What are Cornell students like?

Cornelli2008
Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:55:08 +0000

People aren’t really trying to compete with one another. People here just work really really hard because it’s who we are. What I’ve noticed from comparing Cornell to other colleges I’ve visited (my sister is a freshman at a second tier school) is that it’s totally normal for students to work that hard. It’s not at all weird to spend the entire day at the library and to ALWAYS have more work that you could be doing, and to party hard on the weekend, but to work your ass off during the day in order to go out that night. At my sister’s college, spending time in the libe or doing a lot of work on the weekends is not normal. At Cornell, students work hard b/c they want to, because it’s what people do, and because it will definitely pay off one day, not because they feel like they are competing with other students.

For example, when a representative for my sorority’s nationals came to visit our chapter to see how we were doing, she actually asked us when our “study hours” were. Apparently, at other schools, sororities have to designate a block of time each day for their sisters to study, otherwise, the members might not make the minimum GPA. When she asked this, we all laughed. There is no need to force a Cornell student to do his/her work most of the time.