<p>I am an incoming freshman this year, Class of 2016. I am very excited about the opportunities that Cornell has to offer; but with that excitement comes the realization that Cornell is tough. How do you succeed at Cornell, especially if you do not have extremely good high school preparation? For example, my physics and chemistry teachers were really really horrible, and I don’t think I am as well prepared as others. How should one face this obstacle and be successful in those classes nonetheless?</p>
<p>Thanks Colene! I have been reading the posts on this forum quite often, and you always offer sound advice concerning Cornell - thanks for that! Can you explain a bit about how discussion sections works at Cornell, especially for the physics/math departments? Do we just discuss problems we have come across? If that’s true, then what is the difference between a discussion section and professor’s office hours?</p>
<p>Specifically regarding physics and math, office hours tend to normally be the TA going over material that many students were having difficulty with or some homework problems that students have question on. As far as discussions go, the TAs will go over a number of problems on material learned recently in class.</p>
<p>–
And, if you want to be successful, make sure you are motivated enough to go out and learn far beyond the course material and master it by drawing connections with material that might not have been covered in class. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Everyone has different ways for succeeding at Cornell; these are the most common ways, but you might find other ways that work better for you by the end of your first semester. I’d definitely start by doing these, though.</p>
<p>First & foremost at any college is to not miss classes. In addition, get to know other students in your class & study for exams together some to see if that helps you.</p>
<p>Yesterday our older daughte had a talk with her sis about what courses to take and what to expect at Cornell. She said the difference between high school and college - you have to understand beyond what’s taught in class, by knowing how to do all the problem sets is not enough, you’ll really have to understand the material in order to well on prelims. D1 also told her sister to sign up for more classes and drop if she doesn’t like the material or professor.</p>
<p>I would advise students not to take take higher level courses because of AP credits, especially for math/science. It is good to make sure you have very good foundation before taking next level of courses. You are not going to get credit for taking more advanced courses, but you will be penalized for having low GPA when it comes to job search or graduate school applications.</p>
<p>Live a balanced life, don’t spend all of your time partying or studying, try to meet as many people as possible.</p>
Learn good time management skills. From personal experience, my less stressed friends had great time management skills and my more stressed friends did not. Some of the smartest people I knew were able to go out drinking 3-4 nights per week and do well academically because they made sure they made optimal use of their non-leisure time (note: partying this much is NOT the norm, nor am I endorsing that use of leisure time). Part of this is learning to prioritize your activities. </p>
<p>I’m big on lists so this is an example of what I might do for an econ exam:</p>
<ol>
<li>Read notes (30mins)</li>
<li>Take note of any confusing concepts and put them on a separate sheet/flash cards (30 mins).</li>
<li>Review flash cards</li>
<li>Review all problem sets (2 hours)</li>
<li>Practice problems that I don’t know how to solve (2 hours)</li>
<li><p>Repeat steps 1 through 5 as necessary (2 hours)</p></li>
<li><p>Critically engage with the material you are learning. Taking notes and passively doing your homework won’t cut it in many classes. I know in high school I easily got away with just reading my notes to prepare for an exam. And because I had straight A’s, I assumed I was doing it right. Cornell taught me that you have to engage the material. Don’t just follow an algorithm to answer a problem. Understand where that algorithm comes from. Don’t just read your notes, ask yourself questions about what’s in your notes, and then maybe use the notes as a guide to answer those questions.</p></li>
<li><p>I disagree about placing out of classes. Even though I wasn’t a science major, I used AP credit to go into a higher level science class and was prepared. Intro classes at Cornell won’t teach you anything new. They’ll probably just ask harder questions, which means you probably learn the material better because you have to think more. However, as long as you are willing to think in higher level classes, you should have sufficient base knowledge from your AP course to do well in an upper level Cornell class.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t walk into office hours without having given thought yourself to whatever you are asking. Most professors won’t be happy if you walk in and say, “I have no idea how to do problem 22.” They will be more than happy to help if you walk in and say, “I tried problem 22 and got stuck here,” or maybe “I looked at problem 22 and am not sure how to begin. I tried X but that didn’t seem to work. Is it related to what was discussed in lecture when you told us XYZ?” Or for more general inquiries, don’t walk in and say, “Can you explain XYZ?” Because the professor will have said what they wanted to about XYZ in lecture. Instead ask something like, “In lecture you said this about XYZ, can you go further into that? Does XYZ imply ABC or rather are those two ideas unrelated?” Sorry for the bad examples, but hopefully they illustrate my point.</p></li>
<li><p>Find the “right” balance. For some, it’s all academics all the time and doing whatever it takes to get an A. For others, it’s minimally getting by academically so they can be social or work on other extra-curriculars. In my opinion, both are equally valid ways to spend your time at Cornell (even if they are more the extremes). College is what you make of it and just because you’re at a good school like Cornell doesn’t mean focusing on academics is the way to get what you need from your college experience.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thank you everyone who responded! I really appreciate everyone’s advice, especially MikeyC’s. Mikey, do you mind if I ask another question? What happens if you don’t understand problems on the problem sets? In other words, is there enough time to ask for help if you struggle on the homework? I know that I am taking Math 1920, and I (hopefully) will have discussion sections on Tuesday/Thursday and lectures on Mon/Wed/Friday. Will I have enough to ask for help and what not?</p>
<p>I didn’t take 1920, but in my experience, TAs usually ask if people have questions in discussion. If you can’t ask in discussion section, there is always OH. If you can’t make your professor’s, you can always go to your TA’s and if both of those don’t fit in your schedule, and it’s a big course with multiple TAs, you can probably go to another TAs office hours. And if that doesn’t work, I’ve never had a problem scheduling time with a professor/TA outside their schedule OH. Heck, if it really comes down to it, you can probably e-mail the TA/professor a question. Just don’t put it off until the last minute. When you’re assigned a problem set, give it a quick look-over right away to get a sense of whether or not you think you’re going to struggle with it.</p>