty-page thesis project in music research. The successful student will gain professional level performance skills though studio lessons and the theory and ear training sequence, and gain a comprehensive knowledge of music history from the courses in historical musicology and ethnomusicology provided by the Music Department at Columbia University.