Candid at Cornell

Hey everyone, thanks for reading. I cut bits and pieces for this page from my post here.

I’m David Schatz, a junior in the class of 2014, and I’m majoring in Applied Economics and Management in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University.

I’ve lived my whole life up until college in West Hartford, Connecticut–a town which has recently garnered some attention by being named one of the top 10 cities in the country by Kiplinger’s magazine (yeah!). If anything, I can wear a badge of honor showing that I’ve endured 18 tough New England winters. Ithaca hasn’t been too much of a change for the worse…and I guess it was an easier adjustment than those coming from sunny Southern California, right?

Academically, I love languages…I completed 4 years of French and 3 of Chinese (Dui, wo keyi shuo zhongwen. Wo hen xihuan!) in high school, and have completed a year of French at Cornell.  One of the highlights of my high school career was actually going to China on a school trip for two weeks. It was awesome, because we were literally able to tour such a wide variety of places–we went to small resort towns (Yangshuo, anyone?) to the large, bustling cities of Shanghai and Beijing. I’d totally recommend it to anyone interested in seeing a completely different lifestyle from our American one; I mean, I doubt the happy Chinese farmers we met cared about how many people wrote on their Facebook walls, or if Jack Bauer was going to die in the season finale of 24. (Off topic, but it is definitely worth watching! I won’t give anything away.)

I definitely kept myself busy in high school. Besides the schoolwork, I was involved in writing for and editing the school newspaper, doing Model UN, being a teaching assistant/tutor, etc. It wasn’t too hard to transform these activities into something I’d enjoy doing at the Big Red, as I’ve found myself pretty involved with lots of groups–including the Cornell University Programming Board (CUPB) and a business fraternity.

So…what are my academic interests? Well, as someone greatly interested in business, I’m taking all sorts of strategy courses in AEM, as I’d love to pursue a career that involves people, commerce, and technology. I transferred into the Dyson School after two years of liberal arts study in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell, so I’d say I’ve had a pretty unique academic experience. Taking courses that range from business management to astronomy, entomology to human-environment relations…well, I guess that’s the kind of thing that can only be accomplished at a school as big as Cornell!

If you have any questions/comments at all, don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail, Facebook message, comment…you name it. I’ll try to reply ASAP.

Thanks!