Life

INOCCIDUOUS THOUGHTS | I Feel Bad…

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There’s a time and a place for guilt. Most times it’s within reason—after doing something immoral, unethical, or unkind, it’s a necessary part of self-regulation that, without intention, keeps our emotions in check and subsequently provides a feedback mechanism for changing or continuing a behavior. Psychology Today assembled a short list of five types of guilt and how to cope with them. Interestingly, they preface with Freud’s psychodynamic theory of guilt and anxiety due to the repression of unconscious desires. With Freud in mind, the five types of guilt were listed as being: guilt for something you did, such as hurting someone physically or emotionally; guilt for something you didn’t do, but want to, such as having the desire to cheat on your partner; guilt for something you think you did, but didn’t, such as causing someone else’s misfortune by wishing it; guilt that you didn’t do enough to help others, including “compassion fatigue” which puts your own mental vitality at risk; and lastly, guilt that you’re doing better than someone else. These feelings of guilt are fairly common, but they’re rudimentary.

Guest Blogs

GUEST BLOG | My Abusive Relationship with CS at Cornell

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“Look, this is the Bill and Melinda Gates building,” my dad said to my mom for the fifth time as we drove past Gates Hall on our way to East Hill Plaza. My parents don’t get to visit often, and I don’t blame them, since they live 2,000 miles away. My dad works as an IT, so he will always feel compelled to tell the whole family where Gates Hall is the few times they visit me. Again, I don’t blame him. I’m a first-generation student and I know my parents did not get the opportunity that I’m getting right now to study Computer Science.

Campus

OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM | Stop Listening to College Rankings

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Western culture loves to rank everything. From foods to sport teams to cities, we obsess over figuring out the best thing, the second best thing, and so on. One of the more interesting ranking systems is that of colleges. Every year, U.S. News and World Report publishes its popular list of the “best colleges” in the country., which means that a lot of people read and absorb these rankings,yet what actually goes into them? Why are they important?

Life

COFFEE THOUGHTS | First Semester Residues

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As we embark upon the homestretch of this semester, I often find myself spacing out over my usual Temple of Zeus iced mocha. Weirdly enough, I hadn’t even noticed how frequent my coffee consumption was until a friend from home pointed it out via cross-country Facetime—every time we talked, I seemed to have a convenient cup of coffee within hand’s reach. I don’t even really like coffee, or at least, not the black americano no-sugar-no-creamer type of coffee. I’m more of a Starbucks kind of girl, content with the idea of drinking coffee while really just enamored by the festive red cup and its sweet-tooth-satisfying sugariness. Prior to coming to Cornell, I actually rarely drank coffee.

Politics

KRAVITZ’S KORNER | We Need to Rethink First-Year Diversity Programs

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Cornell University recently decided to replace Tapestry of Possibilities — the diversity event that has been presented to incoming first-year students for the past 11 years — with the Identity and Belonging Project. This change was due to a host of complaints leveled against the old program, particularly the failure of the old program to encompass enough topics. The University’s decision to modify this decade-long program brings into question the efficacy of diversity programs, and whether they are really needed.  

Diversity programs instill in students the belief that anything that can be remotely perceived as offensive (i.e. microaggressions) is indeed offensive and should therefore be prohibited. On today’s college campuses, speech that is innocuous in mainstream society is often misconstrued as offensive.

Business

SERENDIPITY | Charlie’s Cold Coffee Challenge (CCC)

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Why do we go to college? You’re probably thinking that the answer here is simple. Well Charlie, if you would stop writing this article in the middle of Sociology 1101, you would probably realize that you go to college for the superior education and job opportunities! Yeah, most of America would probably agree with you. In typical Charlie fashion, I’m going to counter the first paragraph I’ve written for this article and say something vaguely controversial that I’m sure everyone reading this will agree with anyway (I tend to do that all the time in order to increase viewership and Facebook likes): we don’t go to college for the textbook education.

Life

IT’S ONLY LOGICAL | Hooking Up

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“We’re more alike than I thought.”

Probably not, but I was too drunk to worry about the validity of the statement and too fixated on the idea of mitigating the inevitable wave of despair that I associate with falling back into sobriety. We lay there for a little while longer and chatted about pretty much everything , except for what was on our minds. Kant said that it was wrong to use someone as a means to an end, but I don’t really enjoy sex that much so I wasn’t too worried. James 1:15 briefly popped into my mind, but I’ve done worse so again I wasn’t too worried. I woke up early the next morning; we exchanged a hopeless ‘later’ and I began my long walk back to Cascadilla.

Life

CULTURALLY SHOOK | We Don’t Sleep Anymore

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I want to dissociate. Split myself into two bodies, break myself apart into two corporal entities. It would be a twisted ode to nuclear fission, except instead of dividing the nucleus of an atom I would just be dividing myself. Just imagine! I could exist in two places at once, think two thoughts at once, do two things at once.

Life

IT’S ONLY LOGICAL | Pangs of Privilege

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Part 1:

“Heh, Sam!?”

I bounded up the staircase on all fours, caught the baluster at the top and swung into my parent’s bedroom, gliding on the furnished wood floor Risky Business style. A small pair of brown eyes just barely peaked out over the king-sized bed from the other side of the room. “What’s up?” I asked. “Uh. I got lost…”

I looked at him, puzzled for a few moments, before shrugging and clambering back down the stairs.

Politics

MCEVOY MINUTE | How the Sugar Industry Won (and How We Lost)

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Earlier this week, an article was published in JAMA Internal Medicine providing evidence that in the 1960s the sugar industry supplied funding for scientific research that identified fat and cholesterol as the main culprits of coronary heart disease, and downplayed the evidence that sugar consumption can also be linked to CHD. It is likely that this literature, sponsored by the Sugar Research Foundation and originally published in the New England Journal of Medicine, contributed to the rise of low-fat diet in the mid to late 1900s. Today, the American public consumes 25% more carbohydrates than we did in the 1970s, as we have turned away from fatty foods like nuts, meat, and cheese, and began to consume more grains, potatoes, and ‘low-fat’ versions of food. These ‘low-fat’ foods, marketed as the healthier option, are actually packed with salt and sugar to make them taste as good as the original option containing fat. The American Heart Association and the U.S. government, based on misleading information and studies that could not be replicated, perpetuated the idea that a low-fat diet would help reduce weight and risk of heart failure.