Waxin’ Lyrical

Wrote up these two reviews for the Orochinagi forums, in a spate of boredom/running away from actual work. ^_^

(Written December 12, 2005):
Cornell University

Location : D

Well, this is rather subjective, I guess. Cornell is located somewhere in the middle of nowhere (aka upstate New York). Buses are infrequent and always run late, I *think* there’s a train station somewhere that probably leads to nowhere. There’s an *okayish* mall not too far away, some quaint shops down in the local Commons, a godsend of a Wegman’s further away (only accessible if you have a car, really -_-) for your grocery needs, and an Asian supermarket that’s pretty out of the way. Other than that, it’s pretty damn quiet.

Of course, if you *LIKE* living in the middle of nowhere, you could pick worse looking spots. There’s a nice waterfall/lake right smack near the middle of campus, various gorges that are, well, gorgeous, and the campus is admittedly really pretty when the leaves are changing color.

Weather: F
This year we’ve had freakishly pleasant weather, but normally? Temperatures can start out at a pleasant 16 degrees celsius in the morning, soar to uncomforably warm high 20s, and plummet to about 5 degrees at night. And that’s in early fall. At this time of the year the weather starts out below freezing and just kinda gets worse from there. When it’s bad, you look outside and you think “OMG Blizzard”. When it’s good… wait. It’s never good.

Professors: A
Admittedly, I’ve never been taught by such a bunch of smart people. The CS department in Cornell is particularly strong, with 2 professors who’ve won the Turing Award and a whole host of other well respected geniuses (One won the MacArthur genius award recently too ) The general impression I get from my other courses (Econ, general distribution) is pretty favorable too - everyone knows what they’re talking about and is more than capable of teaching it. Yes, there are a few stinkers here and there, but I really have not much to complain about here.

Workload: F
It depends on your major, really, but for me, it definitely warrants an F. As in DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF. Comp Sci is a constant kick in the balls, with the occassional assignment that decides to just stomp you in the ground before ramming forcefully into your buttocks. I’ve heard similiar/worse stories from other Engineering fields like Electrical and Computer Engineering, Applied Engineering Physics, etc, so get ready the lubricant.
Econ, on the other hand, is mangeable in the sense that if you study, you’re almost assured of doing well.
I say this as someone’s who’s considered to be doing well (GPA of 3.78) - Cornell is *hard*.

People: B+
Cornell takes in a shiteload of people every year, so you’re bound to find a group of people with your similiar interests. Whether it be boozing away illegally, Ceramic Pottery, sarcastic extreme right-wing publications, hell even friggin’ DDR, there’s almost certainly a group you’ll want to join here. And if there isn’t, hey, just form your own!

Overall rating: B.
If you’ve got a better place to go to, please do. The work sucks, it’s cold and depressing, and you’re in the middle of nowhere.

——————-
(Written in the early morning hours of January 8th, 2007)
International Christian University (ICU, Tokyo, Japan - www.icu.ac.jp)

Location: A++

HOLY SHITE IT’S IN TOKYO!!! XDDD

It’s in a relative nice part of Tokyo too - by that I mean it’s quiet, but not too quiet. Cheap, modern apartments can be found near the school without much of a problem. (more on housing further down). There’re department stores, supermarkets, restaurants/izakeyas, manga cafes, etc in the area surrounding the school, and for further entertainment options, nearby Kichiouji is pretty complete when it comes to urban Tokyo amenities (karaokes, clubs, etc in addition to the above). Or if you’re STILL not satisfied, you can hop on a train to central Tokyo. It takes you 20 minutes to get to Shinjuku, about 30 to get to Shibuya/Harajuku, and an hour to Akihabara, aka geek heaven.

The campus itself is pretty nice too - there’s this whole sculpted garden look to it from the main gate in (less evident once you actually get to the main school buildings). The fact that it’s an American style campus in Tokyo though is pretty unique.

Weather: B
Tokyo is in a pretty nice temperate location. It can get a little cold, but not so much that it goes below freezing (At least, not in the few months I’ve been here, though it’s supposed to get colder in February). The summers can get EXTREMELY hot and sweltering. The autumns, however, are nice and pleasant.

Professors: D
Supposedly it depends on what faculty you’re in and such, but so far my impression of them has been decidely negative. Huge lack of preparation for lectures, lack of punctuality, droning on and on when no one’s listening, BEING STONE DEAF/FLAT OUT IGNORING WHAT YOU SAY have been some of the experiences of my friends and I.

My favorite anecdote about this is from this Econ class I took last trimester. It was advertised as a billingual course, as in, even if you didn’t have much Japanese knowledge you would still be able to do fine in the course. It turns out that the lectures were entirely in Japanese, but the readings were all in English, and the assignments and exams could be answered in both languages.

The lecturer himself mumbled so much and so fast I couldn’t really understand what he was saying most of the time. So, that should be ok right, since I’m not a native Japanese speaker? All I had to do was keep up with my readings right?

I tried doing that.

The things he spoke about in class had nothing to do with the readings assigned. T_T

To make things worse, only one assignment was ever handed out - a review of an academic paper of our choosing in a field related to the material of the course. That’s all well and good, but it was due on the same day as the final exam. Which is kind of bullshite, since I had NO IDEA WHAT GRADE I WAS GOING TO GET AT ALL going into the final exam.

And the final exam itself. The professor didn’t even show up, delegating the task of proctor to a grad student instead. Fine. As advertised, it could be taken in both English and Japanese. I naturally asked for the English paper. It was ridden full of spelling and grammatical mistakes I couldn’t really understand what was being asked of me. So fine, I asked for the Japanese version of the test as reference.

The Japanese test asked COMPLETELY DIFFERENT questions.

I was pissed, so in the end I just corrected the questions to what I thought he meant to ask and wrote accordingly.

I ended up getting an A for the course, lol.

Workload: B
Also depends on what courses you’re taking, but so far the trend seems to be “YAWWWWN” for the first half of the trimester, things start getting hairy when midterms roll in, and finals period is just hell on earth, when EVERY GAWDDEMN THING IS DUE IN A SPAN OF ABOUT 3 DAYS. Or something.

It really could be more fairly distributed out, but I guess that’s kinda hard for a trimester-based system.

People: A
ICU has a *very* strong exchange program system - it takes in loads of foreign students every year and sends a fair bit of its own students across the world. You’ll definitely meet people from various interesting backgrounds.

I’ve also been able to make friends with loads of people, plenty of which have been far more hospitable to me than I really deserve, and for that I’m especially grateful.

It’s also not that big a university, with a relatively small student population, so there’s a nice “cosy” feeling to it, unlike some of the larger universities where you can make friends with this one person who’s taking the same course as you for one semester and never bump into him again.

ICU also has a very strong dormitory culture, with lots of parties thrown by the various dorms. The dorms also provide cheap, affordable housing, and plans are in place to make sure any exchange student who wants to will soon be able to get into a dorm. (I had to move into an apartment due to my application being rejected)

Language (i.e. WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU CAN’T SPEAK JAPANESE?! XDD):B
If you’re just here for an exchange program, even for a year, you should be able to find some courses that interest you that are in English. That said, however, be aware that most of their courses *are* in Japanese, so if you’re trying to apply for exchange credit or what not it might be tricky, especially if, like my friend, you don’t speak that much Japanese but want to take a network systems course in Japanese, YAY!

ICU also has a reputation for English, which means a lot of their Japanese students are more or less conversant in English as well, so you shouldn’t have *that* much of a problem making friends amongst the Japanese.

With regards to the Japanese language programs (i.e. learning Japanese): I’m in the advanced classes, so I can’t really comment on how good the beginner classes are, but they seem decent enough. The advanced classes, however, are pretty crazy sometimes: I had to write this friggin’ 10 page research paper written in formal Japanese (I went for the flooding approach and submitted 19 pages) for my writing class. For my speaking class, I had to chair this debate amongst other students for our final examination. Rather hairy at times.

Overall: B+/A-
I’m having a blast of a time here, I really am. The work is peanuts in comparision to what I’m used to, the people are friendly, the weather is nice, and oh my gawd it’s a city and there’s stuff to do! XDDD Definitely recommended.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 7th, 2007 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Journal Entry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.