<p>I'm planning to apply CAS and major in either biology or chemistry. Cornell is a large research universities, and I'm concerned that profs attention to undergraduate is negligible (often times, they may preoccupy themselves with post-docs and graduate students). With this in mind, do undergraduate students have great access to profs in science? Are there people here who are "too important" to talk to undergrads? How ample is the undergraduate research opportunity at Cornell? Are profs here willing to focus on undergrads?</p>
<p>Plenty of research opportunities. </p>
<p>jerseyindian already managed to get in contact with a professor in the biology dept.
and he’s just a freshman</p>
<p>So profs definitely pay attention to interest</p>
<p>yeah ansar thats true. btw we should meet up sometime. about coursework ehh i dont know. im just a freshman premed so who the hell am i to tel you about that. but it seems like premed is a grind pretty much everywhere. there has been some discussion on this forum that LAC-esque schools (Dartmouth and the like) are better. possibly but as someone who knows someone at Dmouth (yes i know its hearsay) things dont seem to be that much easier there either. im just preparing myself to work my ass off like never before. and i guess thats what pretty much the most anyone can do.</p>
<p>to go in the order of the OP’s questions: I think most professors do make themselves accessible. they do have to fulfill their responsibilities to grad students and post-docs too, though, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. that means there are grad student and post-docs around and I think it’s kind of nice to have them around for observational purposes. (or something like that.) I bet there are some unfortunate personalities who think they’re too important to talk to undergrads but it’s not the expected norm. lots of undergrad research opportunities! plenty. I haven’t heard of any situations where you should expect to go without any research experience so long as you look for it.</p>
<p>I do sometimes wonder though whether I would be wholly satisfied with the professor-student relationships at Cornell if I spent a semester at a liberal arts school. what if the rapport there was strikingly better in every course, and I could tell if affected my learning? there’s always that possibility. I have only ever attended this one school, after all.</p>