Campus

ON MY MIND | ‘C’ Stands for Colonizer, and Also Cornell

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“Colonialism imposed its control of the social production of wealth through military conquest and subsequent political dictatorship. But its most important area of domination was the mental universe of the colonised.” – Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Decolonising the Mind
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Intra-Ivy League bickering aside, Cornell University is widely regarded as one of the top institutions of higher learning in the world. Students who graduate from our school go on to become world leaders in their industry of preference: from Wall Street and Capitol Hill to Hollywood and Silicon Valley. The design and administration of our medicine, our mortgages, our software, our textbooks, our food, our jobs, our cities and our homes all bear the mark of a Cornellian somewhere in the fine print. This is not a matter of opinion; it is a fact of our society.

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?

Campus

SAVING FACE | Enough Is Enough: On Racism at Cornell

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It’s a tumultuous time to be Cornell student. A University first founded on the principle of “any person, any study” has proven time and time again that the students themselves do not live up to these words. For the uninformed or for those who simply haven’t cared enough to inform themselves, Cornell has recently been rocked by multiple acts of overt racism towards fellow students. Last month, a fraternity member of Zeta Psi was heard chanting “let’s build a wall around the [Latino Living Community]”. Despite raised racial tension and cautionary words from the administration, that still was not enough to prevent a Cornell student from beating a fellow student and calling him the N word a week later.

Campus

BIWEEKLY JOKES FOR EVERYDAY FOLKS | How Cornell Markets Liberal Arts

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It really is something to chuckle at, the way Cornell speaks about liberal arts. Specifically within the College of Arts and Sciences, there exists an issue with the rhetoric surrounding our breadth and depth requirements, which I argue stems from our grade-centered education. Ideally, I would care much more about the quality of my education, about my intellectual growth each semester, than I do about my grades. Unfortunately, I am hyper aware of the importance of my grades—their influence on how others view and judge me—and their influence on my future. Whether or not I learn a lot in a class, I have been trained since high school to desire outside recognition of my accomplishments in that class.

Freshman Orientation 2017

TRAVELIN’ WITH JACQUELINE | Soundtrack to My Freshman Year

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This entire summer, I’ve been dreading the day that Fall 2017 starts because it will signal the beginning of the second half of my college experience. As I’m honing in on exactly what I should do at the start of this second half, I’ve been reminiscing and reconsidering all the things I did at the start of the first half, by which I mean: freshman year. And so, I’ve decided to create a “greatest hits” article of my starkest memories from freshman year. Now, there’s really no rhyme or reason to my recollections, but I’m hoping you all will find at least one of them interesting if not entertaining! Track 1: “Dirty Laundry” by Carrie Underwood

So I’m still not sure how long parents usually stay in Ithaca when sending off their newborn Cornellians, but my parents stayed for a week to eat and hike around Ithaca after they moved me in.

Freshman Orientation 2017

SERENDIPITY | 5 Survival Tips and Tricks for New Cornell Students

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Cornell is a difficult place – colloquially, we are known as the easiest Ivy to get into… but the hardest to graduate from. While many of you are among the swaths of high school valedictorians, science fair winners and speech and debate aficionados, all of you will certainly fail at some point in your college careers. Whether you be staring at your grades with a terrible kind of awe, realizing three days later that you never turned in (or started) your final essay, or getting sent to the hospital for drinking too much during O-Week, Cornell will crush your souls in every way, shape and form. But worry not! After pressing on through four years in this frozen wasteland, you will emerge as elite graduates who have a remarkable capacity to change the world for the better.

Freshman Orientation 2017

ARRAY | “That’ll Never Happen To Me”

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When I teetered into my dorm room on the first day, weighed down by three bags I had lugged across the country, I wasn’t inspired by any sense of new beginning despite all the people offering me their collegiate wisdom and telling me that my life had just begun. I missed home, I missed Mom, I felt like I was still just me, packed up and shipped 3000 miles away. By that point, sitting in my dorm room, I believed, with one-hundred percent certainty, that I had taken all those pieces of advice I had  received left and right to heart. I had been told I deserved this, and I believed I did. I had been told to wear sunscreen and to find a path and stick to it, but to keep looking for other ones, and be okay with switching destinations in the middle, so long as I had a goal in sight.

Campus

OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM | The Legacy of Cornell’s Campus

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People know Ithaca for its beauty. When I first visited Cornell in the summer of 2014, I was struck by the seemingly endless verdant grass on the Arts Quad and the sea of trees that surround the school. Unless you grew up around waterfalls, nothing really prepares you for walking to class amongst the sight of our monstrous gorges, where thousands of gallons of water tumble down every second. The natural beauty of Cornell’s campus probably affected my decision to apply; when it’s not freezing cold, the bright greens and blossoming bushes express warmth and exuberance all over the landscape. While looking at this nature, we only think of it in terms of wilderness—of untouched beauty, far from the civilization of Cornell.