At Dr. Schmidt’s talk this past Wednesday called “Place Matters”, I got the chance to learn a lot about what my peer’s lives are like outside of Cornell and how these lifestyles were shaped by their home environments. While I generally ask people where they’re from when I first meet them, I’ve never asked anyone to categorize their hometown as rural, urban, or suburban or to tell me about the history of where they’re from or to discuss the amount of diversity in their hometown. This talk made me realize that 1) people come from a really wide array of homes ranging from densely-packed urban environments to sparsely populated pacific islands, 2) you can never guess what it’s like where someone is from just by looking at them or hearing what state/country they live in, and 3) you can really learn about and connect with people if you give them the chance to share. I connect to my home city very strongly and it was inspiring to hear people share about where they are from. This was by far my favorite Rose Cafe talk that I’ve ever attended because it was an awesome discussion.
Rose Scholars Fall 2017
Endless possibilities
This definitely resonates with me – I come from a very rural part of Oregon that is about a world and a half away from Cornell. During high school, my friends and I would talk a lot about how much we hated the place and couldn’t wait to leave it behind forever. Even though I’ll still never settle down there, in part because there are no job opportunities for me, since I’ve left I’ve realized how important one’s roots are. You can’t just leave behind your roots and forget where you came from. Who are you if you don’t come from anywhere?
Being from someone who lived a decent distance from Miami and grew up in a more densely populated suburban town with the illusion of the perfect green grass, it’s interested to see that mmf228 and I shared the same opinion- not wanting to live where we grew up. Yet, the places we lived in and our experiences are so different since the US has so many different styles. When I visit rural places I actually get excited to explore and learn about the place. I think it really is important to learn from the experiences of others if you just give them the chance to talk about and you might learn some interesting differences or similarities.