<p>I have always heard that Cornell's workload is super heavy, students spend days on extra credits, become suicidal, etc. How is it in reality? How many hours does one spend on homework? How is it compared to Harvard, Princeton, Yale? Tougher? I know it is subjective, but still.</p>
<p>The old saying about Cornell is that it's the easiest Ivy to get into and the hardest to get out of, especially in the more challenging disciplines like engineering. However, I wouldn't dwell on the suicide issue. The reasons people kill themselves are far too complex to relegate simply to a tough workload. That old saying may be a folk tale, but sometimes folk tales come about for a reason. Cornell is a fine, tough school.</p>
<p>Yeah, thanks, I have heard that one. I am just trying to understand what kind of 'toughness' that is. If it is as tough/tougher than HYP, why is it not considered of the same calibre (easier to get in)?</p>
<p>Cornell's suicide rate is lower than the national average for colleges. The workload is tough, especially for majors like engineering, but it is not any harder than at other Ivy League schools. My friends, engineers at Princeton, report similar work loads.</p>
<p>i think it's tougher than state schools (ASU, OU, UT, etc.) in terms of effort required and required section...</p>
<p>testing of knowledge is a little different (more prelims)</p>
<p>dont have anything to compare it to HYPS.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If it is as tough/tougher than HYP, why is it not considered of the same calibre (easier to get in)?
[/quote]
the reason it's considered easier to get in is because it has a higher acceptance rate - the acceptance rate obviously has nothing to do with the amount of work profs assign...
also, fewer Cornell students come from prep-school backgrounds, most are from public HS's, and maybe they're not used to as competitive of an environment...at HYP, more students come from elite private schools</p>
<ol>
<li><p>In general, the workload at Cornell is comparable to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the other Ivies and top schools. (There's only so many hours in a day that they can expect you to work.)</p></li>
<li><p>But that's "in general" - it varies greatly by major. Some majors are easier than others.</p></li>
<li><p>There's also the question of workload for various grades. Obviously, if you goal is to get a 2.5 GPA, that's not going to be as demanding as if your goal is to get a 3.9 GPA.</p></li>
<li><p>How many hours per day? That also depends on fast you work, how well you manage your time, how efficiently you absorb what you study, what your existing knowledge base is, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>It also depends on how many credit hours you're taking. 12 every semester? 18 every semester?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The bottom line: expect to work as much as you can stand (more than you can stand sometimes), while trying to squeeze in a life. And you will be able to squeeze in a life eventually. And you may not meet all your academic goals immediately. Cornell is meant to be pretty brutal. It's not summer camp.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How is it in reality?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Pretty hard, I'm not going to lie. But this depends on your major. There are notoriously difficult and notoriously easy majors at Cornell. </p>
<p>
[quote]
How many hours does one spend on homework?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Depends, as others have said above me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How is it compared to Harvard, Princeton, Yale? Tougher?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I doubt the workload is tougher, it's probably about the same (again, this is subjective, I'm basing my thoughts based off of what friends at Harvard and Princeton have told me). It's just that there is massive grade inflation at Yale and especially Harvard. There is no grade inflation at Cornell, but keep in mind the quality of students at Harvard and Yale is probably higher.</p>
<p>I feel like Cornell's tough rep is in part due to the fact compared to other Ivies, many more of Cornell's students study science and engineering fields. Science and engineering fields are usually much tougher than liberal arts fields, thus, giving Cornell its reputation for being tough.</p>
<p>Thanks. 10char</p>
<p>It didn't seem that bad first semester, most of the difficulty seemed to come from the fact that you're competing with other people that are very smart and everything is curved(this only applies to engineering and science/math courses, humanitees courses aren't curved), the actual amount of work wasn't ridiculous for any of the classes I took, although it varies from course to course. Some courses may be fairly time intensive some won't it depends on the nature of the course.</p>
<p>For example my math class had weekly homework that usually took about 3-4 hours which I thought wasn't that much per week. My digital circuits class had a lot more work though, since it had a lab in addition to the normal homeworks and text book readings. There were seven labs total, the last four of which took 10-20 hours of work(possibly less if you didn't make any dumb super time consuming mistakes), but it wasn't really that painful to do since I found the material interesting and was actually making stuff.(the last lab was to design a simple 8bit microprocessor).</p>
<p>Anyway the amount of time and workload you have will also vary depending on how motivated you are and how much effort you put in. For example in some classes the assigned text book readings would help you to understand the material, but would be very time consuming and go over material covered in lecture and in the homework. Now a diligent motivated student will do all the readings, they would have a better grasp of the material, but would also have a much tougher workload than someone who just does the homeworks and skims the textbook as needed. essentially double maybe triple the amount of work. So two students taking the same class, one doing the readings one not, could have vastly different ideas on how difficult the workload in the class is. This is just a general example.</p>
<p>what are the "notoriously difficult" and "notoriously easy" majors at Cornell?</p>
<p>the difficult ones seem to be the hard sciences/engineering, architecture, and easier ones seem to be liberal arts, business (AEM), which I think is true at just about any college. but I guess what's "easy" varies from person to person. engineering is usually steretyped as the most difficult major at most colleges (I don't go to cornell but i'm assuming it's the same there) and engineering requires a ton of classes too, compared to most majors.</p>
<p>i think difficulty at cornell is self-serving/fulfilling...</p>
<p>i'm obviously not cut out to be in engineering...</p>
<p>I think it's a bad idea to reduce the workload talk to liberal arts to being an easy major. It definitely varies from classes to class within liberal arts. Like within History, Baptist, Parmenter, LaCapra are known for being famous and hard graders. Also, the easiness of majors depends on the person too.</p>
<p>I meant difficulty in understanding the material, not workload...I think majors like history are generally easier to understand than say, chemical engineering, regardless of how much work it is and all the papers you have to write (i'm a liberal arts major myself so i get it). yeah, it varies from person to person, but I do think certain subjects are simply easier to grasp...if you dropped an engineering major in a communications class, he might hate it, but it might easier for him to pick up on the subject and get a B than the other way around, imo...</p>
<p>
[quote]
what are the "notoriously difficult" and "notoriously easy" majors at Cornell?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>People are going to flame me for this, but I'll say it anyway.</p>
<p>Notoriously difficult majors include Applied Engineering Physics, Architecture, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Physics, and Chemical engineering (there are definitely more, I probably missed a few)</p>
<p>Easy majors include AEM, PAM, econ, history, etc., you get the idea. You can say the difficulty of major depends on fit but you surely cannot deny that the material in any of these majors is harder to understand than the material in Applied Engineering physics. I won't add any more majors because every person on this board will come and defend the difficulty of their major, but you can extrapolate. Keep in mind that difficulty is all relative.</p>
<p><em>with complete sarcasm</em></p>
<p>it seems the hard majors are those traditionally "boy" majors </p>
<p>and the "easy" majors are the traditionally "girl" majors.</p>
<p>^ hahah that does seem to be true...I know some angry Women's Studies chick is gonna come along and fry me, but the stereotype exists for a reason...</p>
<p>I second what Brown Man said...workload aside, some majors are easier to grasp than others...an engineering major in an english class could probably manage a B, an english major in a chem engineering class would have a rougher time, i think. of course, it's all relative...i have a pretty easy major (econ) and yet i've met non-econ majors in my classes struggling with it cause they can't handle basic calc...i've also noticed those students are generally girls who major in stuff like elementary education, communication, journalism, humanities, classics, film, dance...yeah my college is extremely artsy, whereas cornell is very science based. </p>
<p>btw does cornell have an elementary education major? i've heard they don't, which surprises me.</p>
<p>I don't think they have an education major at all.</p>
<p>i think there is an agricultural education major in CALS</p>