Those who do, shouldn’t teach?
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s class at Columbia University was more like a semester-long ad for her book than a course fit for the Ivy League institution, according to one dissatisfied student.
Columbia student Laalitya Acharya gave a scathing review on TikTok of the former First Lady’s course, “Inside the Situation Room,” which Clinton taught with the dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Keren Yarhi-Milo, during the fall 2023 semester.
“[There was a] kind of the divide between the students and the professors… I’d hoped that over the course of the semester, [Clinton] would start to loosen up a little bit. We’d get to know more about [Clinton] as [an] individua[l] and really be able to have… a professor/student relationship rather than just having [her] talk at us,” Columbia student Laalitya Acharya said on TikTok in December.
The course description had promised that students would “be taught how to analyze and understand the complex interplay between individual psychology, domestic politics, public opinion, bureaucracy, the international environment, and other factors which feed into decisions about foreign policy.”
The reality, however, was more like “a one-sided speaking engagement where [Clinton and Yarhi-Milo] were just talking at us,” Acharya complained.
“And that was definitely frustrating because a big part of why we were in the class was to understand more about decision-making, why people made the decisions that they did,” she said.
Clinton also failed to bring serious new insights to the table, Acharya added.
“I would have really, really hoped that she would bring in some more unique insights and… more vulnerability and discussion on why she made the decisions that she did, what her insights were, what her thoughts were,” the student concluded.
The seasoned stateswoman also stayed true to her roots when it came to relating to students, Acharya said.
“Usually whenever you start to… get to know [politicians] more on a personal basis, you start to like them a little bit more because they become more humanized. Over the course of the semester, though, I feel like Hillary Clinton became more of a politician than she was at the end,” she said.
Even so, Acharya – who, in addition to being a Columbia student, is the founder of the Nereid Project, which raises awareness about the water crisis – said she does not regret taking Clinton’s coveted class.