<p>In making the distinction between humanities students and business students in the undergraduate field, where would you place ILR students?</p>
<p>I ask because there are a number of internships/opportunities/programs I am looking at in the future that all, for lack of a better term, shy away from what they call “business” majors. They are rather looking for students in the humanities/engineering/social and natural sciences departments. </p>
<p>Thanks for your input!</p>
<p>ILR majors can and should qualify for both depending on what courses you have taken…</p>
<p>ILR majors are best suited to be union organizers in the 19th century later in life.</p>
<p>I think we need more details to answer your questions, namely what kinds of internships you’re talking about. I’m sure that the ILR curriculum would prepare you for a lot of positions, but I’m confused that they’d mention engineers and scientists. Is it going to be office work, or are they looking for more creative and analytical people? I often hear of recruiters looking for people who can simply think critically, and if ILR teaches you to do that then you should be considered qualified.</p>
<p>Well a couple of the programs I’m looking at are programs that are business internships that are not meant for people with a background in business; they’re meant for people in the other fields that I mentioned (humanities/engineering/social and natural sciences), who weren’t previously sure what they wanted to do, but now decided they want to go into business. </p>
<p>Most of these programs so far group their students into Humanities, Engineering/ Natural Science, and Business Majors, and I was just wondering which of those 3 catagories I would fall into.</p>
<p>ILR is best characterized as interdisciplinary social sciences.</p>
<p>^^ Ah thank you very much that helps a LOT! Did you read/find this on the website, or is that just generally known about the school?</p>
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<p>“Undergraduate students at ILR work toward a bachelor of science degree, taking courses based in the social sciences and complemented by campus-wide offerings in the humanities.”</p>
<p>[Cornell</a> ILR: Explore Academics & Instruction](<a href=“http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/explore/academics/]Cornell”>http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/explore/academics/)</p>
<p>But it’s just generally known that you get a basic grounding the social sciences and can branch off from there into law, policy, business, labor work, humanities, or academia. I have friends from ILR doing I-banking, HR for Google, working for the federal government, and getting their PhD in English Literature at Stanford.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot! Yeah I’m not really too worried of what I’ll be prepared for, but I don’t want the title of being an “undergraduate business student”, if that makes sense.</p>
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<p>That’s why you are not in AEM. I don’t like that title either. If it helps, consider what you would tell a lay person on the street what you study: I typically say that I concentrated in economics and history at Cornell. At Oxford, I took a lot of courses on british labor – social and economic history, and the major there was called ‘modern history and economics’.</p>
<p>You could similarly be interested in international relations, American studies, organizational psychology, statistics, or government and be an ILRie.</p>
<p>^^ Yeah that was a great way to put it. Haha you eased my mind a lot, I’m not as worried about transferring into CAS anymore.</p>
<p>Just wondering, you were an ILR student right…? How close do you feel it was to a liberal arts education, and what do you think the distinctions are between the two? What would you say were the pros and cons of ILR?</p>
<p>Also, if your comfortable putting it online, what did you end up doing after ILR?</p>
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<p>You can definitely make it into a liberal arts education if you want, provided your main interest is in the social sciences. I took a handful of of English, history, and philosophy courses, and a some of the core ILR courses (organizational behavior, labor history, labor economics, etc.) have a lot of grounding in the liberal arts as well. One course that I absolutely loved – Boyer’s Development of Economic Institutions – was a pure liberal arts course, bit it is no longer required to graduate. I also dabbled in things like Asian Religions and Evolutionary Behavior, which augmented most of my coursework in economics and statistics quite nicely. </p>
<p>And in some respects I feel like I had more of a liberal arts experience than my friends in Arts who studied biology or math. I am at ease talking about lots of very different topics – feminist theory to organizational structure, evolutionary biology to the politics of the modern American labor movement.</p>
<p>After graduating I seriously considered going on for a PhD in economics, so I got a job at the Federal Reserve – doing research for economists – for a couple of years. Then I ran into some health problems, so I back living at home and working in the private sector in a pretty interesting position. I would prefer to not say any more than that.</p>
<p>I think my friends from ILR demonstrate the breadth of the experience that ILR can offer:</p>
<p>– one got a Masters in Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine and is now in HR at Google.
– One went on to Harvard Law and is no working on low-income housing policy in Chicago.
– One became an economic development and sustainability consultant in California.
– One went into investment banking and private equity.
– One is getting her PhD in economics at University of Michigan.
– One is getting her PhD in English at Stanford.
– Two are getting their PhDs in economics at MIT.
– One is working for the NLRB in Oakland.
– One went on a Fulbright to London and is now in law school.
– One did Teach For America and is now a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.
– One went to Georgetown for a Masters in Foreign Service and worked at the Bolivian Embassy.
– A whole bunch went to law school at various places – Columbia, NYU, Georgetown, Michigan, Notre Dame, etc.</p>
<p>RenTheSecond also has some friends from his class year who have gone on to do really interesting things. I know one is in a PhD program in Political Science at Princeton, and another is in HR at Goldman Sachs.</p>
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<p>Could you shed more light on this class? Sounds like a course on the development of the banking system, Federal Reserve, etc.–which, to me, would be fascinating. Also, you said that you concentrated in economics; are there any particular economics courses that you would highly recommend? I will be an ILR junior transfer student this fall, and have an interest in econ. But since my time is a bit pressed, I want to make sure that I take advantage of my limited amount of electives.</p>
<p>CayugaRed- Thanks for all the fantastic help! </p>
<p>I actually saw the class on the Developmental of Economic Institutions in the course catalog and had it highlighted as one of the classes I really wanted to take! Are there any other classes you really loved/you found interesting during your time at ILR?</p>
<p>Also, just wondering did you use any of your electives to take business courses while you were there?</p>
<p>You mentioned you did a lot of studying in economics, just an afterthought but did you end up doing the unofficial minor in applied economics in AEM?</p>
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<p>I took no courses in AEM or business. I currently work in the business world and it took me all of three hours to catch up with the business majors. Funny thing though – the business majors still can’t talk about Hegel.</p>
<p>Boyer is a great professor! I hate economics but I love economic history! </p>
<p>I hope to take one of Boyer’s courses in the spring, I had him as one of four professors in my 200 level Work, Labor and Capital in Global Economy course.</p>
<p>Mhmm so here’s a question to both Cayuga and ResurgamBell, since you guys seem to be the ILR experts on this board: </p>
<p>If I know I want to end up in business, would you recommend I take any of the AEM classes? Obviously Cayuga didn’t and it worked out for him, and I was originally planning on using some of my electives on these courses because I thought it was necessary to get at least the raw background in business for later on, but if not then I would be far happier using them on other classes…</p>
<p>roneald, its shocking how similar you sound to me. As I said before, I transferring from ILR to Arts and Sciences to be a Gov’t/Pysch double major. There is no tuition difference for me, so I decided to go ahead and do it. ILR is great, the problem I ran into was the kids. I can personally say though, as somebody who sounds similar, that ILR will serve your interests in many regards. I would recommend talking to your profs, etc. (which I actually failed to do…so I am not sure who I am to give this advice) as many of your peers will NOT be interested in a liberal arts education, but rather just graduating with a Cornell degree in the easiest manner possible. This does not reflect upon the program (which is great), but you may have to work harder to obtain some of the intellectual spirit that exists in arts and sciences.</p>
<p>Dear Stringa:</p>
<p>Besides ILR requirements, what electives did you take freshman year?</p>
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<p>I would argue that a sizable percentage – maybe 20 to 30 percent of ILR students – are probably closer to Arts in feel. It’s just that they don’t try to point attention to the fact that they are in ILR due to whatever stigma some may have with it.</p>
<p>What’s funny, though, is that a lot of the ILR students on this board – RenTheSecond, intl_echo, myself – are probably liberal arts students at heart.</p>