<p>Hi everyone, I was recently accepted into Cornell, and I like many, many things about it. However, I have this one main concern, and I was hoping that a current student would be able to answer my question:</p>
<p>1) How hard is it to interact / bond with professors? I am very intimidated by the fact that there are so many students (13,000 undergrads and 7,000 grads). Because there are so many students, is it difficult to get to know a professor? I'm assuming that with so many undergrads, it would be incredibly difficult for professors to remember each of their students' names, to develop a close bond, etc. Which would also make it difficult to get a personalized recommendation from a professor... without going to them during open office hours and chatting after class every day or something like that. (That doesn't really appeal to me.) And I'm sure that professors would probably like to spend more time with grad students anyway. Am I over-imagining things or is this really how it is?</p>
<p>2) The question I'm asked above is true of most large research universities, so if I wanted to be able to interact with professors on a more personal, academic level, would I be better off going to a small liberal arts college instead? The main reason I am concerned about this is because I am planning to apply to grad schools after undergrad, and I don't want my recommendations to be generic, fill-in-the-blank letters. I would really like the opportunity to develop close relationships with my professors so that the letters could be more personalized. Is Cornell the place for me?</p>
<p>Well a student would usually take about 4-5 classes a semester for 8 semesters, so they’ll will have 32-40 professors while at Cornell. Sometimes they’ll take classes from the same professor twice, some courses are team-taught, but that’s a decent estimate for most people. You only need 2-3 recommendation letters, I think. So that means you will not (and will not need to) bond with most of your professors.
You aren’t going to bond with most of your professors no matter where you go. You will see most of them lecturing up in the front of the room, you might attend some of their office hours, but that’s it. The key is to connect with the ones you need to-- ones who teach a specialized course you might want to study in grad school or someone who’s doing research you want to get involved with. Obviously <em>many</em> students from Cornell go on to graduate school, so this is possible. You definitely do not need to attend a liberal arts school in order to go to grad school!</p>
<p>One thing I am wondering about is how else you envision would bond with professors besides going to their office hours or talking to them? Even at a liberal arts college you need to speak to professors to develop a relationship.</p>
<p>Also, do you want to develop close relationships because you think it’s good for learnings, for your current experience, or just because you want to go to grad school? Because a Cornell education in itself is also a nice plus for grad school, I think.</p>
<p>It’s rare that a professor will get fully occupied with students during office hours. Most students just don’t make an effort to go see the professor. So, if you take some initiative and actually show an interest in the class, you won’t have any problems getting to know professors.</p>
<p>Many of the professors have students working in their labs. that is a great way to get to know professors. There are lots of opportunities for on campus research especially once you are beyond freshman year. but that said, many freshman do work in labs too. There are also on campus jobs in various departments where one can get to know professors. and then there are clubs which often have a professor as an advisor. </p>
<p>The freshman writing seminars only have 20 or fewer students in them. It is pretty easy to get to to know those professors. And your upper level classes will be much smaller so you will likely know those ones well too.</p>
<p>There are tons of ways to get to know professors and most are really nice people too that you would want to get to know.</p>