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Sort By: [Date] [Major] [Rating] Engineering Department  Major Salary, Salary Trend, Satisfaction, Unemployment Quite Bright I loved my time at Cornell. The campus is beautiful, and the population is large enough that you can find all different personalities of people. It is easy to find people with similar interests as well as people who enjoy holding thoughtful discussion. People are generally socially conscious and take an active role in changing things for the better. The opportunities for activism, community involvement, and extracurriculars are endless. I studied Biological and Environmental Engineering in both the College of Engineering and the College of Agriculture and Life Science. While it is true that Cornell's engineering programs are incredibly rigorous, again, the campus is so large and diverse that it is easy to have a life outside of coursework. I had ample time for elective courses in the Arts college. You can find electives about nearly any topic at Cornell. Ithaca is a lovely city with lots of personality. It might be smaller than what many people are used to, but I continued to find new things every weekend at Ithaca, and I don't think I ever discovered everything there is to do there. You just have to look. I can't say enough for the aesthetics of the campus. It is breathtaking.There are all types of people at Cornell--from ultra-studious to flippant, conservative to progressive, closed-minded to open-minded, outgoing to reserved. Everyone can find like-minded people if they look. Education Quality: A+, Surrounding City: B- Have a Question? Your Response/Question:     To be informed when someone replies to your comment. (private)  More →  Apr 07 2009 4th Year Female -- Class 2008    Forward  Blog it! Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account: Just copy and paste! <script src='http://www.studentsreview.com/active/shared/sr_comment.js?sckey=59187&uid=940'></script> <a href='http://www.studentsreview.com' style='font-size:8pt;'>Data Source: StudentsReview!</a> Rate this comment: Useless (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Helpful       Save Communications  Major Salary, Salary Trend, Satisfaction, Unemployment Bright I was very naive when I first decided to go to college. I thought that if I graduated from an Ivy League school, regardless of my major, that I would be hired into a top position at the company of my choice. My parents and other family members had not attended college in the U.S. before. I had no real career guidance from family members or high school advisors. Majoring in Communication was a huge mistake. The Communication major at Cornell is a complete waste of time and money. You will not learn anything you don't already know. There is NOTHING you can do with the so-called information and theories you study in that major. They are all common sense stuff you'd already know from being a human. I had about three to five classes that stressed the freaking definition of Communication even! How stupid! They broke it down to a sender sending a message to a receiver and how the message is not complete until the receiver gives feedback of receipt back to the sender. Duh! Do we really need to go over that? Anyway, going into that major was my mistake. They certainly beat a dead horse with all those useless, pointless Communication major classes. Heck, I learned to communicate, as if I didn't know that already. I didn't know how horrible the major was though, until I tried to get a decent job after college. I realized how unprepared I was and how skill-less I was after graduation, after 7 years of bad jobs in NYC. Also the biology, chemistry, and psychology 101 classes that are required with the major are taught breezily in the classrooms, but the tests hit you like a punch in the face (usually the exams are all multiple choice too). You look at 50% of the exams and wonder--was this ever even mentioned? The biology and chemistry exams were graded on a curve because so many people did so badly on those exams. The teachers in these classes did not really help me learn the material. It was all do it yourself. They assign chapters to read, give their breezy lectures (during which you have to take notes like mad because there are no handouts), and then hit you with this in-depth test that covers a lot of material you don't even remember hearing or reading about. There is no homework to help you learn the material and of course no study guides. The exams at this school were usually a bad surprise most of the time, especially in the bio, chem, and psych classes. And I had a very minimal social life and studied most of the time too. It's not as if I wasn't working hard. I got only As and Bs in all my classes, but still feel I learned very little. At the university I now attend, a small, career-focused school, where I'm studying pre-health classes for entry into a nursing program (yeah, an actual specific career that will actually pay me a decent salary), the teachers really help me learn the material and teach more slowly. They offer study guides before exams, homework, quizzes, and the class sizes are much smaller. I'm actually learning something useful at my current school, which makes Cornell look all the more unhelpful. Cornell does have some useful degrees such as Accounting, however, considering the mad-pace and lack of learning tools offered in my bio, chem, and psych classes, (i.e., the hard sciences) I would be afraid to take a serious major at that school. You'd probably leave the school knowing much less than someone who studied at a smaller school where the teachers put more effort in helping students learn. I felt some of the classes were taught (such as my Music 105 class that I dropped or my Logic class) as if you already knew the material and were just being given a review of it. If I already knew it, why would I pay so much money for you to teach it to me? Is it all just so I can get that name on my diploma? I actually wanted to learn more and understand why the Ivy League is considered to offer such a great education. I've learned more from my local community college. Notice that Jeopardy champions are hardly ever Ivy League students. That's no accident. If people from the Ivy League seem smart, it's because they were smart before they got there. The Ivy League, at least from my experience, did not make me any smarter. It in fact hurt me and delayed me. Looking back, it seemed like a lot of smoke and mirrors. Though I admit, many of my teachers you can tell had a very high IQ, but they didn't all teach me better. That is, the star athlete doesn't necessarily make the best coach. Good points: My English classes were all quite impressive, I must say. All the English professors I had at Cornell went a bit more out of their way to help me improve my writing. Even in a big Great Books class, the teacher took time to meet with me to help me improve my paper. I was impressed! Also the pre-calculus math class is very well taught during the lab classes by the TAs. It's not all bad, but my major was HORRIBLE. That was probably the biggest reason I was so disappointed. Had I majored in something else, I would probably have liked the school much more, but I still am a bit doubtful of that. Avoid majoring in Communication like the plague (no matter what school you decide on). Ccommunication is a useless major that leads to no career prospects no matter where you study it. Another plus: Cornell has to be the most beautiful campus in the world. I just wish I didn't have to cross a bridge every time I go to class. A beautiful place, but I wouldn't want to study there. Go to a more career-focused school with smaller class sizes. That's my recommendation. It's NOT the school name that matters (unless you're going to be a lawyer or the President), it's what you will actually learn from the school. Cornell hardly taught me anything useful and the pace of the classes is much too fast. It's a do it yourself school that makes you pay big bucks. Starting Job: Executive Assistant, Preparedness: F, Reputation: B Have a Question? Your Response/Question:     To be informed when someone replies to your comment. (private) Mar 26 2009 Alumna Female -- Class 2000   Forward  Blog it! Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account: Just copy and paste! <script src='http://www.studentsreview.com/active/shared/sr_comment.js?sckey=58822&uid=940'></script> <a href='http://www.studentsreview.com' style='font-size:8pt;'>Data Source: StudentsReview!</a> Rate this comment: Useless (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Helpful       Save Architecture  Major Salary, Salary Trend, Satisfaction, Unemployment Quite Bright The ratings I gave above do not paint a good picture of Cornell. Into my fourth year I have to say that about 75% of the time I love the architecture department. We have some very bright, friendly, open, and exciting professors who I have loved getting to know. The small setting allows you to create meaningful relationships. The university bureaucracy, however, is awful. While in your own department people will treat you like a student, a human being who has worked very hard to get into the university and will appreciate your efforts if you are working hard--the university sees students as a money making machine. I've lost count of the number of I have been yelled at, demeaned, ignored, and just generally disrespected by University staff. This has occurred most often with the registrar offices (both in my own college and the university administration level) and especially with the bursar. Every semester it is the same cycle with administration, I really think Cornell should just admit that they are run like a large corporation--and a bad one at that like Walmart as opposed to a good model like Google (the other Ivy Leagues tend to fall into the latter category).Considering that Cornell is far from a major city and lacks the pretige/networks of other schools at the same level I would at least expect the university to compensate by keeping a professional demeanor and nurture students to succeed. This work, however, is all left to individual professors, who while well meaning are seriously under funded, under paid, and treated just as badly as students are. Only a few of the 'star' professors are treated well and those are the ones that bring in funding to the university. Campus Aesthetics: A+, Individual Value: D Have a Question? Your Response/Question:     To be informed when someone replies to your comment. (private)  More →  Feb 26 2009 1st Year Female -- Class 2010    Forward  Blog it! Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account: Just copy and paste! <script src='http://www.studentsreview.com/active/shared/sr_comment.js?sckey=58056&uid=940'></script> <a href='http://www.studentsreview.com' style='font-size:8pt;'>Data Source: StudentsReview!</a> Rate this comment: Useless (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Helpful       Save  Prev    Select Page: 1 ... 9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17 ... 52    Next

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