<p>Just how bad is it? I loved Cornell when I visited, but the more I hear about it's engineering program (my field of choice), the more skeptical I am about attending the school. I heard quips from our tour guide about the sheer audacity of attempting to balance engineering with a varsity sport (something I intended to do...), horror stories about how the majority of Cornell's suicide cases are male engineering students (...), and disheartening anecdotes about how demanding the courseload is.</p>
<p>My framework is quite dated, but FWIW:</p>
<p>1) suicides are a few individuals, not a statistically significant sample to draw any conclusions. When It was happening in my day it was mostly not engineers, it seemed like foreign grads students and a random collection of others. But IMO this correlates to underlying psychological issues, of which engineers have no monopoly. This does not mean you will not be tested, you will IMO. But I don’t think you need be overly concerned about jumping off a bridge because of it. Or give too much import to the tragic actions of a very few individuals.</p>
<p>2) I don’t believe that the workload is so much different at other engineering programs of high repute. You think people are waltzing through Cooper Union, or Carnegie Mellon? Well I don’t. YMMV.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean it isn’t tough. I think it is. At all these places, similarly.</p>
<p>3) re: balancing engineering with varsity sports you should get Cornell to track down a few students for you to talk to. In my day I knew of some engineers, chemists, etc. who were doing it, but it can’t be easy. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. But IMO you should specifically talk to some students about it.</p>
<p>This is a really difficult question to answer since it depends on a lot of things such as your major, your strengths, your weaknesses, your work habits, your social habits, your expectations of time spent, your definition of “decent grades”, and your definition/indicators of “rigor”. </p>
<p>I’ll start with your definition of rigor. You could use the number of courses required for a certain Engineering major. You could use the difficulty of the courses required in the major. You could consider the difficulty of managing the TIMING of difficult/required courses. You could consider the median grades. You could consider the workload compared to other majors (I don’t think many people have experience with comparing engineering between different universities, even transfers because you wouldn’t take the same schedule/classes more than once usually.) </p>
<p>Major wise, ChemEs have the most structured requirements meaning assuming you don’t have AP credits, a large part of your schedules will be “set” for you. ORIE has a much less stringent set of course requirements. MechE has quite a few set requirements but some of these requirements can be fulfilled with a larger variety of courses. A lot of non-engineering majors have half the major requirements.(example, some CAS majors have 4 semesters of 4 courses each designed for them. MechE have 8 semesters of 4 courses designed for them. Of course, the liberal arts distribution requirements differ (non eng requires more) but assuming a student attempting to take bare minimum number of courses to graduate, engineers will usually require a few more courses to graduate.)</p>
<p>Comparing to other majors, the engineering material isn’t necessarily more difficult, but the workload is definitely much larger. Most of the liberal arts course i’ve taken (based on requirements) involve a fair amount of reading (more than engineering) but almost nothing else with the rare one paper per semester. Some of the time, you could get away with not doing the readings and just pay close attention in class, good notes and pass. If you “fall behind” on readings, it’s generally not difficult to cath up. Engineering, the reading is largely optional but there are problem sets to complete, usually due once per week. Some problems might be more straightforward than others but most I find might force you to read the sections and even resort to asking a TA. Quite a few engineering courses also have labs to complete once every one/weeks with some follow up materials to be handed in. If you “fall behind” on problem sets (which are large parts of your grade 10-30%), labs, related readings, it will be very difficult to catchup since a lot of material in the middle of the courses depend on the preceding material at the beginning of the course (basically every engineering course). </p>
<p>Most people would consider anything above a 3.0 as a decent GPA in engineering since most classes are curved to B-/B. Of course, there are students who consider anything less than 3.5 as unacceptable. </p>
<p>If you’re really strong at math/algebra and you have a good intuition for the “tricks” in the problems, you could potentially breeze through problem sets which are usually the bane of engineers. It still takes time though. and with 3/4 problem sets a week with labs and other assignments, well you consider yourself. Your work habits will also have a huge impact on how well you can keep up with all of it. But again, consider a person who works really hard (office hours right after lecture, work first, etc) but really doesn’t grasp certain concepts. You’d still end up spending maybe 5+ hours on a problem set whereas someone else who “gets it” will finish in 2. </p>
<p>I could fill this thread up with anecdotes but it all comes down to you. I can guarantee you though, that there are no engineers that consider their workload to be “light” or that the course “feels like there’s room for more material to be covered” (unless they’ve taken similar courses/prior knowledge before)</p>
<p>There are plenty of varsity athletes who are engineering majors. A big example, Pete Reynolds, who was on the Cornell Bball Sweet 16 team (Go Big Red!). He’s an extraordinary guy who was able to balance his academic life with his passion for basketball at the div1 varsity level. If you’re motivated and ambitious enough to want to attend Cornell then you shouldn’t have anything to fear about balancing sports with school. Of course, this means you won’t be able to party every weekend with other kids, but if you’re responsible and mature enough, then all your worries should not be a problem. Some of the most mature people I know are former varsity athletes.</p>
<p>As long as you can plan your time well and do not spend endless hours procrastinating, being a varsity athlete and an engineer isn’t that big of a deal. </p>
<p>The suicides are individual problems; nothing having to do with the school. Cornell still has a suicide rate below the national average.</p>
<p>[MetaEzra</a> – Cornell’s Suicide Rate: Still Lower Than The National Average](<a href=“http://www.metaezra.com/archive/2010/07/cornells_suicide_rate_still_lo.shtml]MetaEzra”>MetaEzra -- Cornell's Suicide Rate: Still Lower Than Average)</p>