FlanAl wrote:how chilled out are cornell and ithaca in general? i don't know why but i could see it being like a weird berkeley type place in the middle of no where. is it pretty laid back and farmers markety or does the competitive academic vibe just kinda make it really intense?
Ithaca as a city is very liberal and hippie-esque. They have mandatory recycling and trash tags you have to pay for ($3.50 for every non-recyclable bag of trash). There are tons of head shops and handmade jewelry shops, and a pretty nice farmer's market.
Cornell as a university, and the law school especially, is still very competitive, very intense academically. You can expect to find people studying there 8 hours a day. But still, because of the small size of the law school and the location, we're very congenial. I've never heard of anyone ripping pages out of books or anything. Now, townies stealing books out of lockers...