Going to CORNELL?? -- HELP!!

<p>Hi guys,</p>

<p>I'm having trouble making my final list of colleges this summer. So far, I'm sure that I'll be applying to 5 colleges already. I need to decide about the last 5 colleges I'll ultimately apply to.</p>

<p>I'm planning to major in Political Science, but I want the flexibility to change that major in case I don't want to study PS after all. My stats are strong, so I'm not worried about that right now.</p>

<p>Here are the questions I need answered (anyone can answer; alumni or current student answers would be amazing):</p>

<ol>
<li>Are students taught by professors or TAs or other?</li>
<li>What is student/faculty ratio?</li>
<li>Sequence of courses in majors?</li>
<li>When do you have to declare major?</li>
<li>How hard is it to change major?</li>
<li>Enough majors to transfer into later?</li>
<li>Graduate school placement rates?</li>
<li>Where do those graduates go?</li>
<li>How many students go on to post-graduate study?</li>
<li>Any special relationships w/ post-grad institutions or medical or law schools?</li>
<li>What is the general atmosphere of the school?</li>
<li>Quality of related majors (sociology, economics, etc.)</li>
<li>Overall school quality?</li>
</ol>

<p>If anyone at Columbia is currently studying Political Science, it would be great to know what you think about the program.</p>

<p>I was also wondering if there is any undergrad Journalism/Communications program @ Cornell.</p>

<p>Thanks! =)</p>

<p>Well first thing’s first. Cornell doesn’t have a political science major. We have government, one of the subfields is political theory, but no Poli Sci major.</p>

<p>Second, these are a lot of long response answers. Most of these will be determined by which particular class/major/school you are talking about.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Students are taught by both, depending on the course. Large science/math intro courses will generally be taught by a TA, as well as most Freshmen Writing Seminars. For most other courses, you have lectures by an Asst. Professor or Full Professor, and you have recitation sections (discussions) with TAs.</p></li>
<li><p>The student/faculty ratio is 9:1 according to princetonreview. There are tons of resources available to the Cornell student, from academic advising, career advising, TAs and professors to speak to, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>There is currently no centralized listing of course sequences, however if you google search “Cornell <em>insert major here</em>” You can find the website which lists which courses are required.</p></li>
<li><p>For arts and sciences, you can declare your major anytime you have completed the pre-requisites. However, to remain in good academic standing, you must have declared a major by the start of junior year.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>For CALS (which is where Communication, not Communications) is, you declare your major when you submit your application to Cornell. You are accepted not only into the department, but into the major. You can still transfer to another major within CALS or outside of CALS later, but you begin major coursework immediately.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Since in Arts, you don’t have a major until you declare one, you are free to “change majors” infinitely many times before then. It isn’t very hard, and there are lots of people who can help you in the transition. Even transferring between colleges isn’t that big of a hassle.</p></li>
<li><p>Cornell has 7 undergraduate colleges and tons of majors. There is something here for everyone.</p></li>
<li><p>Grad school placement is top notch, as would be expected at a top 25 university.</p></li>
<li><p>Depends on what major you are talking about, but we are highly represented in all of the top grad schools in the nation.</p></li>
<li><p>Post-graduate? Do you mean graduate study? Also depends on the major, some majors tend to be more industry or work oriented, while others are more graduate study oriented.</p></li>
<li><p>Not any explicit relationships, that I am aware of.</p></li>
<li><p>The general atmosphere is work-hard and play-hard-if-you-want-to. People are smart, but not pretentiously pseudo-intellectual. The campus is diverse enough that there will be a niche for your personality-type. We run the gamut from artsy architecture and fashion students to WoW obsessed engineers.</p></li>
<li><p>While I wouldn’t say sociology or economics are our strongest, they are not weak by any means. We have top professors and researchers in every field.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t know how to describe this. There is no general metric for school quality. We employ the best and the brightest in their fields. We have thousands of students that are taught by these best and brightest every year. We have great placement in industry and academia. We are located in a gorgeous natural setting, with a town and community that largely centers around the school, making everyone very tight knit and very integrated.</p></li>
</ol>