<p>My friend who’s an engineer went from a 4.0 student to like B student. He says its rediculously hard, and you have to put in a lot of work and even then you might not get the grade you want.</p>
<p>Of course, there are always plenty of brilliant people who shine in engineering with 4.0s. A small group of people will find Cornell easy, but for the majority here it will be tough. </p>
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I’d have to agree, though in a good way; I admire Cornell for aiming to extend its educational opportunities to as many people as possible rather than as few as possible. Prospective students should not be intimidated by the excessive complaining on this board. </p>
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<p>The problem is that most high schools have a pretty low ceiling. In high school I was at the top of my class, never had to work very hard, and had nearly perfect test scores. After working my butt off my freshman year here I ended up with like a 3.7 first semester and then a 3.3. I’ve found that students from private high schools, on the other hand, tend to do better here, although differences are marginal and not insurmountable.</p>
<p>I thought it was just a myth cornell students invented, until today. In my engineering seminar, my advisor said they had a board meeting with like all the advisors from every major not too long ago, and the topic was why Cornell had the toughest workload out of any ivy league and if it was a good thing. he also mentioned that a B+ in Cornell engineering was equivalent to like an A- or A in Harvard…so the answer is, yes, cornell does have it rougher than other ivy leagues.</p>
<p>Besides engineering and architecture, what other majors are significantly difficult?</p>
<p>how about biology or environmental engineering?</p>
<p>Biology isn’t that hard. It’s a little harder if you plan on going to med school rather than grad school.</p>
<p>To be honest, nothing in college really seems very hard anymore. Maybe it’s because I’m in med school and we cover half a semester’s worth of material in a week.</p>
<p>Now that I’m a few months out of Cornell I have a different view. It’s not so much that biology classes are hard…it’s just that it’s so competitive…especially, like norcalguy said, if you’re pre-med. If you work hard, do well and don’t get caught up in the competition life will be much easier for you.</p>
<p>Honestly, Cornell’s hard if you make it hard. If you choose to be in enginering or premed you have no one other than yourself to blame. My friends at schools like Princeton and Columbia say every day is a grind, while I’m able to go out 4-5 nights a week and still get As and Bs. It’s all about course selection.</p>
<p>What are you majoring in, DaFunk?</p>
<p>Yeah, I agree with the DaFunk my cousin attended Cornell as a pre-med and he got hammered really badly. I’d surmise based on anecdotes from friends/research engineers/math/science/pre-med are all going to be competitive no matter where you go. If you’re in humanities, I doubt it’ll be that cut-throat.</p>
<p>It’s all about choices. I’m a freshman engineer and I do not put very much time into work or academics. I get all of my assignments done and I go to classes, but I’m not prepared to put hours and hours into studying just to get top grades. I studied for about an hour for each prelim and I did decently (definitely not the top but very solidly middle). I go out 3-4 nights a week and I’m involved in several clubs that I really like. Personally I think its more important to have a life and actually be a human being as long as grades are respectable than to shut myself into a hole to get all A’s.</p>
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<p>I’m a freshman, but most likely Philosophy.</p>
<p>i feel like the distribution courses/electives i’ve taken here are quite easier than my core courses (those required for major) </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s quite hard to get a B here…but definitely have to work to get the median or above median grade…have to go above and beyond to get an A (for us average folks)</p>
<p>another factor might be that the sense of competition fosters depression…one feels worthless and marginalized b/c even though one studied, the norming of grades in a class may result in putting your peers above you…</p>
<p>not to mention the depression the average college student gets…pressures from family to become a doctor/engineer/lawyer…and the competition to attain a 3.5+ in order to get the best jobs…</p>
<p>NOT SURE IF ANY OF THIS MADE SENSE, JUST WRITING STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS…</p>
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<p>Also, keep in mind, medicine is a profession where you have to work very hard. On a scale of 1-10, if you rate the difficulty, college would probably be a 4, medical school would be a 7, and residency would be a 10. So, it’s probably premature to complain about the workload in college.</p>
<p>We just had our first exam (4 hours long) covering 40 lectures (~1300 powerpoint slides) spanning just 4 weeks. I was thoroughly impressed with the responsibility my classmates took for their education. Because the professors didn’t give us many practice problems, people made up their own and sent them to each other. I received pictures of diagrams that spanned 3 chalk boards that people drew while they were studying. They went above and beyond what was given in lecture and created MORE work for themselves. I’m guessing this work ethic didn’t just develop in the one month they’ve been in med school. This work ethic is the reason they’re in med school in the first place. Not surprisingly, the class rocked the exam (mean was a 85 which is ridiculous for an exam that covered so much material).</p>
<p>norcalguy, nice!!!</p>
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<p>Engineering is like the hardest major at any school…last time I checked, my classmates from my h.s. were complaining about the crazy workload and harsh grading at University of Illinois engieering school, Purdue Engineering, and USC engineering… </p>
<p>And, believe me, B+ work at Cornell =/= A- at Harvard or whatever… Harvard has a pretty intense workload, so I heard. Also, given that Harvard students are stronger than Cornell students, the competition would be more dense.</p>
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<p>yeh, considering the fact that virtually every single class at Cornell posts up the median grades of at least B or higher.</p>
<p>^That has to do with the curving. In HS, most classes weren’t curved. If the class mean was a 85, then the class mean was a B. If you got a 90, you got your A-.</p>
<p>At Cornell, even if the class mean is curved to a B, you have to score 1 std. dev above it to get an A/A-. 1 std. dev on a typical test is somewhere in the 12-18% range. So, instead of having to do 5% better than the class to get an A-, you now have to do 12-18% better. Hence, it’s easy to get a B but you have to work for the A-.</p>
<p>At the same time, the curves are necessary since without them, we’d all be failing our science courses.</p>
<p>so, um, what about the govt major students? are those folks pretty cutthroat, or what? :)</p>
<p>There is a rumor that Cornell Students attending at the College of Engineering have the highest rate in freshmen suicide in the US.</p>
<p>So why do you report such idiotic and blatantly untrue rumors?</p>
<p>No major at Cornell is cutthroat in the least. In any major you will find plenty of other students to ask questions of and study with.</p>