Not to get too cheeseball or anything (remember, the collective emotional state of the Class of 2008 is a little bit nutjobesque right now due to the abrupt change in lifestyles and surroundings), but you know that old saying about Cornell being the “easiest Ivy to get into and the hardest one to graduate from”? I don’t think that refers to academics (although, given the Close Call of the Century that was my academic record, maybe that second part holds true for the curriculum).

See, I think it refers to the community and the people here. It was SO easy to make friends when we got here. Remarkably, I have, more or less, had the same core group of best friends — especially best girlfriends — since the 2nd day of freshman orientation. And leaving Cornell, because of the experience and because of them, was one of the most heartwrenching things I’ve ever gone through (hey, shut up, I’m only 21). Like the end of an 80’s movie, I’m going to put together a “where are they now” epilogue. ME FIRST:

• I ended up landing a FANTASTIC job. After all that searching and interviewing, I was hired as the Assistant Editor at HotelChatter, the hotel news/reviews web magazine where I interned last summer. After deciding to pursue writing, I was looking around at a lot of print magazines and some PR firms; but ultimately, I love and respect both the editor and publisher at HotelChatter and I know my writing style fits in well there. There are tons of exciting things happening with them, and I could not have come on board at a more perfect time — it’s been a great experience so far. Plus, I mean, hotel reviews, a flexible schedule, 4-5 published articles a day and cool bosses? Who could ask for more? I’m working from home right now and I’m going to be moving to NYC on August 1st. I’m also working on a few freelance writing projects, small and large
• Brett is moving to Las Vegas; since the day I met her, she has talked endlessly about her dream of one day running a Vegas casino — and now she’s going into the leadership training program at the Wynn Las Vegas.
• Jordan is heading to NYC to work at Sirius Satellite Radio, a bit of a change from his original dream of being a meteorologist. But while at Cornell, he became the general manager of the local Ithaca radio station and, well, he found his calling.
• Ashley graduated Phi Beta Kappa and is heading to UC Berkeley to pursue her PhD in Performance Studies.
• Danielle has a million different options and has been traveling (like we all should have been doing) before she chooses one.
• Nick is heading to an NY TV station to be a weatherman!
• Tim is going to Boston to work in the management training program at his favorite hotel.
• Ian is off to DC to work for a hotel brokerage, which probably allows him to utilize his skills as the world’s best BSer.

I will tell anyone who is worried about Cornell’s size this much: these people, over the last 4 years, became my second family. My girlfriends and I fought like sisters, but together we weathered the various storms that took the form of boyfriends, apartment troubles, the Greek system and, well, growing up — and I can say with confidence that those girls will be bridesmaids at my wedding (however, I cannot say with confidence that I will ever bother to get married).

I’ve been avoiding making the final updates to my blog because, well, every time I sat down to write, I was reminded of a fact I wasn’t quite ready to face: I GRADUATED.

No, I KNOW, right? I am a Cornell graduate. That’s me in that photo on the right. At graduation. I have a diploma, which I made my parents take away so that I would neither destroy the most expensive piece of paper I will ever lay my grubby fingers on nor be forced to look at the tangible evidence that the best years of my life thus far have come to an end.

I will say this: I made it out of the Hotel School with not one single credit to spare. Ha! But I passed finance (with a D, but that is neither here nor there) and knowing I worked my ass off this semester really made the Commencement festivities all the more satisfying.

Now, Senior Week was a sloppy mess. I literally could not have spared a single moment to sit down and reflect on anything, and I think that’s the reason why there’s a big space between the last day of finals and Commencement weekend — the idea, I suppose, is to let all the seniors drink and party so they don’t have any time to realize that in a matter of days they will be thrust into the vast, mythical nebulous nothingness that is the Real World. Or maybe that’s actually the reason we were drinking all week. Meh, who knows. Point here: it was GREAT.

Then came Commencement weekend. Maya Angelou, in all her crazy awesomeness, was a fantastic speaker on Saturday during Convocation, but nothing she could have said and nothing I could have ever imagined could have prepared me for the experience of Sunday’s Commencement ceremony.

Words could never do justice to the things we all felt during Commencement. We all cried more than once that day, and nobody was able to articulate what they were feeling or whether the tears were happy tears or sad tears. We had this unfamiliar knot in our stomachs; a bittersweet potent cocktail of enormous pride, overwhelming happiness and debilitating terror.
That morning, in all our funny graduation regalia, three of my best friends and I walked toward Schoellkopf stadium from the Arts Quad with the rest of the Hotel School. Along the way, we passed the Board of Trustees and President Skorton, cheering and smiling, and almost all the Cornell Faculty members who had these huge proud-parent type grins on their faces, calling out to congratulate each one of us as we walked by. As we got closer to the stadium, the entire Statler Hotel staff was there to cheer us on. I can say, without much doubt, that the Procession is something I will remember forever and one of the best moments of my life.

And then we walked into the stadium and saw the crowd and it was all suddenly so real.

The following days were the toughest. Between hoeing out my apartment, shipping all my crap, and saying goodbye to the people who had, more or less, become my second family over the last four years, I was left bewildered and shellshocked by the end of the whole thing. And all I could think was holy crap: I am a Cornell graduate.

I’m sure I’m going to piss off half the Ivy League by comparing Cornell to Columbia, but let’s pretend–just for a moment–that all Ivy League students are comrades as we wade through the treacherous final exam periods at our respective fine Northeastern institutions, okay?

Bwog, an awesome blog over at Columbia, went around and took pictures of various students’ workspaces in Butler Library (what I assume is Columbia’s Uris equivalent). What they found looks at lot like what Cornell students have been seeing & experiencing this week. Also awesome:

“A boy, having noticed our camera, went up to Bwog and informed us that somewhere on the fourth floor, a creature was dwelling who had taped pictures of her family on the walls.”

The post, aptly titled “A Dark Night of the Soul”, and more photos like the one below, can be found here.

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR PHOTOGRAPHS OF A RITUALISTIC BURNING OF ALL MY FINANCE COURSE MATERIALS. [I hope.]

First, I am alive. Sorry for the lack of updates, but I literally need every single credit to graduate on time, and when you’re dealing with finals and/or papers for seven (!!!) classes while trying to navigate the senior-class event & celebration schedule, well … little luxuries like sleep, showering and blogging must be sacrificed in the name of passing Finance class. In hindsight, I should have taken half the courseload and would have been better off taking an extra semester here — because, much to the dismay of my parents, I refused to give up any of my on-campus activities. But all that is another story for another day, and extra semesters ain’t free. Anyway, I’ll be back in full-force soon.

Ah, Hotelie Senior Prom. As the Hotel School has long been teased for its high school-like structure — small size, intimate classes, lockers in the hallways and a healthy gossip circuit — the seniors [independently of the school!] have thrown themselves a Hotelie Senior Prom to appropriately celebrate their reputation as well as their own awesomeness. I could fill an entire book with the events that transpired at Hotelie Prom last week, so I’ll sum it up by saying that taking all the senior Hotelies — who, individually, are traditionally the life of any party — and throwing them together in one room with formal wear, music and refreshments results in … the world exploding. Below, a shot of the girls (and the animal print makes an appearance once again):

And last night, another prom! The Class of 2008 started a new tradition, a Cornell-wide Senior Class prom held in the incredible Duffield Hall atrium space. Open bar + charity + pretty outfits = amazing, of course, but there was more to the experience than that.

I was on the Prom Court (giggle!) and the dozen (or so) of us on Court went up on a balcony overlooking the whole prom for the King/Queen crowning ceremony. As soon as we got up there, though, the entire place busted out in the Alma Mater together and from where we stood, we held hands and looked down to see the whole graduating class singing our school song together. It was just so … moving.

I recognized so many faces in the crowd and realized just how much this place has given me, how profoundly Cornell has changed me and how truly unforgettable every moment of the last four years has been. It was a sad moment, but, truly, a fitting end to my four years here. I guess it’s ironic that this moment occurred while I was teetering on my high heels, wearing a dress and standing on a balcony inside the atrium of an Engineering building on a Saturday night, but it was a memorable moment nonetheless. I understand how potentially lame and Tour-Guidey this may all sound, but feeling such a connection with my Cornell graduating class was one of the most heartwarming moments of my college experience. . . even though I didn’t win Prom Queen.

So, here’s the deal: I have been actively searching for a job since October. And when I say searching, I mean checking MediaBistro every single day, sending my resume to everyone and anyone that I might even consider working for, and networking like crazy. I haven’t really dropped the ball or stopped looking at any point, and I’ve put a lot of my focus and energy into making sure my clips, resumes and cover letters are the best they could have been.

But now it’s April and I literally have zero offers. At this point, I am officially the only one of my hotelie friends who has no idea where she will be living or what she will be doing six weeks from now. As my classmates sign leases and start checking out IKEA furniture for their new urban apartments, I’ve found myself staring out onto what is nothing more than just a big, black space that lies beyond May 25th. As one might imagine, it is probably — likely — one of the scariest things I’ve ever been faced with (hey, come on, I’m only 21). And yo, incoming freshmen: the prospect of moving far from home to come to college is nothing; just wait ’til you’re a Cornell senior!

It’s been no secret that the job market is especially tough for this year’s grads, the state of the economy is terrifying and media — a fairly unpredictable industry to begin with — is changing rapidly. People are getting slashed from newsrooms all over the country and, this summer, staffers at my favorite magazine (Jane) walked into work one day to find that they no longer had jobs — the publication had just folded. It happens.

I have been lucky enough to find something I’m passionate about (and trust me, I know that apathy is probably far worse than uncertainty or unemployment) and even more fortunate to have parents that support their children who have both decided to ditch their respective educational tracks to be Alaskan Mountain Guides (my brother) or writers (me). I consider myself fairly savvy when it comes to new media (and therefore employable), but — let’s get real, there’s a whole city full of equally-savvy, comparably-educated media types who can interview for, get hired into and start working at the job I’d want in the time it takes for me to even get down to New York and interview for the open position (let alone the time that would pass between my landing the job, finishing up my degree and moving out there).

I never thought it was going to be a piece of cake to use my Hotel School degree to pursue something outside the scope of a traditional hospitality or financial job, but JC — I would have never imagined it would be this difficult or emotional. I think I did a really, really crappy job of managing my expectations throughout this process (let’s just say sista got a little full of herself) . . . but, then again, when you’re at the most prestigious hospitality school in the world, you watch employers banging down your classmates’ doors, and so some part of you expects them to do the same to you. Also, more often than not, I found myself having to defend my decision to major in Hotel Administration in all my media and publishing interviews — and I wasn’t prepared for that, either.

Anyway, since I need to graduate, I have to pour my energy into my massive courseload and just stop searching now. I still have a couple of balls in the air, but, at this point, I can’t reach out to anyone new because, hey — if I do get a job and then have to stick around Ithaca for an extra semester just to finish my degree anyway, that job won’t do me too much good, will it? =) Today was the deadline that I’d set for myself; I promised myself that if I didn’t have a job offer by now, I would turn my full attention back to my schoolwork.

Right now, the plan is to move back to Dallas and look for jobs from Bromberg HQ. Word on the street is that the computers, printers and broadband connections are much faster there than they are in my yucky college apartment, anyway. If anything happens between now and then, you, my dear fabulous readers, will be the first to know.

I’ve got some dirt! Well, kind of. Real dirt– not the ferocious anonymous message board kind.

Sidenote: there is a new website gaining popularity on campus that seems to have no shortage of bitchy gossip and rantings (turns out, the idea of Mean Girls meets Gossip Girl is far more kickass in theory than in practice) and I do not endorse it. As we all learned in junior high school, rumors are hilarious and fun until you find yourself on the other side of them… thanks for the shoutouts, though, anonymous disgruntled Big Red boys and girls! You make the rest of your peers proud to call ourselves Ivy Leaguers!

Whatever, I guess no publicity is bad publicity, right? Anyway…
So, on Friday, a bunch of Cornell bigwigs got together in NYC and announced that the Far Above Campaign has hit the $2 billion mark and the Great Fundraising Powers That Be are halfway to their goal of $4 billion. More on that in a hot second.

Tonight was the kickoff reception for the 2008 Senior Class Campaign, the University’s effort to encourage seniors to start thinking about donating a bit of money (as low as $5.00– I can chill with that; I spent more than that on my Statler salad today) and stay financially and socially involved with Cornell for the next 50-some years. Invited to the reception were a handful of “campus leaders” (I was flattered!) and we had a good hour or so to mingle with the Skortonator himself. He gave us a quickie speech during which he admitted that his son, a class of ‘08er at a West Coast school, still had no idea what he was going to be doing post-graduation. “It’s January! He still has no idea! Somehow I feel a lot better confessing this to you all,” he said. Somehow I felt it appropriate to keep my mouth shut about my lack of post-grad plans– I get enough looks of “get your life together immediately” from my Dad; I don’t know if I really need one from the president of our fine institution.

Anyway, hey seniors: give some money. Next week, buy your morning coffee from CTB instead of the ‘Bucks and you’ll probably accumulate $10.00 over the course of a few days anyway. That’s $10.00 for Cornell! Yay!

Oh, right. The news. So, due in part to the massive amount of money raised by the Far Above campaign, Skorton told us tonight that some big, “robust” changes were being made to Cornell’s financial aid program. Details are going to be released to the Sun in the next 48 hours. Getting in sync with the other Ivies, perhaps? Hmmm…