<p>If you're in CALS you can place out of both with AP lit and lang/comp credit. I'm not taking one. You pick several seminars and will be put in the one that has space in it.</p>
<p>There are writing seminar ballots. You pick 5 from a list of 100+. How they do it from there is beyond me, but obviously they try and give you your first choice.</p>
<p>How would they distinguish between who knows the material very well and who just knows the material well. Do they pull out a question from nowhere - something that is totally irrelevent to what they teach?</p>
<p>No, they just have really hard tests. For example, I took Calculus AB in HS, got a 5, and was one of those "four of five kids who was actually good at the course" as someone put it. I got 740 SAT I Math, and 770 on IIC. Not a bad math student if you ask me.</p>
<p>At cornell I took math 111 (1st semester calculus in CAS, coverling limits up through basic u substitution) because I'm a slacker. Turns out although the homework and coursework were easy, the prelims managed to ask very difficult questions, testing the limits (no pun intended) of my understanding of basic concepts. I was right on the mean to up to one Standard Deviation above the mean on the 3 prelims and final.</p>
<p>The tests for intro engineering classes are insane. My math 192 class had a test with a 40 something mean once. My math 293 class had a mean of C+, and some majors require a C+ or better in all core math classes. Some people would ask, wouldn't half the kids fail out then? Well yeah, kinda. ALOT (like 40% for that class) will have to take Math 293 again, or switch to a different engineering majors (Why do you think a CS kid switches to enviro or something). These are basically weed out classes. Like someone said before, the material is generally understandable and usually if you go to class and take advantage of all the resources you can learn it. But the tests for some of these "weed out" classes, well, they're insanely hard. They are designed so getting an A isnt about hard work. Frankly you need to have that IT factor, or genius factor, or whatever you want to call it. Hard work is required too, but no one is getting an 95 on a Math 293 test without a foundation of brilliance. That said, if you can hang with it for the first 3 or 4 semesters you'll eventually get to your major specific classes, which generally I've found much easier (some even have uncurved A averages!). Also you get to pick your electives. Since I am considering Law and Business school, I make sure to take ONLY classes with A averages.
I jumped from a 3.2 3rd semester to a 3.9 4th semester. No I wasn't hit by lightning, I didn't stop partying, and I didn't start taking notes and going to office hours. Instead I picked good courses :)
<a href="http://registrar.sas.cornell.edu/Student/mediangradesA.html%5B/url%5D">http://registrar.sas.cornell.edu/Student/mediangradesA.html</a>
These are the median grades for every course Cornell has offered every semester since 1997. When course enroll comes arround, I select the classes that fullfill requirements that have the highest averages first. Then I worry about time slots. Enjoy</p>
<p>How safe is campus? can you walk or jog at night(not that i would do those things) in general do we have to worry about townies on campus or any deranged students?</p>
<p>Except for an occasional mugging in collegetown, the campus is very safe - I'd be much more worried about stray dogs when running at night than I would about any people (and I actually have been running at night, several times).</p>
<p>I will also agree with everyone else - the core classes are difficult for the sake of being difficult; skip as many as you can to save time, effort and your GPA. They tend to focus on insane problem solving instead of concepts (i.e. my math 192 final had a double integral over a twisted elipse instead of over some regular shape like a triangle, rectangle or square, and every function was messy and hard to integrate) and basically try to trick you.</p>
<p>So if I am taking a Calc III class this year that covers most of the material in Math 192 it might be smart to buy that Thomas Calculus 11th Edition text over the summer and prepare to just test out of that class? It would also probably be nice because then I'd be all set to take PHYS 214 in my second (rather than 3rd) semester.</p>
<p>Basically - It'd be easier to have a first-year schedule that looked something like this:
COM S 100 (might test out of this too if I decide to learn Java as I know some C++ already)
Writing Seminar
Math 293/294
Chem 207/211
ENGRI 115
AEM 220</p>
<p>ENGRD 211
ENGRD 270
Math 293/294
PHYS 214
ECON 313
HIST 202 (Historial Analysis elective)</p>
<p>...than taking Math 192 or other into-level courses? It looks like I'd be pretty loaded up 2nd-semester with 5 200-level courses and 1 300-level? Do they generally recommend taking a phys ed class your first semester or not? I plan on taking golf and downhill skiing and snowboarding; not sure if I should wait until my second semester for that or if it would be smart to just get those classes out of the way. Thanks again everyone who's answering questions.</p>
<p>1.Does Cornell really have the highest suicide rate, what is the rate?</p>
<p>Yes; it's 16%.</p>
<p>where did u get that statistic? is 16% freshman class or overall undergraduate class?</p>
<p>No, it's lower than the national average, let's put this to rest.</p>
<p>DO YOU SERIOUSLY THINK 16% OF PEOPLE KILL THEMSELVES? THAT'S BEYOND ABSURD.</p>
<p><em>calms down</em></p>
<p>live-, you aren't going to want to take that many classes at once...</p>
<p>Wow, in case you guys couldn't tell I was joking and pulled such a high number out of my ass. If you really, even for a second, believed that 16% of Cornellians kill themselves you may also want to look up because I'm pretty sure someone wrote gullible on your ceiling.</p>
<p>And towerpumpkin, I thought the average was 6 classes (18 credits) per semester? In order to graduate you need an average of at least 16 credits/semester, right? Or do most people take 5 classes/semester then I take it?</p>
<p>So, if knock off AEM 220 and HIST 202 I'd have a pretty normal first-year schedule?</p>
<p>Sem 1:
COM S 100 (might test out of this too if I decide to learn Java as I know some C++ already)
Writing Seminar
Math 293/294
Chem 207/211
ENGRI 115</p>
<p>Sem 2:
ENGRD 211
ENGRD 270
Math 293/294
PHYS 214
ECON 313</p>
<p>I meant to say those are my first two semesters...not sure if you realized that or not (I wasn't planning on taking 12 classes at a time lol).</p>
<p>You got out of Math 192 already? You're probably going to want to take 4 classes first semester while you're still transitioning. Push either CS or ENGRI to second semester. If you've got some background in Java but not enough to place out of CS100, look into CS100 Honors... if you do well in that, you may be able to place out of ENGRD/CS 211.</p>
<p>Based on those courses you've already got some credits behind you, so you shouldn't have a problem taking it easy first semester.</p>
<ol>
<li>when do we get to pick classes?</li>
<li>when do we get an academic advisor?</li>
</ol>
<p>If you have a couple of AP credits you don't need to take such a heavy load. I've never taken more then 4 classes a semester (not counting gym) and I'll only need 1 class my last semester to graduate (I'll prob start a Master of Eng if I don't get good LSATs). Before you decide to take so many classes, sit down and go over your handbook for you major, see exactly what you need to graduate and plan out your next 4 yours roughly.</p>
<p>For most engineering majors you need 16 credits per semester for 8 semesters. This comes out to be about 4 classes, or 4 classes plus 1 or 2 one credit electives. AP credit helps ease the load too. I chose to accept 16 credits, so that basically puts me one semester ahead, so if one semester i only feel like i can handle 14 credits, i can go ahead and do that because i have some credits in the "bank." I don't know how demanding it gets as an upper classman, but as a freshman 14-18 credits is enough.</p>
<p>Ok lol sorry I know I'm getting waay ahead of myself. mercury in my other post I said I'm in a Calc III class right now that covers almost all of the material in 192 so I'm just going to buy the text used in 192 over the summer and just review a little by working through some of the problem sets and then attempt to test out of 192 based on what seemed to be a pretty universal recommendation. </p>
<p>Anyway - I'm planning on doing the engineering coop program so I wouldn't mind trying to graduate in 3.5 semesters so I only end up spending 1 summer in the program (rather than 2). Looking through the handbook, for my major (Operations Research is what I think I'm going to do) they have 5 classes for the first semester in the flowchart...but its not normal to take 5 classes that semester? I want to try to get into the 5-year MBA program (if not, then I'll probably do a Master of Engineering in a 5th year). Sorry for so many questions I'm just curious heh.</p>