About Me
Hey everyone, just wanted to give a brief introduction of myself and this blog:To start with, my name is Benjamin Edward Crovella – or just Ben – and I am a Senior Applied Economics and Management (AEM) major (http://business.aem.cornell.edu) with a concentration in Business in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. However, I wasn’t always in my major. I came to Cornell University as a Pre-Med Mathematics major in the College of Arts and Sciences. I toyed around briefly with being a Classics major before I landed at Undecided (all within a semester…). Going into my second semester at Cornell I decided to take a class in the AEM program (shameless plug: AEM is the only accredited undergraduate business program in the Ivy League other than undergrads who study at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania) on a recommendation from a buddy of mine already in the program. I took the unnamed class (if you are familiar with spring semester classes you can probably guess which class…) for the main reason that I had heard it was easy. I DO NOT condone choosing classes this way – but I was pledging my fraternity and was not looking to overexert myself academically. What I found was that I really enjoyed business and began the path of transferring majors. Since AEM is the most popular major to transfer into at Cornell, this was quite a process – it took me a year of studying entirely AEM classes while concurrently enrolled in a separate college (Arts), a lot of good grades, and a simple application and I was in. For anyone wondering about this process – it is very possible to switch colleges at Cornell and no one I know who has ever wanted to switch colleges or their major has ever been denied. Since then, AEM has been very good to me, I have excelled in all of my classes (I maintain a 3.9 GPA), and I will be a teaching assistant for Introduction to Corporate Finance (AEM 324) this upcoming semester.
But enough about academics – here is a little about myself. I am the son of Mark and Linda Crovella (both Cornell class of 1982) and I have 3 siblings – a sister Emily, 17, who is currently studying as part of a high school foreign exchange program in Paris (her interest was sparked after my entire family lived in Paris during my freshman year of college), and identical twin brothers Ian and Colin who just turned 8 years old. I grew up for the first 9 years of my life in East Aurora, NY (outside of Buffalo) and then moved to Scituate, MA (halfway between Boston and Cape Cod, on the shore) – which I still consider my hometown. I attended a number of schools during elementary and middle school and finally landed at Boston College High School (http://www.bchigh.edu). Although it is no longer officially affiliated with Boston College the Eagle pride runs true and it is a parochial school of about 1200 males. BC High was a tough adaptation for me – I was not Catholic or very well behaved, so the concept of a dress code and strict rules was a bit foreign to me. However, by the second year I got the hang of things and I really loved my time there – we had a very tight knit group of guys who were from both Scituate and BC High and the academic rigor I feel truly prepared me well for Cornell. I was able to study a number of interesting subjects there – college level Latin (my 5th and 6th years of Latin), Greek (translating the Iliad), Mechanics and Electricity and Magnetism Physics, two years of college level writing and reading courses, and a one on one class in multivariate calculus. Being with all guys wasn’t so bad either – no worries about what to wear or who to impress at school, and we had plenty of wild dances each month… Sports are quite big at BC High – soccer was my main sport but I also played a bit of lacrosse and downhill skied competitively for a year. I was involved with a number of other typical high school activities like key society, the newspaper, etc.
I remember pretty clearly in high school when 911 happened, I walked into homeroom and it was just totally surreal, I really didn’t believe it at first I thought it was a hoax. What it did was really get me thinking about things and I decided to apply for an ROTC scholarship. So, on a whim I applied for all three – Army, Navy, and Air Force. Since I wasn’t an engineer I didn’t get Air Force and I couldn’t get a medical waiver I needed for Army, but things went smoothly with the Navy and I actually won a full scholarship to Cornell. Although my parents (especially Mom) were opposed to me in the military I decided to give it a shot.
I arrived at Cornell a week before Freshman Orientation Week for the “optional, Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) orientation.” http://navy.cornell.edu/cornell.html What I didn’t realize was that it would be an abrupt insertion into military life and that the next seven days would test me both mentally and physically. Although it seemed like a hell week at the time, looking back it wasn’t really so bad and it made the fun of the real orientation week that much sweeter. Plus, I already had 20 friends going into it from ROTC. ROTC was quite difficult my freshman year, my typical week would consist of Tuesday at Thursday morning waking up 4:45AM having drill practice (marching with rifles), Naval Science class (for no credit), and then my normal day of classes would start. In addition, we had drill lab (sort of like a different thing each week – guest speakers, athletic days, urinalysis tests, physical fitness tests, etc.) for 2 hours each Wednesday afternoon, and then sailing lessons on Sunday morning. So, it was quite a lot to add on to a full schedule of classes all in my first semester of college. But, I made it through and actually really started to enjoy ROTC and the military. I was strongly attracted to the Marines, who made up a small part of the Navy ROTC midshipmen. They wore different uniforms from us, did extra PT (physical training) on their own, and were all in all a separate entity from the Navy midshipmen. I began the process of transferring to become a Marine Option midshipman (again, much to my Mother’s chagrin) which took me near a year to complete and I actually was turned down on my first attempt. I have done a lot of cool things as a Marine Option midshipman – after freshman year I got to fly on a jet, go underway on a nuclear submarine, and have a water balloon fight between two destroyers sailing next to each other. I have gone to the Mountain Warfare Training Center (http://www.mwtc.usmc.mil/public/index.html) and finally Officer Candidates School – which will be talked about extensively later on.
Other than ROTC, I have been quite involved with my fraternity the Chi chapter of Psi Upsilon or simply, “Psi U”. I pledged along with 14 other guys during my second semester of freshman year and have lived in the fraternity house at 2 Forest Park Lane for the past two years of college. Some of my best friends in the world are my fraternity brothers and nearly all of the good times I have had in college were either at the house or with fellow brothers. I held (for a short time) the position of Philanthropy Chairman and was the Athletics Chairman of the house for a year. Anyone reading this who is a current or former brother of Psi U understands the bond we all share and why I write so fondly of my experience so far. In addition, I feel that the fraternity system at Cornell is not only a great addition socially but more importantly adds a strong philanthropic dimension to Cornell. At Psi U each brother is required to work at least 4 hours each semester of community service in addition to our signature events – first semester we run a dressy wine tasting/cocktail party that raises $3,000 to buy a seeing eye dog and second semester we host a “Holiday Bowl” at a local bowling alley that typically raises a few thousand dollars for ALS. Our house is only I would average in the amount of philanthropic activities we host or participate in.
My other activity that I am quite involved with is being a Senior Information Specialist at Cornell Information and Visitor Relations (CIVR). Basically, that is a wordy way of saying that I am a tour guide at Cornell. I have been giving tours, answering 254-INFO phone calls, and replying to info@cornell.edu emails for the past two years now, and I have really enjoyed both the work and the great people I work with. I even spent last summer in Ithaca working at CIVR during the days, and relaxing and swimming in the gorges during the afternoons while living at the fraternity house. For anyone who comes to Cornell I cannot recommend strongly enough living in Ithaca during a summer – the weather is amazing, the people are great, and it is all in all a wonderful experience.
So that is a little bit about where I come from and what I have done here at Cornell. I will add more things as they come to me while writing this blog over the next year or so. What I really hope to accomplish with this blog is to give both perspective students and any other interested readers a glimpse both into my life and my take on Cornell. I think I offer a pretty unique viewpoint of life here at Cornell – I am conservative, military (both not so typical qualities in Ithaca, NY) but still involved with a fraternity and active in many other areas of Cornell. I aim to keep this blog entertaining, funny, as well as brutally honest. I am anticipating having a memorable Senior year – packed with a lot of busy school days but also fun nights. Hopefully I can give everyone an accurate snapshot of life at Cornell while providing some fun to read posts at the same time.
If you want to ask me any questions, feel free to reach me at: