<p>I am planning to transfer next year. I just wanted to know more about the Cornell environment. I heard a lot of things about how the students there are extremely competitive. For example, one of my professors told me that students hid books from the library to make sure that they would be the only ones who could finish a certain assignment. Is Cornell this unfriendly? In the university I currently attend, students have study groups and work together to make sure everybody does well. In Cornell, does everyone want to screw everybody over? Is it an everybody-for-themselves type of school?</p>
<p>Incidents of ultra competiveness occur sporadically at some elite colleges and universities. At some universities, a small group of, for example, upper class pre-med students might get into an unreasonably competitive mind-set & do something that becomes folklore. When I was in law school, another law school had a reputation for law students ripping pages out of the law books in the library so that their classmates couldn't complete the research project. This, obviously, was before every student had a personal computer for legal research. (Both of these situations occurred at the same elite university in Atlanta.) Cornell University students are reputed to be hardworking & ambitious; can this result in isolated incidents of cut-throat competiveness? Sure--but it would not be commonplace. Some majors are much more combatively competitive than others, but the cynicism about a particular school is unwarranted as instances of obsessive competiveness are much less common than the folklore would leave one to believe.</p>
<p>It's a myth. Don't worry about it.</p>
<p>just depends on who you are! are you someone who does work better alone, or do you need friends/mates to motivate you and keep you in check?</p>
<p>Another "environment" question: I know Cornell is secluded but is it boring? Does it seem pretty empty on the weekends or are students always bustling around doing things? Are the clubs really active, do you have a lot of guest speakers, etc?</p>
<p>There's too much stuff to do on the weekends and there are a ton of people around. makes it really hard to get your work done, but we all do it somehow.</p>
<p>Ripping pages out of books so that others cannot complete their research - hahahaha. Sorry, I know it's not really funny, but I just had to laugh. That's such a ridiculous thing to do!</p>
<p>I think it depends and there's a mixture of different types of people, some people may be super competitive, but i don't think you should have a problem making lots of friends and enjoying your time at cornell!</p>
<p>Anyone else have something to say about the Cornell environment? Academically and just about fun things to do during free time.</p>
<p>the driving force behind competitiveness is grades. there are enough idiots and slackers here that you can do well if you work hard... so just work hard and youll be fine</p>
<p>Cornell Storming The Court (raw Footage)</p>