Author Archives: TBS

Kudos and Suggestions for Cornell Dining  

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Overall, Cornell dining is fantastic! We have great-tasting, high-quality food and there are always lots of options. Cornell has conducted successful initiatives to encourage healthy, sustainable eating and also works hard to accommodate students with dietary restrictions for medical and religious reasons.

Still, there are certain areas which I believe Cornell dining could improve:

  • Lines. Okenshields (the only all-you-care-to-eat dining hall on Central Campus) is infamous for the long lines that form as soon as people finish their morning classes. And there are frequently long lines for specialty nights on West Campus such as Rose House’s Taco Tuesday. I believe that by putting a little thought into the problem and perhaps re-arranging the serving stations, these lines could be significantly reduced and students would be able to get their food with less hassle.
  • Strict Policies on Taking Fruit. Despite the high meal prices (the required plan students who live on West Campus is $2,758 per semester) students are only allowed to take a single apple, banana, or orange out of the dining halls. Just last week I witnessed a student receive a JA (judicial action) for attempting to take extra fruit of the dinning hall. But honestly, aren’t there better things that the dining staff could be doing than meticulously checking whether students take an extra apple?
  • Late Openings on Weekends. The West Campus dining halls don’t begin serving hot foods until 10 am or 10:30 am on the weekends which almost seems to encourage students to stay up late partying. For those of us who go to bed at a reasonable time and wake up early, it is inconvenient to have to wait several hours before we can get breakfast.

Thank you to Paul Muscente and Chef Daniel for teaching us about Cornell Dining. The scale of the operation (~19,000 meals per day) is extremely impressive and Cornell does a fantastic job. I know Cornell students are thankful for the food we have, especially considering that students at many other universities are not as lucky.

 

The Fascinating Rare Texts and Ancient Artifacts in the Kroch Library

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Through the Rose Scholars Program we had the fantastic opportunity of learning about the Kroch Rare and Manuscript Library from Lance Heidig, an Olin librarian. He crafted a fascinating talk that highlighted several of the impressive artifacts from the Kroch library while telling an abbreviated story of the development of Western civilization from four thousand years ago to the twenty-first century. Some of the artifacts are pictured below.

However, what made this such a wonderful experience for me was learning that Cornell has a football field-sized vault in the bottom of Olin library that houses these special objects and primary sources. Mr. Heidig also did a great job of highlighting the need to balance preservation and access. While it is important to keep the objects and texts in good condition, it is equally (if not more) important that students, professors, and scholars can learn directly from them. Overall, I truly enjoyed learning about this fascinating aspect of Cornell that I previously did not even know existed!

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Marshall Curry on Documentary Filmmaking

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Marshall Curry, two-time Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker, joined us for dinner. Here are trailers of two of his movies:

There were two main questions I would have liked to ask, given more time:

  1. Does Mr. Curry believe that he would have stuck with documentary filmmaking had his films not been so immediately successful (winning awards in festivals such as Tribeca and earning Oscar nominations)? I can easily imagine numerous other aspiring filmmakers going through a similar struggle to make a movie and then feeling dejected if their movie does not receive high acclaim. I would have liked to ask Mr. Curry how much of his success he attributes to the luck of the first film he ever made being so well-received and how much of of it he believes comes from pure talent and determination.
  1. Mr. Curry mentioned that in two of his films, Mistaken for Strangers and Point and Shoot, he chose to use the footage in a way the subject of the film didn’t intend. I would have liked to ask him what terms and conditions a documentary filmmaker agrees upon with his/her subjects at the outset. I was also interested to learn how the subjects felt about his editorial decisions.

Today Technolgy and Business are Inseparable

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There were two main themes throughout the dinner conversation with Nandan Amladi, Vice President of US Equity Research on Cloud Computing and Software at Deutche Bank. The first was the incredible speed at which computing is changing and the repercussions of that evolution within the tech and finance industry. The second was that for students who are interested in careers in business, having some degree of technical literacy is essential.

Mr. Amladi explained the factors he examines when evaluating a software company and deciding whether to recommend buying stock in the company or not. Although the criteria themselves are fundamental business concepts such as cash flow, product differentiation, etc., there has been significant change in the technology itself and the business models by which technology companies operate. For example, cloud companies such as Oracle, Amazon (A.W.S), and Microsoft (Azure) have changed what layers of the stack they control from the hardware at the bottom to the software on top.

Presently, to understand the complex business models one must also understand the technology offerings, how they operate, and how they fit together. In the second main theme of the discussion, Mr. Amladi stressed the importance of having technical literacy. He himself switched from the purely technical side to the business side of things by getting an M.B.A. but emphasized that several of his colleagues at Deutche bank have formal degrees in business and learned the technology aspects on the job. To illustrate the interconnectedness of technology and business, we talked about an anecdote in which a start-up founder needed to hire a CTO but didn’t know what questions to ask in the interview to determine whether the candidate was qualified.

What was most interesting to me was the strong parallels between Mr. Amladi’s perspective and Michael Belkin’s, a Rose House guest two weeks ago. A Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Mr. Belkin got an undergraduate degree in business and then an MBA but as he started his technology start-up, he realized that he also needed technical skills and couldn’t just rely on others to execute his vision. He took programming classes and ended up developing a passion for computer science. So while Mr. Amladi and Mr. Belkin have had quite different career paths, their similar advice attests to the validity of each other’s perspective on today’s interweaving technology and business climate.

 

 

Advice from a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur

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Michael Belkin had a lot of sage advice for the aspiring entrepreneurs who came to his Rose dinner conversation. As a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has received funding from renowned investors such as Peter Thiel, Mr. Belkin had an interesting story and perspective to share.

As he told us about the evolution of his own company, Distinc.tt, which is now a LGBT social networking site, Mr. Belkin stressed the importance of being able to adapt one’s company and business plan. His own company went through many iterations (it was previously modeled more like Tinder) before arriving at one that became successful. He emphasized that finding what works requires trial and error to determine what customers are willing to pay for and to find markets in which the company can excel. He also stressed that pivots should be seen as exciting new opportunities as opposed to recognition that the prior product/strategy was a failure. Often entrepreneurs obsess over what went wrong or feel personally offended that the initial product was not well-received.

Mr. Belkin also told us how he started out as a single founder of his company but in retrospect wishes he had had a business partner from the very beginning. He explained that it is important to have someone who is invested in the idea and the company as much as you are and to endure the difficulties of starting a business together.

In response to students’ questions about who to have as a business partner, Mr. Belkin suggested choosing a good friend who you know you get along with. After all, you will be spending all day, every day with that person. You need to respect them and believe that they are smarter than you are. Otherwise, you will always need to get your way in disagreements and won’t be able to gain from their ideas. One insightful comment Mr. Belkin made was to contrast a business partner from a romantic significant other. When business partners fight, they must hash it out and come to a conclusion. There is no “agreeing to disagree” or ignoring the issue. Decisions need to be made and one of the partners must necessarily win out over the other. In this regard, working with a business partner is more difficult than any other relation

Finally, Mr. Belkin spoke about the importance of having at least basic technical skills. Although he was an AEM major at Cornell, he took programming courses while in business school because he realized that they are a fundamental part of being a successful tech founder, especially in Silicon Valley.

 

 

More Harm than Good?

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Over dinner with house guest Mark Weber, co-producer of the documentary film Poverty Inc., we discussed the causes of poverty and how even well-intentioned aid efforts can sometimes have unforeseen negative consequences. Mr. Weber advanced the idea that the Western World’s idea of industrial development and its mission to help developing countries is a remnant of the colonial mentality. He also identified several issues with how non-profits operate:

  • Unlike for-profit companies which go out of business when they are unsuccessful, non-profits continue to operate as long as they have continued funding.
  • There is no feedback mechanism by which the recipients of aid can communicate with givers of the aid.
  • People who donate money, goods, or services, expect to see an immediate impact. In reality, a lot of the work of developing a country and alleviating poverty is un-glamorous and takes significant time and infrastructure to develop.

We also drew upon our collective personal experiences and identified some key factors which may hinder the development of African countries in particular. One of particular interest was “brain drain” which is when the best and brightest move to other countries that have more resources and more opportunities for them. This was a pertinent concept for our discussion since many international students leave their home country and come to Cornell to receive the high-caliber education and many will continue their lives here in the United States after graduation.

Poverty Inc. Trailer >> http:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqGQ1IRhdzg

Making the Most of a Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity

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“Time is time. It’s the commodity you have in life.”

Professor Daniel R. Schwarz’s advice ranged from practical to philosophical. He identified key goals for each year of university such as becoming involved on campus during freshman year, carefully selecting an advisor during sophomore year, taking stimulating coursework outside one’s major during junior year, and planning for graduate school or to enter industry during senior year. While none of the ideas were particularly novel, it was valuable to hear them condensed into a single, direct talk.

I have observed at Cornell a divide between professors who have been teaching here a long time and the students who grew up in an entirely different, digital age. During his talk, Professor Schwarz espoused several traditional values such as the importance of strong public speaking skills and the value of keeping a daily journal. Given this, it was surprising to me that in addition to recommending every student study the humanities and economics, he also signaled out computer literacy as a vital skill in today’s world. This statement indicated to me that the classical paradigm for a well-rounded education is shifting. (New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s recent announcement corroborates this trend.)

Professor Schwarz summarized his talk by emphasizing the importance of resiliency, resourcefulness, and resolve during college and life afterward. These attributes are certainly essential during college when students are repeatedly faced with challenges they have never experienced before. But even more important than these three key values, I think Professor Schwarz’s talk rightfully pointed out that college is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and it is important to constantly reflect and evaluate whether one is spending his or her time in the best way possible.