<p>Hey. So I'm in at Cornell CAS, and I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the life of the average Cornell student is like. I need to pick between Cornell and the UChicago, so could anyone here comment on the campus culture?</p>
<p>Any anecdotes and such would be nice. Thanks muchly.</p>
<p>P.S. What's the closest major to Political Science there is at CAS?</p>
<p>closest major to polisci is the government major, which isn't only close- its the same thing.</p>
<p>life at cornell, especially fall semester, is dominated by the greek scene. yes, there are things you can find to do outside of it, but it is a commanding presence on campus. also, cornell is very rural and uchi is very not rural lol. so that should <em>definitely</em> be factoring into your decision...actually it should probably be the deciding factor for you because both schools are fantastic. im a cornell student in CAS and i have a friend at uchi, and our experiences are very different socially based on the fact that cornell is dominated by frat parties and life at uchi (from what i've been told by my friend) involves trips into the city and all that. so i would say hands down that you should make your decision based on whether you want the sprawling, beautiful rural campus or the more active city campus....both have their pro/cons obviously.</p>
<p>As far as what the av erage cornell student is like, I would say there are too many students here to generalize that way. you will find that many, many students at cornell are in the hard sciences (even in CAS). so us humanities majors do tend to be a little underrepresented in my opinion. but cornell students really do cover the entire spectrum.</p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>It's like a box of chocolates.</p>
<p>The great thing about Cornell is that it is large and diverse. No such thing as the "average Cornell student." Much too hard to stereotype.</p>
<p>How rural is Cornell? I mean, I want to go to grad school, and is it nearly impossible to get internships? Where are the nearest towns?</p>
<p>internships=no. even the law students don't have internships from what i've been told. nearest town=ithaca. all other towns would involve an extended car ride. ithaca, as far as youre concerned as a freshman next year, is a mall and the commons (which is a collection of unusual shopping and restaurants)</p>
<p>to be honest with you, if youre even asking the questions you're asking right now, you should be sending your deposit to uchi right now. thats my blunt advice lol.</p>
<p>in any case, congrats on your acceptances!</p>
<p>dont people intern in the summer anyway?</p>
<p>most people do intern in the summer. but if you wanted to hold an internship while going to school (which some people do at some colleges) cornell would not be the place for that</p>
<p>There's no problem with getting internships during the summer. You just can't do an internship during the school year.</p>
<p>I actually feel that there are a lot of opportunities for internships in Ithaca and the surrounding area. Plenty of students volunteer or intern with different community organizations in Ithaca, and a lot of engineers actually co-op with Ithaca companies. When I was at Cornell, I had friends who interned with such organizations as the National Weather Service, the New York State Prison System, Ithaca City Government, Ithaca City Schools, etc. This is to say nothing about all of the different employment and research opportunities on campus.</p>
<p>Sure, you won't be working at Bear Stearns during the academic year, but neither will anybody at NYU or Columbia, either. Enjoy your time in Ithaca. You have the rest of your life to live in big cities.</p>
<p>I'm trying to decide between Chicago and Cornell as well.</p>
<p>I agree with CR2005's assessment. People always talk about being able to get internships in NYC and stuff but, honestly, almost no one works an internship while attending school. Internships are generally done in the summer in which case you will be plenty competitive as an undergrad at Cornell.</p>
<p>ok lets get to something more important. What do people do for FUN at Cornell. You'll definitely see me at parties, but obviously partying shouldnt be the ONLY aspect of the social life. What else do you cornell students do?</p>
<p>What do people do for fun anywhere?</p>
<p>Go to the movies. Snowshoe. Go swimming. Have sex. Smoke pot. Play poker. Go out to dinner. Go to the art museum. Barbecue. Play online video games. Knit. Go to sporting events. Read.</p>
<p>plenty of free time for you if you go government</p>
<p>To not go to a school because of "lack of internship opportunities" is a joke. You don't do an internship during the school year. You do it before your senior year in college. </p>
<p>People think that going to school in a massive city is much better due to the "internship" possibilities. Nobody is going to hire you for 12 hours a week to do anything more than file papers. Cornell does have credit internship programs that allows you to travel to whatever city and have an internship at a big name firm for a semester and earn credit to graduation (a bunch of firms even pay you as well).</p>
<p>there are plenty of "internships" if you are a science major (more like being someone's beotch in a lab, but still counts and you could end up with a publication by the time you are a senior.)</p>
<p>What about something like public policy or law?</p>
<p>Ithaca has a pretty strong tradition of electing Cornell students to the city council. When I was a student, 2 of the aldermans were Cornell students. No better internship in public policy or law than that.</p>
<p>Most PAM and ILR professors offer pretty decent research internships in public policy and law-related fields. And then there's a whole bunch of opportunities through the Public Service center. And then there's the Rockefeller Institute. And CIPA. And Cornell in Washington. And City Semester. And the Albany Semester.</p>
<p>I can go on, but hopefully you get the point.</p>
<p>If it really comes down to UChicago and Cornell, your biggest deciding factor would be whether you want to do undergrad in a city environment or in a small college town. UChicago is also more graduate school focused and Cornell is more undergrad focused, but I believe you can have a great time at either school.</p>
<p>If you're wondering about what you would do on the weekends at these different schools, I really think it's pretty similar. Hang out with friends, go see a show, find a party, things like that. The only difference is that at UChicago has the city and Cornell has more nature. So I really think it comes down to city vs country.</p>
<p>i wouldn't say it's big city vs. country ... it's not like Cornell students go hang out on farms or anything. City vs. college town is more like it.</p>