Cornell and Beyond

beyond the Cornell bubble

On Friday after finishing work I decided to go get my book for my writing class. Our instructor had, in an unusual twist of fate, told us to purchase our books at the independent bookstore in the commons, The Bookery.

After being pointed to the Dewitt Mall, a foreboding looking, somewhat sad specimen of a building, I was ready to walk into a mall with abandoned stores and cobwebs.

I was flabbergasted, when after entering through the heavy double doors I was met with a cute little shopping plaza teaming with life and the most random shops you could imagine.

Need a glow in the dark bongo? Or perhaps some salsa cowbells? (What is a salsa cowbell? Kudos if you leave a comment explaining.) Or perhaps you and the rest of your dorm are looking for lots and lots of hats. Or, maybe antique photos of men, women and families, none of whom you know? Vintage postcards, xylophones, electric guitars, handmade scarves, vegetarian food …the list goes on. You just might find it. And best of all was the unassuming bookstore where you could quietly curl up with a book in their reading room.

Overall it was an eye-opening trip, considering I never even realized all those stores existed…just goes to show, when you think you’ve seen it all…

I will say that, after my visit, I do say with certainty that the shopping plaza is very Ithaca.

on writing an honors thesis

To obtain honors upon graduating with a Biological Sciences major at Cornell, one of the things you must do in the College of Arts and Sciences is complete an honors thesis. And it’s no joke. But you may be wondering, what does an honors thesis at Cornell entail?

For all the sordid, gory details of latin honors and program requirements (summa cum laude, magna cum laude, cum grano salis, etc) visit the undergraduate Cornell Biology website. Whether you get latin honors and what level, or if you just get honors with distinction depends on your GPA and school, so I won’t even bother getting into it here.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the question of the moment: what does it mean, exactly, to do an honors thesis?

It entails doing independent research with faculty. It’s not easy, but generally it starts with sending many groveling e-mails to various professors that are doing research you would be interested in being involved in. Once a professor takes pity on you and agrees to meet with you, it’s up to you to prove that you have the time, and willingness to help with their research. Many people start this in their junior year, I started the summer before my senior year since I was abroad.

The next step is enrolling in Bio299 or 499, to get some credit for all the work you’re going to be doing. This past Fall semester I was enrolled in 499 since I had already done research in the summer. This basically means you’ll get credit for going into the lab every week, like independent study. You also need to submit a simple application to the Honors committee giving an abstract of your research goals and background. In your major, you will then meet with your honors group every so often. My group was quite small, never more than 10 people at our meetings. (However, this was probably due to the 8 AM Monday meeting time as much as anything else.) During the meetings, one by one we informally shared what type of research we were involved in as well as what stage we were in, our hypotheses and any results we may already have. Most of these meetings were actually quite interesting, as students in the Neurobiology and Behavior department were involved in everything from the psychology of smell to the evolution of multicellular organisms.

In February I will turn in an outline of my research, and in March I will turn in a 20-30 page draft, in scientific journal format, that will then be reviewed by the committee and returned to me for revisions.

And that’s that. Not as scary as it initially sounded, right? I mean, it’s not a piece of cake, but it’s not ridiculous either. And at graduation, if I’ve managed to push through everything successfully, I even get to go to a special honors reception, where I might, if I’m lucky, at least get a piece of cake.

it’s that time of the year again: winter break

How does that old adage go? The grass is always greener? I think in Ithaca it may be more aptly said “the snow is always whiter” but you get the point. Over break I realized how excited I (and many of my friends) were to get back to school.

And yet during the actual semester, the things we tend to do the most is whine and complain about all our work. About classes, professors, countless hours of studying, and the newest complaint instigator: figuring out what in the world people will be doing after graduation in a few short months. I’m not saying that this occurs 24/7 but once we get to school people tend to throw out any appreciation of the school just as easily as the biodegradable cutlery. With the seemingly endless workload professors so mercilessly place upon us, what is it about Cornell that makes me want to go back as soon as I leave? (And sometimes, makes me want to go back even before I’ve left?)

Maybe it’s my friends there, the classes I’ll be taking, or the prospect of going back to a house with a newly redone kitchen, but I am excited to go back to Ithaca. The negative five degree weather, maybe not so much a draw. But I’ll take it. Because Cornell, I don’t know what you do to me, but I love you all the same.