How rough is Cornell?

<p>I've heard 100,000 times how hard Cornell professors are..... can someone please define hard for me.</p>

<p>it is known by many “easiest to get in, hardest to stay in.”</p>

<p>it depends on your IQ, amount of hours you put in, and luck.
IQ = there will always be those who think everything the prof throws at them on teh exams are easy. and they get it right too
hardwork = they fail if they dont study a lot, but they do so they understand the stuff prof throws at them and does well. they also fail if they study teh wrong way despite the hours
luck = you can not know anything and guess on all the questions and still get it right. ive yet to see this happen ahhaha, but one of my friends got a mean on one of the Gen bio exams and the SD was like ~13. she got lucky and the teacher gave alternative answers to some questions which boosted her grade to only a couple of pts below 1 SD.</p>

<p>but in general, it all depends on which prof you are talking about. its very different depending on major!! there are plenty of government/econ/aem majors running around at night with nothing to do and still have high GPAs. a friend of mine took 25-28 credits every semester, and his gpa is still 3.9x as a asian studies/econ/3rd major w/e it was. he has time to run around and practice frisbee for hours a day and he hangs out… </p>

<p>hard is more like what i just had for my organic chem exam. i opened the exam, thinking oh this is okay. finsihed question 1, turned to page 2, looked and skipped, skipped 3 4 5 as well. and answered half of 6. i basically fully completed 2 questions on that exam and guessed the rest hahah. it’s the first time in cornell where i left entire questions BLANK. not only was the exam teh hardest test ive ever taken in cornell, it was LONG TOO. the professor said his computer had a problem or something and he printed teh exams 30 min before the start of the test. he didn’t have time to relook at it until the exam already started, and then he took it himself and it took him 45 min and he decided it was too long. but oh well. the good thing is the professor was nice and decided to hand it back after spring break so it wont destroy the break for us.</p>

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Haha orgo was so ridiculous it’s not even funny. Easily the hardest exam I ever took. It would’ve still been insane even if we had an extra hour…there were like 15 mechanisms and he made the starting structures the answers to previous questions so we had no idea what the **** we were doing. Everyone in my testing room just stood up and looked at each other after the test with a “w.t.f, is this for real?” look.</p>

<p>I got into Cornell as a transfer from a community college… My first semester will look like this Orgo 1, Physics 1, Differential Equations, intro to ChemE, some ChemE elective… How bad is this gonna be?</p>

<p>all I have to say to that is… good luck. if you don’t have a religion, it may be a good time to get one.</p>

<p>really, it all depends on intelligence and effort. some people took more difficult courses and came out strong while some took easier courses and failed. it all depends.</p>

<p>i think CHEMe is one of the toughest majors here…</p>

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<p>Good luck with that. That’s why I don’t recommend people to transfer from community colleges even if they are offered guaranteed transfer or get in as transfers. I would just recommend them to head straight to state universities.</p>

<p>My rationale is not to get in, but to do well.</p>

<p>I would recommend you to take easier courses to get used to Cornell’s environment and atmosphere. If you choose to continue with your chosen course load, best wishes. XD</p>

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<p>Prepare to get pwned.</p>

<p>An off-topic question, how many advisers is each Cornellian assigned? I just underwent an epiphany that Cornell may be too large for me. I just heard from a friend at Washington University that she was assigned 5 advisers.</p>

<p>yeah i would recommend you take 12 credits (even that will be tough) as a chemE major…</p>

<p>dont be afraid to take an extra year to graduate (people at the state schools do it all the time)</p>

<p>When I attended, someone I knew studied organic chemistry, read the book herself & learned it, the summer before she took the course. You might want to consider something like that.</p>

<p>Ok thanks. I’m pretty scared to start actually, but I’ve been taking pretty nasty courses at my community college and like 20+ credits a semester. I know it sounds foolish to compare the workload, but why is multivariable calculus, linear alg, C++…etc considered easy at any school? What I’m really getting at is what are the professors going do to make the material so hard? Math and science are fairly intuitive to me, but every one is making it sound like 1)the professors don’t prepare you for the material on the exams 2) there is to much material on an exam 3) the questions are almost entirely curve-balls 4) you have to study like your in med school to be average… The list goes on. Someone please correct or enlighten me. Oh and–There are no guaranteed transfers to the engineering school.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ccsf.edu/Services/Articulation/pdf/Cornell%20artic%202008.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ccsf.edu/Services/Articulation/pdf/Cornell%20artic%202008.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>My bad they do have guaranteed transfers in rare cases.</p>

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<p>I’m pretty sure students are assigned one advisor for their major…some departments, like Biology, also assign a peer advisor (a junior or senior).</p>

<p>That schedule is not a good one to start with!!! I’m not sure how hard ChemE intro/electives but I dont think they are easy hahah. If you make those 2 classes easier it’d be okay I think.</p>

<p>Physics and Diffeq should be fine for you.</p>

<p>Intro to chemE is a pain in the ass. Most work I had last semester for a 3 credit class. Talk about 10-15 hour problem sets. And all of the problem sets are in groups of 3.</p>

<p>Then the prelims and final are an in class problem set, only with no group, and only 2h30 to complete the entire thing.</p>

<p>yup…good luck with that schedule your first semester here.</p>

<p>Please do not take orgo your first semester at Cornell.</p>

<p>yeahhhh, it sounds like you’re scheduling destruction. those classes are all pretty tough</p>