Chime In I’m Among the Last ‘Hangovers’ (But Not the Ones You Think) Stories You May Like Test Your Knowledge of the Cornell Board of Trustees Alum Launches First Smithsonian Museum Dedicated to Women Nobelist Explores Women’s Role in the Workplace—And Lives It Once upon a time—including when I matriculated on the Hill in the early 1960s—engineering was a five-year program “Chime In” comprises brief first-person essays by Cornellians. Do you have a topic in mind? Email us at cornellians@cornell.edu! By Barry Bendel ’64, BEE ’65, MEng ’66 Every summer, alumni from the Ivy League gather here in San Antonio, TX, to meet the incoming freshmen—the local kids about to head off to Philadelphia, Providence, New Haven, Ithaca, and the rest. We tell them what to expect: what to pack, which professors to seek out, and how cold it actually gets. This year, when it was my turn to introduce myself, I said something I don't think anyone in that room had heard before: “I’m the last of the Hangovers.” I had to explain it, of course. Most people who know the name at all know it from the Glee Club’s a cappella group, the Hangovers, founded in 1968 and still singing today. But the name didn’t start with them. They borrowed it. And the thing they borrowed it from is gone. For about 20 years, from World War II until 1965, the College of Engineering ran a five-year undergraduate curriculum. The name 'Hangovers' didn’t start with the Glee Club’s a cappella group. They borrowed it. And the thing they borrowed it from is gone. The change had come out of wartime necessity, and departments adjusted their programs from four years to five, one after another. Mechanical engineering’s first class to reach the new fifth year did so in 1950–51. By the time I arrived, the fifth year was simply how things were done. You finished what everyone else finished in four years, and then stayed for one more—hanging over, in the slang of the place, into a year most of your classmates didn’t have. That’s where the name came from. Not from a song, not from a joke invented later—from an actual fact about your transcript. If you were in a five-year program, you were, literally, a hangover. And we had a verse too. The author as a freshman in 1960. Cornell has always had a song for this kind of thing—“Song of the Classes,” written by Frank Abbott 1890 his senior spring, with a verse for each class: the freshman, homesick and green; the sophomore, shedding his freshman manners; the junior, self-satisfied; the senior, coasting to the finish. Somewhere along the way, someone added a fifth verse for us. It wasn’t gentle. It leaned on the other classes the way the rest of the song did—freshmen dismissed, sophomores mocked, juniors waved off—with the particular swagger of people who’d earned the right to look down on everybody still on schedule. The final two lines: “We don't give a damn for the whole junior class / And as for the seniors, they can all kiss our …” (The last word, which you can surmise, would be drowned out by the chorus.) We sang it because it was true. We really were hanging over. Nobody else in the room could say that line and mean it. In 1965, Cornell reverted engineering to a four-year curriculum. I watched the four-year Class of 1965 graduate along with me and my classmates, who'd matriculated as freshmen with the Class of ’64. Stories You May Like Test Your Knowledge of the Cornell Board of Trustees Alum Launches First Smithsonian Museum Dedicated to Women By the time I arrived, the fifth year was simply how things were done. You finished what everyone else finished in four years, and then stayed for one more—hanging over, in the slang of the place. Some of us raised a stink about it; the University had changed the deal midway through. Although we had signed up for five years—and paid five years of tuition—we got the same degree that those coming after us would earn in only four, not to mention the salary and experience we lost by entering the workforce a year later. Cornell heard us out. We came back for one compressed semester and left with the brand-new master of engineering (MEng)—a professional degree invented, in part, to make good on what was owed to a class caught in the gap. Rare and Manuscript CollectionsAn engineering classroom in the ’60s, with slide rules at work. That made 1965 the end of it. No incoming class after us would ever again be five-year engineering students. No one after us would ever again have to stand up to sing that verse and mean it. It kept getting sung for a few years afterward, I’m told—the Glee Club still had “Song of the Classes” in its concert repertoire into the early 1970s—but by then it was inherited, not lived, and sung by people performing a tradition rather than describing themselves. I watched the four-year Class of 1965 graduate along with me and my classmates, who'd matriculated as freshmen with the Class of ’64. Three years after we left, a group of students—several of them themselves five-year “hangovers” of the old kind—started an a cappella group and took the name for their own reasons. The word outlived the thing it used to mean. I don’t know if the verse is still sung anywhere. I don’t know how many are still left who sang it when it was true—we’re all pushing 85 now, if we’re still here at all. Electrical engineering's five-year Class of 1965; Bendel is number 19. What I do know is that when I stood up in front of that room of 18-year-olds today and called myself “the last of the Hangovers,” I was handing them a small, strange piece of something that is very close to finished. Not a tragedy—just an ordinary kind of ending, the sort that happens to every institution, every generation, every verse of every song, eventually. Someone is always the last one who can say a thing and mean it literally. That day with those incoming Ivy League freshmen, I got to be that person. After decades in engineering and management positions, Barry Bendel ’64, BEE ’65, MEng ’66, founded Bendel & Associates—specializing in what’s now known as cybersecurity—in 1999. He remains active in the business and in the Cornell alumni group for the San Antonio area. He and his wife have five children and seven grandchildren. (All images provided, unless otherwise indicated.) Published August 19, 2026 Comments Jane Dunham, Class of 1964 13 Sep, 2026 My husband and I graduated from Cornell in 1964. He had matriculated in 1959, and I in 1960. We loved the fun we had with him being a “Hangover,” and we were among the loudest when the last stanza of the Song of the Classes was sung. In later years, he received a certificate from Cornell citing him as having the “Equivalent of a Master’s” degree. By then he was already established in his engineering career with Shell Oil, and the certificate was just a fun way for me to tease him since I had gone on to earn a “real” M.A. Reply Michael, Class of 1968 13 Sep, 2026 It was fun reading Barry’s hangovers story. I represent the other end of the conversion to a 4-year program. I was in the Class of ’68, BEE ’69, MEE ’71. So I was in the last class that had the option of getting the 5-year BEE degree. I remember in freshman year when they changed, and we were the last class to be given the option of a 4-year or 5-year degree. We still had the 1 semester option to get the MEE degree if we took the 5-year BEE degree. But you had to choose your courses carefully to be able to “transfer” 15 credits from your BEE curriculum towards your MEE degree. Allowing you to get your MEE by taking 15 more credits. In June 1968, the Vietnam War was still raging and getting drafted for it was highly probable if you got a degree which ended your educational deferment. My choice was to continue to pursue my 5-year BEE till 1969, and not risk getting drafted. I don’t know the percentage of my class who did as I did. But there were number of classmates who took their 4-year degree and stayed a fifth year to pursue their MEE, then got drafted during the year. I got my MEE in 1969 then went to work for an aerospace company, which naturally wrote the Selective Service, to get a draft deferment for me. After working for a year, I returned to Cornell for one semester in Fall 1970, getting my MEE’71 (Jan). Besides avoiding the draft, the other benefit to me was being able to deduct my entire costs of “pursuing further education in your field of study” on my 1970 and 1971 income taxes. This included travel to and from Ithaca, tuition, fees, and any and all living expenses associated with that semester. Naturally when I returned to my aerospace company, they increased my salary. I think I came out ahead financially versus the loss of salary and experience. However, it was difficult selecting the final 15 credits for the MEE because after 5 years in the EE curriculum, there were not many courses left I wanted to take. My advisor chastised me for selecting only three 4-credit courses and three 1-credit seminars, and forced me to get another full credit course, which had no interest to me. Regarding the Song of the Classes, I joined the Glee Club in freshman year and don’t remember ever seeing or singing a hangovers verse. Reply Charles Kentnor, Class of 1964 13 Sep, 2026 Congratulations to Barry for highlighting an aspect of Cornell that has been lost in history. I matriculated in the Sibley School of Mechanical engineering in 1960 to begin a 5 year journey that gave me an education that would serve me well in my varied careers following graduation. Unlike Barry and several of my BME friends, I chose not to get a MME. Why you might ask since it was only another semester on our beautiful campus? And therein lies the answer: Fall in Ithaca is beautiful; Winter is not! If I could have come for the spring semester, I would have done it, but I had a job and winter in Ithaca held no appeal. There was a “reward” for the decision myself and others made to pass on getting a MME and it came in the form of a “Certificate of Advanced Engineering Studies” received in the mail 10 or so years after graduation. A certainly meaningless piece of paper, but I guess it gave the University some good feeling or other for recognizing the 5th year of which we partook. But produced little monetary reward. On a positive closing note: The extra year provided many opportunities for education via enrollment in advanced classes throughout the University. I am most thankful for that. Reply Joseph Anibal Dos Santos, Class of 1974 13 Sep, 2026 It is interesting that Cornell then chose to not seek accreditation for its four-year engineering program encouraging the Cornell engineering students to stay a fifth year for the Master of Engineering -ME degree. In 1974, at the EIT (Engineer-In-Training) exam at Syracuse University, the examiner first asked, ” raise your hand if you are not from an accredited engineering program”. Mine and all the Cornell student hands went up. He then quickly said “except Cornell”. All of our hands came down. We ten took the exam. Reply Michael Schenker, Class of 1968 13 Sep, 2026 During the mid-60’s, staying in the undergraduate 5-year engineering program (which the university held open for those of us who had started in that program) meant registering through the undergraduate registrar and one more year of a military draft deferment. That allowed you to get through the full engineering program (I was a Chem E) before being eligible for the military draft. Reply Stephen, Class of 1966 13 Sep, 2026 Back then I thought Architecture was a five year program too. I knew because I sometimes studied there at night, under a graffiti that read “Hail to thee, blithe spirit,/Bird that never works.” Reply Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Quizzes & Puzzles Which Cornell Dairy Ice Cream Flavor Are You? Campus & Beyond Economist Works to Reduce Surging Rates of Gun Violence Alumni On ‘Undercover Boss,’ a Hotelie Gets His Hands Dirty—Literally