Why Learn This Way?

With Cornell's One Course At A Time block schedule, each course gets your best effort and your professor's full attention. You’ll have one clear goal, one set of expectations, and one final exam.  The pace of the courses is quick, to be sure, but small class sizes and extended classroom hours mean you'll always know your professor and have increased opportunities for assistance during or outside class.

Classes are lively, rigorous, interactive, and discussion-oriented. But what perhaps makes block scheduling most distinctive and beneficial is the tremendous variety of learning opportunities that become possible.

In geology, for example, you might enjoy a guest lecturer and class discussion in the morning, visit a fossil gorge in the afternoon, and write a report that evening. In economics, you might learn about money and banking and then spend two weeks in the Chicago financial district.

This distinctive flexibility, coupled with small classes meeting daily, allows intimate and supportive classroom communities to develop. Led by Cornell professors who embrace their roles as teachers, advisors, mentors, and active scholars, our courses become a fertile ground for intellectual curiosity and an unmatched learning environment.