IT’S LIKE BILL SIMMONS… EXCEPT WITHOUT ALL THE STUPID SPORTS STUFF. 
Ok I’ll admit that although I do read Bill Simmons, I don’t really know anything about sports and my coworker Matt asserts that my mention of Sports Guy in my blog is merely a tactic to make myself appealing to dudes. No comment on that one, now onto the questions….(this will be updated with questions as they come in!)
Hi,
I am, was actually, attending The Culinary Institute of America. I was a Junior in
the BPS program when I found out that I was accepted to Cornell for the January
start date. I am very excited to be starting soon. I do have a couple of questions. How often do hotelie’s have classes? I heard that you only have class Monday through Thursday? What is a typical day of classes like for you? I am living in the Alice Cook House Baker Tower, do you know anything about it? Finaly, I am so used to wearing business attire to my classes being at CIA, what do the students wear to class at the Hotel School?
I’m sorry, there are a lot of questions above. I guess I am nervous…
I love reading your blog, by the way, as a future Hotelie. Great Job!!

Thanks! Ok lots of questions here:
1. Classes. Most hotelie 3-credit courses (the size of most of our core classes) involve a 75 minute lecture twice a week, either MW or TR. There are some exceptions to this though– like culinary courses that require labs or computing and communications courses, which require teeny tiny sections on top of the normal lectures. Officially, classes run M-F so if you do have a Friday class, there are plenty of other people in the same boat with you. After freshman year, many hotelies don’t have classes on Fridays unless they’re taking a course outside of the hotel school. A typical class day for me usually involves 2 or 3 of those 1 hour 15 minute lectures, the earliest starting at 8:40 am and the latest starting at 2:55 pm. The classes are usually between 15 and 40 students, so it’s kind of essential that you show up to these. Trust me on this…the professor notices when you’re gone. And they notice when you’re asleep. I once noticed that my participation grade in a class was really low, and when I asked the professor why, she was just like, “uh, because you’re asleep exactly 10 minutes into class every day?” That sucked.
2. Baker Tower. So Baker Tower is down on West Campus, which is the on-campus residential area for transfer and returning students (in other words, no Freshmen). Baker is actually a separate entity from the Alice Cook building, but is officially part of the Alice Cook “house”– which essentially is a community that shares dining facilities, a pantry (this is awesome), academic support programs, and common areas like computer labs and study lounges. Baker Tower is a little older than the other buildings down there, but it’s all good. That pantry is awesome.

3. Clothes. Don’t worry, we just wear casual clothes to classes unless we’re giving a presentation or we’re having a guest speaker from the industry (could you imagine trekking through snow uphill in heels every day? MY GOD). I mean, I wear jeans and a sweater or polo to class basically all the time. One thing about the Hotel School though– there are always always always recruiters and other important people walking around in the hallways, so don’t wear like, PJ pants and last night’s eye makeup to class.

I’m a junior in high school and am looking at going into the hotel school….
I was looking at your past classes and it looks like all of your classes relate to the hospitality degree. Were these classes taken when you were a freshman? Or did you take classes freshman year like Calculas or Economics?
I’m trying to figure out if I should go to Cornell for undergrad or go to a state school and then go to Cornell for graduate school to save money….

One thing about the hotel school that’s pretty cool is we don’t have what some schools call “general ed” requirements; like, are we ever going to need organic chemistry? Yeah, probably not, so they don’t make us take it. But any “general” courses we may take are relevent to the industry; for example, instead of economics, we take economics for the service industry. Of course you’re more than welcome to take classes outside of the Hotel School if you want to; you’re even required to take a small number of what are called “distributive electives”– basically, 3 credits of a math or science class, 3 credits of a fine arts class, and 3 credits of social sciences (and then a few more credits of whatever you want, really, as long as it’s non-hotel). Since I’ve been here, I’ve been in at least 4 hotel school courses every semester. Say goodbye to calculus.
Hey I just applied for hotel school at cornell (fingers crossed!) and have an out-of-campus interview coming up. How important this interview is in the admissions process?

Yay good luck! The admissions interview plays a pretty pivitol role– the Hotel School is one of only 2 Cornell colleges that actually require all applicants to interview. The hospitality industry is all about people-to-people interaction and they really want to get to know applicants on a more personal level to see what their personalities are like. No room for shrinking violets in the Hotel School, so just make sure to smile, relax, be yourself, and, most of all, don’t be shy!