Barnard College
- Health & Safety

This makes me love Barnard

Barnard health services are amazing! The health center is always open and available and will help you with any imaginable problem. On late nights or odd hours, you can call "clinician-on-call" which directs your call to nurses to answer your questions and tell you what to do in a medical emergency situation. In addition to being very helpful and extremely nice and friendly, Barnard's mandatory health insurance plan is also great. If you ever need to go to the emergency room/hospital, an escort will come knock on your door, direct you to a public safety van outside, which will drive you to the hospital, where an RA on duty will meet you and stay with you the whole time. You will then be escorted back in the van, never having spent more than a second alone. And you'll get a follow up email/phone call making sure you're ok and that you've had a fine experience with everything. And everything is completely confidential and cost-free. Another plus-Barnard prescribes really inexpensive birth control, no blood test, no long appointment, just a quick trip to health services to pick up the packs (they'll give you 6 at a time.)

Use Your Head

I have NEVER felt unsafe on or near Barnard's campus; Public Safety is very visible, there are Barnard shuttles if you feel nervous about walking late at night. Also, I have kept my door unlocked for the past two years and I have never had a problem. This being said, you are living in a major city! Though it is 1000x safer than it was, say, 20 years ago, you will still get Public Safety e-mails about someone's phone getting snatched from their hand when they were walking late at night. But, this can all be solved by just using your head!

Safety and Security in Barnard

I have never felt unsafe on Barnard's campus. The presence of security officers obvious and ubuquitous. However, do be careful when stepping off campus late at night... Barnard/Columbia is right next to Harlem, after all. However, there are multiple call boxes and security will walk you to your dorm/wherever if you just give them a call. The most common incidences are theft/robbery, usually when a person is walking alone and late at night. Just use common sense.