Hi everybody! I know this is stupidly close to the acceptance deadline, but I just had this one question.
In trying to choose between colleges, I love a lot of things about Cornell but I’ve always been drawn to one college that offers more of the liberal arts experience. Someone told me they thought that even though Cornell has a lot more people, Cornell’s CAS was basically a liberal arts college within Cornell, just with the option of greater resources and more people outside of it. I guess their idea of it sounds more like a consortium of liberal arts colleges, like for example the Claremont Colleges in CA.
Can anyone comment on this? Would being a part of the CAS at Cornell be in any way like a liberal arts college experience?
Thank you so much!
When I applied to colleges, I applied to a bunch of LACs. Cornell was by far the biggest school I applied to, but I ended up choosing it. I definitely don’t regret it at all and couldn’t picture myself at a liberal arts college now.
I’m in CAS, and I guess it’s similar to a LAC by offering the same sorts of classes and requiring everyone to receive a liberal arts education. You definitely would receive the same, if not better, education in CAS as with a LAC, in part due to the number of resources Cornell has. But I assume your concern isn’t so much with the education as with the feel of the college.
Some classes are definitely larger than at a LAC. I thought I would hate that, but I honestly don’t mind. Most large lecture classes also will have a discussion section once a week so you can discuss the material in a smaller setting. The other great thing about Cornell is that you can take classes in other colleges, so while you may take the majority of classes in CAS, if you were to choose to branch out you suddenly have an entire university’s worth of options.
Cornell also doesn’t feel so huge once you get used to it. Initially, the number of people and the distance between the ends of campus feel overwhelming, but after only a couple weeks you start to really know your way around and you begin to see familiar faces in the dining halls and on your walk to class. Now I couldn’t imagine going somewhere so small. I think the size of Cornell provides a ton of opportunities and resources both academically and socially.
I posted a longer response on the thread OP made previously, FWIW.
In a nutshell, at Cornell :
- freshmen do not live only with members of their own college
(afterwards, depends on who you choose to live with)
-Most CAS classes are not exclusive to members of CAS. The extent to which it works out that way anyway, in practice, varies. But lower level intro type classes often have broad enrollment across colleges.
-CAS itself has a larger enrollment than any LAC, so far as I recall.
- CAS students have the resources of a major unversity at their disposal, with extensive additional courses (including courses at the other colleges,and those cross-listed with the graduate school), lecturers coming to campus. etc.
Ranza, have you taken any discussion-oriented humanities classes at Cornell? If you have, how involved would you say the students are? I don’t know how to say it in a non-pretentious way haha, but I guess I’m looking for some kind of that ideal of intellectual vibrancy and engagement that LACs seem to advertise.
Definitely! The students I’ve interacted with at Cornell are the most intellectual people I’ve ever met. You have to take two writing seminars, and they can be in any discipline and are composed of people of every major. They’re always capped at 18 students. My writing seminar last semester was in developmental sociology, and we held intellectual conversations the entire class period. The students in that class were super involved to the point of really intimidating me while at the same time pushing me to work harder at my own intellect and ability to converse in these settings. This semester, my writing seminar is in the English department. There are only 10 people in my class so we’ve really bonded, and I’m working on interpreting super difficult texts that a year ago I never would have dreamed of comprehending.
My language class is also discussion oriented. I’m taking Hebrew and it’s honestly my favorite class. The professor is amazing. There are two sections each day and we can come to either section, so in any given day there are between probably 5 and 12 people in my section. It’s intellectually stimulating in a different way than other discussion-oriented classes because we aren’t really discussing/arguing/interpreting a topic. Instead we just sit around and talk in Hebrew for 50 minutes every morning: we read stories, we do exercises, we play games, etc.
I’m also currently taking History of Law, which is another class I absolutely love. We have lecture twice a week and we usually cover a different time period/famous trial each lecture, although some of the bigger ones are spread out across two or three. We have readings each week and have to write a short response regarding the readings. The lecture has about 100 or so students in it. Then once a week we meet in discussion sections, which have about 15 students. In these sections we hold intellectual conversations about the readings and topics for the week. We’re able to talk through moral dilemmas, stage mock trials, etc. My discussion section for this class was pretty fun and was really helpful in truly understanding the content.