Hello everyone,
I am a freshman at Cal from Germany. I did not have a chance to visit Berkeley before I came here. Unfortunately, I disliked the campus culture and urban space and cannot call this place home. I thought it would get better with time but I cannot deal with the lack of natural beauty and safety (mostly because Oakland is so close). I know that Berkeley is a good school and I have discovered architecture as my major (I cane in as a neurobiology major). Should I try to transfer to Cornell?
I have family in the Bay Area which makes my life bearable and I truly love California (the weather, the openness of people, working out, etc). Would I be happier at Cornell where I can go into the outdoors, (kayaking, hiking etc) ? And where there are less students? And would it make sense to transfer academically? According to my google searches the schools are pretty much on the same level.
FWIW, when my daughter attended Cornell she knew a fellow transfer student, a foreign student, who had transferred to Cornell from UC Berkeley. She told me that the student said they liked Cornell more, but unfortunately without elaborating (to me, anyway).
Dear Monydad,
Thank you so much for your answer. I am curious to know what she liked better. I am competitive and ambitious but not in the Berkeley way where everyone is incredibly career focused and not living in the moment. Do you know how your daughter would describe the student body and people’s attitude?
Thank you so much for your fast reply!
Yours
Kate
@Calgirlorbluedevil? Are you in MCB? If so, that could explain why everyone is career focused since that is a pre-med track. The same pre-med track at Cornell will have some of the same percentage of career-focused people. Haas and EECS/CS at Berkeley are the same way. I’m not sure about architecture at Cornell. I know it is a grueling, five year program that is hard to get into, but the people that are in it seem collaborative.
I can probably provide some perspective on both universities since I have a son at UCB (physics major) and I graduated from Cornell. My son’s decision came down to Cornell and Berkeley, and he chose Berkeley because of the California culture and the weather (he grew up in NY State and had enough of the weather). We visited both campuses for accepted students day and he chose to go to Cal.
Are you by any chance living on the south side of campus? Do you participate in any outdoors organizations at Cal (e.g. CHAOS)? Because Cal is such a small and dense campus, it is important to get off campus to escape. Have you checked out Berkeley Marina, the fire trails in the hills? Yes, Cornell has a much larger campus, and the population density is much lower, but the weather is such that it is difficult to enjoy it for most of the school year. If, however, you like winter sports, Cornell could have what you are looking for.
Look at Cal Poly. It routinely bounces back and forth with Cornell as the best architecture program in the US and will have all you like about CA without all you don’t like about Berkeley. It’s at least worth a look. Good luck.
agree with Cal Poly architecture as being top tier, but so is Cal’s.
But I’m guessing that the OP is not in the architecture school, and if not, it will be extremely hard to transfer into a top arch school like Cornell (or transfer from Cal L&S into Arch). At least not without completing numerous Frosh courses. For example, attached is an example of Cornell’s Frosh curriculum, and I’d bet that the OP has completed few if any of these courses as a neuro prospie:
yeah I get that, but beyond social/cultural fit, the OP clearly indicates that s/he has “discovered architecture as my major.” That is a problem regardless of where s/he tries to transfer. Cornell Arch is not gonna take someone as a transfer that is going to require 4 years to transfer. Nor is transfer to Cal Poly Arch likely (without completing the pre-reqs):
Thank you for your replies! I will definitely look into that! I was also wondering whether it is better to have a 5 year bachelor that is accredited or do the 4 years Bachelor of Arts and then go to grad school. Do you know anything about that?
I don’t honestly know about architecture. I just know about Cal Poly because my son is finishing his engineering degree there and I know an architect that got his degree from there.
Whatever you do, visit. Don’t make the same mistake twice.
Cal Poly’s knock is that it is remote on the central coast. Students from the big city like LA can feel like there’s “nothing to do.” Of course there’s actually lots to do, but there isn’t the culture or restaurants of the city. No city can compete with NYC or LA when it comes to that. Nor is there the crime or traffic. It’s campus is not amoebic like UCBs. You can get to the bay in 4h or LA in 2h. Hiking and the beach are out the back door.
Ithaca is also isolated. It’s knock is that it gets cold, REALLY cold, and for some, can be a grind. It’s 4h from the city.
Just know that while Cornell is gorgeous it is freezing most of the school year (and gray) making it very difficult to do stuff outside. Yes the late spring and summer are beautiful however.
With regard to Berkeley - there is actually a lot of beautiful outdoor space right near by. I would specifically recommend hiking in Tilden Park in the Berkeley hills and also hiking in Redwood Regional Park in Oakland (the French Trail is astounding).
re #2, what I posted is about all my daughter told me. The only other thing I recall is the Cal transfer person thought Berkeley was too "politically correct’ . But I don’t think that was the sole factor, just an offhand remark that they made to me.
As for the other, the only valid descriptor for Cornell’s student body and people’s attitude I can think of is:
it is diverse.
Its very different colleges attract very different types of people. with different attitudes. There are large enough cohorts of varying types that one can generally find their compatible group. But there are all sorts of people studying there.
Re #13, Fall is also beautiful. In fact it is Fall I remember best.
maybe some of these links still work: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/cornell-university/235783-some-pictures.html
Many upperclassmen live in apartments with year leases, so they have housing there for the summer.
This can lead to staying there in the summer, which is realty wonderful, I recommend it.
@"Calgirlorbluedevil?,
My D is a sophomore that Cornell. Her friend is in AAP but in Planning, not Architecture. He told her architecture students have no life because they have so much work to do and spend most of their time working in studios. Those kids are known to be very hard working, more so than engineering kids.
My D also know a girl at Cal Pol who wanted to transfer to Cornell but was not accepted. It is extra difficult, if not possible, to transfer into AAP.
Like other said, Ithaca is very cold 5 months of the year. Those are 5 of the 9 months when you are on campus. It can be depressing. It is not much fun if you don’t like cold or snow. Summer is nice but everyone leaves for home.
“Ithaca is also isolated. It’s knock is that it gets cold, REALLY cold,”
The first or second time that I was in Ithaca it snowed about 3 feet in one day. There wasn’t much kayaking going on at the time. It is IMHO a very beautiful location.
Berkeley and Cornell are both very strong universities. You probably should consider other schools also if you want your chances of transferring to be significantly above 0. Visiting is going to be tough if you are looking at schools all around the US (Berkeley to Cornell is quite a distance, or probably two flights)
It was reputed in my day that Cornell architects spent most of their waking hours in their studios, and it seems that has not changed.
I don’t know whether it is any different at any other architecture college though.
But for a dissenting view on what goes on there, I give you the comments of @gomestar, the greatest-ever CC Cornell poster, who dated and later married a Cornell architecture major.
I quote him:
“having not read most of the latter posts here, I can say this is only sort of true. My gf is in arch. at Cornell and she’s in the studio substantially less than most people, yet she’s at the top of the class. The difference? She doesn’t socialize while she works, other people are bringing in food, chit chatting, blasting music, planning parties, discussing past parties … everything but studio work. I’m at Rand hall ALOT, and I’ve seen too many all nighters pulled not from an overabundance of work but rather from poor priority selection.”
I can’t say whether I agree or not, because I have no idea.
I do recall an architect from my freshman dorm who went into a pretty social fraternity, he apparently made time for some sort of social life.
With average winter low temperatures about 5-10 degrees warmer (depending on the source) than other Northeastern locations such as Burlington, Vermont, I don’t consider Ithaca to be particularly cold.
re #18,
One thing I’ve learned on CC is some people from California are very wary of cold weather.
Meanwhile, there is a large California contingent at Cornell, so go figure.
In this case though OP was specifically interested in the great outdoors.
The great outdoors are indeed much enjoyed there. Particularly in the other three seasons.
In the winters OP will also experience the great outdoors, on a daily basis. However the associated enjoyment level may be reduced, which people here are right to point out IMO.
I should have skied more, Greek Peak is only 1/2 hour away. My son attended a different nearby college and took skiing for a PE course. I wish I’d done that.