Competitiveness?

<p>I've heard that Cornell is extremely competitive and that its not really a cooperative community. Someone said that notes get stolen and that people lie when helping others so that they'll get the problem wrong becuase grading is on a curve. How true is all this?</p>

<p>As an engineering major I never had a problem with people giving me wrong information. What happens is that you tend to form study groups with friends and you stick to that. People have enough work of their own and they aren't going to go out of their way to help everyone they come across. They help those in their in own study groups and social circles. The real competition comes in the form of exams. The profs that I had want the mean score to be in the 70s. One time the mean in my physics course was 85 and the prof wasn't happy about it. So he made the next exam more difficult and it dropped the mean to 75.</p>

<p>Absolute BS. Students are hardworking but they do not try to sabatoge each other. If anything, I've found that people are extremely willing to form study groups and help each other.</p>

<p>any other thoughts... be truthful please</p>

<p>i've heard that the students are very competitive with each other at cornell, but it's no worse than ivies like harvard or yale. I don't think that people at cornell lie in order to sabotage their fellow students, or, at least i havent heard about anything like that and i have for other schools (harvard has a BIG problem w/ stealing books, etc). Cornell lives by the work, hard play hard motto so dont worry haha</p>