Cornell University | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Alexandria

Class: Freshman
Major: Business
Gender: F

High School:
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

Almost everyone here loves Cornell. But we all hate the horrible weather during the winter!Though Cornell might not be everyone's first choice to start out with (actually a lot of people didn't want to come to Cornell and they applied here as a back-up), they do identify with the university as they get more invovled on campus. There is a lot of school spirit at Cornell; the sweater with "Cornell" on it is probably the most popular item. There are lots of activities you can do on campus. Personally, I am involved in a handful of clubs to keep myself busy. I am in a co-ed fraternity and running for Student Assembly. If I want to really concentrate on my studies, I would go to the library. If I just want to goof around, I would probably stay in my dorm and hang out with others. Cornell is a comparatively big university. The student body is very diverse, constituting people from every walk of life and different cultural backgrounds. The campus itself is ridiculously large, stretching from the beautiful North Campus for freshman all the way to the Cornell Dairy on the edge of plantation. Everyone is proud of the school but don't believe it when they say MenÕs Ice Hockey dominates the world here. It does not! Only about 10% of people on campus actually care enough about the Ice Hockey team to pitch tents outside of the selling booth. (they have changed to an electronic lottery system now)One frequent student complaint is that Cornell forces the students on regular meal plan to buy $500 of food every semester from its dinning halls or grocery stores. The food there is way over-priced and it is a complete rip-off.

Academic Life

Cornell students party hard and study hard. You see the little heads crowing down in the common study area right before the big prelims. Most intro classes are very big with the professor standing in the front of the hall. If you want to know them personally, you have to take the initiative of approaching them during their office hours.(trust me, it will pay off in the long run). I have actually become friends with one of my professors and we still keep in touch after I finished his class.Also, remember to make friends with TA's though most TA's at Cornell donÕt really speak English that well. Be nice and polite to your TA's since they are the ones grading your paper and assignments. For upper-level classes, the classes are much smaller and there is a more dynamic interaction between the students and the professor. The workload really depends on your major, expectation and efficiency. I have engineer friends who sleep 5 hours a night and study in the library all the time. On the other extreme end, one of my floormates who is also an engineer plays Guitar Hero almost non-stop in his room.I have never seen him flipping through his book. In general, the students in artsy majors tend to lead a less stressful life than the ones in hard-core science majors. The students are very competitve here since most of them graduated as the top 5% from their highschools. Also, the grades are often belt-curved so you just need to do better than everyone else to get a good grade. Surprisingly enough, I have actually found the workload here lighter than my highschool workload. THere are not too many projects and you just need to ace the prelims. I have heard the friends from math department say that in general, education at Cornell is geared more toward theoretical studies instead of real life application. One thing I would argue though is the classes in AEM ( the special undergraduate business program) is all about developing a business mind-set. The two classes you must take here is Professor MossÕs Psych 101 and the wine-tasting class.Professor Moss is one of those ancient wisards who have been teaching at Cornell forever. His class at Bailey Hall is always full and he always tells everyone that he would retire the next year. The wine-tasting class isn't a piece of cake, from what I have heard. You actually have to distinguish the differences between the grapes from different origins. And the most "interesting" class is this class devoted to pornography. I have no idea what they do in that class.

Student Body

In general, a typical Cornell student is nice,intelligent and friendly. However, there are some extremely catty girls with LV bags hanging off their shoulders and nasty jocks who party day and night. The campus is very inclusive. Therefore, everyone should be able to find his or her own place at Cornell since it has a such a diverse student body. Most Cornell studetns come from the East Coast. The two most popular states are New York and New Jersey. There is also a fair share of students who are from other parts of the country.Of course, we do occasionally bump into someone who is from France or China. International students make up about 10% of the student body.Most of them(excluding the ones from Canada) tend to hang out with people of their own. There is a wide spectrum of political awareness in students. Some students are extremely active and organize rallies while others hardly know the difference between Obama and Clinton.