Cornell University

Date: Jun 19 2014
Major: Mechanical Engineering (This Major's Salary over time)
Cornell will definitely push you harder than you ever have been, but that's what you come to college for. Your experience here depends on how you take the challenges you are faced with. You can either sit down and whine about it (like it seems like quite a few people on here have done) or take some initiative and push through it. Hardest part for me was the multitude of distractions that would be much more fun to do than sitting down and studying (which isn't necessarily bad, would rather have options than nothing else to do). My advice: find a solid group of friends you can study with (very hard to do well without some help, so find that help. It's not as hard to come by as other people make it out to be. Also friends can really come in handy when you need the answers to the practice test that the teacher never released but your friend somehow got a hold of it), do your work (don't skip an assignment because the homework is only worth 5% of your overall grade, doing the homework directly correlates to doing better on the test, you can't argue with that), and just try things (you're not going to be the best, but not to be too cliched you can't succeed if you don't try. Also you'll be 10x happier doing things besides just schoolwork). Most importantly, don't freak out, you'll do fine. It's just a school not the dungeon of torture some people make it out to be. In my opinion Cornell was probably the best thing for me in my entire life. Not only has it been a blast, but it shows you what the real world will be like. I can tell once I graduate life will be much easier because I'll be ready.