<p>the acadmeic calendar says thanksgiving break doesn't start till 1:10 pm on wednesday does that mean I have classes before then that day?</p>
<p>Yes. But my daughter is coming home the Fri before. She did that last year also. You should ask your professors to see if they are having classes on Wed.</p>
<p>no, don't ask professors that. it ****es them off.</p>
<p>assume that you do have classes wednesday morning. usually, only half the class goes and a lot of people leave tuesday night. And only people on the east coast go home. The rest either visit their friends' families or stay on campus, or go to NYC for the weekend.</p>
<p>leaving on friday is very rude especially if you have sections...</p>
<p>leaving on tuesday night isnt too bad and usually is ok...</p>
<p>I left it to my daughter - vacation at Caribbean or going to her classes.</p>
<p>^^I don't even know how to respond to that</p>
<p>All I can say is...back in the day..I'm glad I went to my organic chem class the day before Thanksgiving (and on Slope Day!)....in both cases...some of the material that was discussed (and demonstrations shown) appeared on the final.</p>
<p>Thank goodness she is only double majoring in math and econ, not some crazy pre-med major.</p>
<p>There is no need to respond to that - are you keeping up with your classes, can you afford to miss those classes and still able to do well on your problem sets and prelims. As college students, you should be able to prioritize and figure out if and when you could miss a class. If you know you were going to miss a class, do you try to do the work before hand and do you go see your professor/TA during office hours. </p>
<p>Back in the day when my brother was at Cornell, he claimed he went to 30% of his math and CS classes and graduated close to 4.0. Back in the day when I went to Colgate, I went to practically all of my classes, didn't/couldn't get close to that.</p>
<p>My daughter has been going to 90% of her classes, from what I could see she is doing fine (probably more than fine by Cornell standard). It may not be the case for everyone. Everyone has different priorities. I leave it to my daughter to get her work done.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Thank goodness she is only double majoring in math and econ, not some crazy pre-med major.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Who says I'm crazy? If the professor is offering the class that day I believe I owe him/her the respect of showing up....and I did so all 3 years I was there...especially since I was lucky enough to live close enough to Ithaca and my parents could pick me up right after class. As a matter of fact, I was borderline B+/A- in a class my senior year...the prof remembered I showed up the day before Thanksgiving and gave me the A-.</p>
<p>And..not all who take organic chem are pre-med...although it is common knowledge on this forum that I was a pre-med student while at Cornell. </p>
<p>I won't converse anymore on this subject...I've expressed my feelings and I thank you for sharing yours as well.</p>
<p>
[quote]
vacation at Caribbean
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think this is what we don't know how to respond to. </p>
<p>I'll gladly flame you here. Your daughter has, what, six weeks off between Fall and Spring terms? And you are paying roughly $1,000 dollars a week for her education? But yet you can just jet right on down to the Caribbean for a week?</p>
<p>The appropriate response to the original question is that official university policy requires professors to teach all scheduled classes until the beginning of break. It is up to the student's own discretion whether or not they are willing to risk skipping class.</p>
<p>ok people, look up oldfort's posts, and we can stop this discussion. not worth the words.</p>
<p>and for everyone else who's reading this discussion, just go to classes. at least for your first year. you're paying a lot of money for this education.</p>
<p>I think you are all taking yourself too seriously, too quick to judge. </p>
<p>There are the same people that regularly response to queries on this forum and the response are are often heavy handed - this is the only way to do it at Cornell, we are all serious students and we go to all classes, we are so very smart so the work load is definitely not that hard (bull), AND if anyone should complains about it then they must be whiners.</p>
<p>Guess what, most of us over 40 have all gone to colleges, and I happen to have a daughter at Cornell with hundreds of friends (at least according to her). They all think workload at Cornell is very heavy, they are all working like crazy, but often classes do get cancelled before holidays and students do leave early, especially if they live very far away. All I was trying to point out was "It is ok to leave early if you have to. Sometimes it is more important to spend time with your family than to go to a lecture where you could maybe get notes from someone else or read it on your own."</p>
<p>Would it have made a difference if I said my daughter was leaving early to visit her sick grandmother?</p>
<p>aloe - which one of my posts do you object to, or not up to your intellectural standard?</p>
<p>I would love to respond to you with an essay, oldfort, but I have a heavy workload and I am not that smart, so I have to go back and study now. (Though I am a serious student and I do go to all of my classes. : )</p>
<p>But this I will say. How do you know what it's like at Cornell when your only source of information is your daughter? I was actually there for four years, interacted with many Cornellians past and present, and I still can't say that I've grasped the Cornell experience.</p>
<p>There really is no typical or normal way to be a Cornellian, but when your post recommends something that less than 1% of the population does at Cornell, naturally everyone else will jump on that. Since we have been there, we're just trying to prevent the freshmen from doing something academically regrettable. And it would have been discussion as normal, if you didn't join in again with a post full of insults.</p>
<p>aloe - you last post is very different than your first post on this thread. You were heavy handed in telling OP on exactly how to behave and what is norm at Cornell (most people do not go home for Thanksgiving, which is not true). Whereas, I was just offering what my daughter has done, leaving it to OP to decide what works for him/her. What I got was a barrage of condemnation on my daughter's action, without knowing our family's dynamic. </p>
<p>Did it ever cross some of your mind that some freshmen may be having a hard time adjusting to college and would very much like to go home for Thanksgiving? With the cost of airfare, it may be hard to get a flight a day before Thanksgiving. Is it really helpful to tell some new students that it could be a difference of A-/B+?</p>
<p>there was really no need to to start a discussion about whether or not people should go home early, all I asked was whether or not their were classes and the question was answered. No need to discuss further.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Did it ever cross some of your mind that some freshmen may be having a hard time adjusting to college and would very much like to go home for Thanksgiving?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Did it ever cross your mind that a certain subset of this generation of American teenagers is incredibly pampered?</p>
<p>oldfort:
Someone who actually went to Cornell probably knows more about what the "norm" is than you do. In addition, telling the OP what your daughter is doing probably isn't very helpful, since skipping all classes the week of Thanksgiving would generally be a bad choice for most students. I also think it's incredibly helpful to know that attending class on Wednesday could raise my grade--if I was having a hard time, it would encourage me to tough it out.</p>
<p>^^Well...I feel bad about making the grade comment. I was at work in between experiments and rushing...I should have mentioned it was a fairly small class and I was one of 10 people that showed up...that was probably the only reason she remembered me.</p>
<p>Personally? I thought it was incredibly helpful to know that her family is vacationing out of the country over the the Thanksgiving holiday.</p>
<p>I have to weigh in. I am a professor, NOT AT CORNELL, but have a C at Cornell. If classes are held, I expect students to be there. If I assign hw or give an exam, I will not accept the hw or give a make-up exam without an excused absence. Going on vacation is not an excused absence. I also teach material that will be covered on exams.</p>
<p>I applaud the comments of Cornell students and alum on this thread. You understand and respect the cost and quality of education.</p>
<p>One last comment I often say to my students. If you do this in your jobs, i.e. take a day or two before and/or after your vacation leave w/o authorization, you will most likely be fired. It is time to grow up and understand your responsibilities.</p>
<p>I think there is assumption that my daughter would not communicate with her professors, or make sure it wouldn't have impact on her primary obligation. The week before the fall break, one of her classes was canceled at the last minute, so she came home early. When she went back this week, a makeup class was scheduled at 7:30pm. It was a large lecture class of 120 students, only 20 people showed up, and my daughter was one of them. </p>
<p>I have to say every professor my daughter has had at Cornell has been very flexible. I think many of them do understand what it means for some of those students to be able to go home for Thanksgiving. If it's a lower cost of flying out a day before or coming back a day later, I think most people would understand. My daughter's math professor called her back in between his flights over the fall break because she had a question about her prelim. As big as the Red machine is, the faculty does care about the students, I think they care more about substance rather than formality. I hear so often on CC where other colleges' professors wouldn't give makeup test even for illness, that's not what I am hearing from my daughter. </p>
<p>It is normal for my family to go away every Thanksgiving. It is something we have done for many years. We were willing to accommodate our older daughter when she started college, but she has decided to do it for as long as possible because it is a tradition. I make choices everyday at work (especially in this very volatile market) on how much time I am willing to spend at work at the expense of my family. Next year it is not going to be possible for us to be together because she'll be abroad and then she'll be moving out of our house to be on her own, so this could very well be the last time.</p>
<p>Cayugared - does it really matter whether my family is vacationing out of the country or staying in our own backyard? Is it really bad for some parents to fly up to Cornell on their private plane to be with their kid for a few hours for parents weekend because otherwise they wouldn't be able to do it?</p>