I'm an incoming Cornell student as well. I've heard that either the Sociology 101 courses or psych 101 courses are relatively easy and fun. (I think sociology is considered easier and that Psych 101 isn't harder in terms of tests or anything, just that there's a bit more work but many people say its one of the most interesting classing to take at Cornell).
btw are you planning on being considered a full-time student? Because FWS, Language, PE, and one more class will not = 12 credits to be considered a full time college student.
Intro Mandarin, Japanese, Korean are each 6 credits per semester. He/she could be taking one of those.
If you're doing Mandarin, I absolutely endorse Stephanie (He Laoshi) if she's still teaching it. She is an amazing lecturer and the other teachers are pretty good as well. It's a great introductory language course.
^^ yes I will be a full-time student
asian lang=6 cr
fws= 3 cr
one more class= 3 cr
Thanks, I'll look into those classes.
^ I will be taking one of the Asian languages. When I looked at Korean, there are only 4 spots left for the intro level. I guess Jap or Mandarian will be backups.
I'll just give my two cents regarding the languages: Korean is noticeably easier than Chinese or Japanese. Chinese characters are occasionally used, but doing so is not common and is generally reserved for formal contexts. With Japanese, there is no question about it and kanji is used like nobody's business (that said, it's really rewarding to learn cool and obscure kanji. I wouldn't trade anything for the looks I got from my classmates when they found out I knew the kanji for "endoplasmic reticulum," though they might not have been good ones).
^ yeah that's why I want to take Korean because it's a lot easier, but they're apparently only 28 spots total, with only 4 remaining for the entire freshman class. ):
in terms of actually making recommendations for your easy class, do you have any idea what you might be interested in majoring in? it might be worthwhile to take an intro class in that area just to get a feel for it.
If you are interested in joining the Greek life, second semester will be a harder semester. I would take a normal course load and lighten up next semester.
I don't think Asian languages are easy at Cornell because there are a lot of native speaking students in those classes. I hear they are very time consuming. As faustarp posted, why not take some intro classes in some major you may be interested in.
It is a privilege to go to Cornell, try to maximize your academic experience there.
Don't native-speaking students usually take higher levels than just intro? University of Michigan has classes called "[insert language here] for Heritage Speakers" - is there anything like that at Cornell?
I think some of the language departments offer classes like that. I know when I started intro German, the instructor kicked people out because their language abilities were clearly too high for the class and they were probably looking for the easy A.
