So each college has their own set of requirements. I’m in Arts & Sciences so I’m more familiar with their requirements, but from what I can find online I can give you the CALS requirements too.
In CALS, you need 120 credits total to graduate, and 55 must be from CALS. You’ll need to take two PE courses, two freshman writing seminars, 4 courses in the social sciences and humanities, 18 credits in physical and life sciences, and 9 credits in written and oral expression. You’ll also need to demonstrate quantitative literacy either through an AP score or through a course at Cornell.
In Arts & Sciences, you need 120 credits to graduate, and 100 must be from CAS. You’ll need to take two PE courses, two freshman writing seminars, and a foreign language (either one course at a nonintroductory level or 11 credits of a language). Then there are two breadth requirements: geographic (a course focusing on an area other than the U.S., Canada, or Europe) and historic (a course that focuses on a period before the 20th century). There are also distribution requirements; you have to take five courses from at least three of these categories: cultural analysis, historical analysis, knowledge cognition and moral reasoning, literature and the arts, and social and behavior analysis. Finally, you have to either take two physical and biological sciences courses and two mathematics and quantitative reasoning courses or three PBS courses and one quantitative course. You also need four or five elective courses.
Overall, CAS is known for having a bunch of distribution requirements, but you can fulfill them using almost such a wide variety of classes. I loved them; they force you to step outside your comfort zone and take courses you wouldn’t have otherwise. I fulfilled all but two by the end of my first semester sophomore year without even trying. The CALS requirements I believe are more structured and narrow in how you fulfill them, but some people prefer that, too. So overall it really depends on your preference.