<p>On a scale of 1 to 10, according to your perspective, how happy are Cornell students?</p>
<p>Some students don't seem happy on this forum. This makes me wonder what is the HQ @ Cornell.
How does this school's atmosphere compare to ... let's say Dartmouth College and UPenn?</p>
<p>From my friends that go there, i would guess the happiness quotient is a 5. You either really love it and think it's heaven (10) or really hate it and want to transfer out (1).</p>
<p>Lots and lots of 10s and close to 10s but much lower during cramming sessions b4 prelims (people are very much not happy if they don't learn time-management or can't manage stress and fall way behind in all aspects of student-life). The party n EC scene help make all the work much more manageable. Make great friends and join clubs/greek life and u'll be very happy. Cornell is of course Cornell so u have to expect some stress n studying along with it...but otherwise it's a great school and has many non-academic distractors/HQ increasers lol.</p>
<p>yea; you'l find happy and unhappy people everywhere. but i think that on the whole cornell students are very happy. personally i would be a 15. i am very happy.</p>
<p>but i do agree with hallowarts that maybe it's either you love it a lot or hate it. but no one hates it a lot. so idk.</p>
<p>I've spent the past 3 weeks on the Penn campus and with Penn students. I don't see any difference in the HQ among reasonable students. There are students at Penn who love the place and the area, there are those who think it's overrated and hate the area. Same goes at Cornell. Same goes at most every other college.</p>
<p>10+, except for finals period which is miserable (both semesters)</p>
<p>8 when I was at Cornell....but now that I've graduated: 1,000...once I start paying my loans: back to 8 :-P</p>
<p>5, ive met people who loved it here, and those who absolutely hate it here. It varies a lot depending on majors lol.</p>
<p>2, i transferred out. just wanted to throw mine in there to help show the range. whether or not youre happy at cornell really depends on assessing your college fit and figuring out where cornell fits in that. cornell has extremes in campus size, weather, greek scene, lack of city-ness, and workload....you just have to factor those extremes into what you're looking for.</p>
<p>if you dont mind me asking, why did you transfer? so far i mostly hear positive things about cornell (except for midterms/prelims which suck everywhere) and im curious about what some of the negatives are</p>
<p>
[quote]
cornell has extremes in campus size, weather, greek scene, lack of city-ness, and workload....
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Whoa... can we just back up here and dispel the notion that Cornell is 'extreme' in any way?</p>
<p>Campus Size</p>
<p>In terms of campus size, the student body is 13,000, which isn't small but isn't large either, relative to the UCLAs, Berkeleys, Michigans, and Texases of the worlds. Additionally, most of the majors on campus (with the exception of economics and biology) are pretty small, and everybody has had very good contract with professors by the time they are juniors. It's not a liberal arts college, but it isn't a big state school either.</p>
<p>And from a geographic perspective, Cornell's campus is 750 acres. That's about the same size as Princeton. You can get anywhere you need on campus within a 15-20 minute walk or a 5-10 minute bus ride. Have you ever tried walking around Harvard's campus? It takes a while to get from the Radcliffe Quad to the Charles River...</p>
<p>So there's nothing extreme about Cornell's campus.</p>
<p>Weather</p>
<p>Weather is really the biggest non-issue ever. The winter weather in the Northeast isn't the best, but in terms of cold and snow, you get a lot more extreme. Like Chicago. Or Wisconsin. Or Minnesota. And the two nastiest winter events I have ever been in were Boston ice storms, but nobody ever calls the Boston colleges extreme. (And this is a lot coming from somebody from Buffalo.)</p>
<p>Greek scene</p>
<p>Cornell is in a college town. And like most other college towns, you will find a greek scene. Dartmouth. Colgate. Clemson. Penn State. All are not "extreme".</p>
<p>And I wouldn't call the Greek system at Cornell 'extreme'. The parties are pretty tame relative to most large state schools. Kids generally study on weeknights. And 2/3 of the student body never join a fraternity a sorority. I didn't go Greek and then I never looked back.</p>
<p>Lack of City-ness</p>
<p>Hate to break it to you, but the majority of colleges in this country aren't located in urban areas. Most of them are in suburban areas or rural areas that require a car everywhere you go. If anything it is the NYUs and BUs of the world that are 'extreme'.</p>
<p>And Ithaca is a fine small city. There are great restaurants, bars, and music clubs. Bookstores and art galleries up the wazoo. And did I mention all of the outdoor activities you can do? It wasn't rated the 6th best city in America by Outdoors Magazine for no reason. If you are bored in Ithaca/Cornell, the problem is you, not Cornell.</p>
<p>Workload</p>
<p>The workload at Cornell is no different than at any top school. The only major difference is Cornell's prelim schedule as opposed to an in-class or midterm exam system.</p>
<p>No. Some Cornell students just like to complain. All of the biology majors should attend JHU or UCLA if they want to see difficult classes. And all of the engineers should attend MIT or Berkeley.</p>
<p>Bottom line: Cornell's not extreme. It may be unique in that it has all of these different qualities that aren't often found at the same place, but no one part of the Cornell experience makes it extreme. I will concede that these unique qualities do not make it the best for everyone, and Ellguj is presumably one of those.</p>
<p>Cornell is unique and very different from some of the more popular colleges in California or Mass. The biggest issue affecting HQ would be lack of prepartion/procrastination by students either b/c of laziness/depression or too much partying so after all:</p>
<p>"it is easier to keep up than catch up at Cornell"</p>
<p>CayugaRed2005: Could you please elaborate on this part </p>
<p>"The only major difference is Cornell's prelim schedule as opposed to an in-class or midterm exam system."</p>
<p>Thanks a million!!!</p>
<p>a prelim is a preliminary exam...most courses at cornell consist of 2 prelims and one final exam...</p>
<p>other schools (and some courses at cornell) usually consist of 1 mid-term, 1-paper and 1 final</p>
<p>I really agree with whoever said it depends on a person's major... I have found that people with really easy majors such as AEM, PAM, Hotel, Econ, etc. have really liked it here. I have also met a ton of premed and engineering kids who are absolutely miserable because of the competitive, difficult classes that really cut into their leisure time.</p>
<p>I personally like the prelim system because it allows you to bring your grade up in a class if you messed up the first exam, etc.</p>
<p>If you are going to talk about your major, it's also a function of how good of a work ethic you have. Plenty of kids are biology and engineering majors who are also on sports teams or in major ECs. And they never seemed stressed out.</p>
<p>It was the ones who didn't do anything else but "study" that were the most stressed out.</p>
<p>If you don't do anything but study then don't you have a good work ethic?</p>
<p>Not study: "study".</p>
<p>As in hang out at the libraries and procrastinate all the time.</p>
<p>There are a lot of premeds at Cornell and being in class with them can severely decrease your HQ. </p>
<p>lol no, I'm kidding (sorta)... seriously I'd say the HQ is fairly high, with some bouts of exam-stress thrown in there. Mainly it depends on the person- some people find any excuse to complain and some will make the best out of a situation.</p>
<p>cayuga, i never said any of the extremes i mentioned are negative. but they are major points about cornell that people will have an opinion on...by virtue of the fact that they are defining characteristics. for some people they're positive, for others, not so much. chill out.</p>
<p>and...hate to break it to YOU, but being bored in ithaca doesnt mean there's something wrong with you. that's a ridiculous assertion.</p>