Words of Wisdom | Rose Scholars Fall 2018

Tonight we had the opportunity to sit down and have a candid and open conversation with VP of Student and Campus life, Ryan Lombardi. While I was expecting for the talk to focus around Mr. Lombardi’s experiences at Cornell and his background, the hot topic centered around the various pressures that we face as college students and Cornellians especially in this day and age. The discussions around the campus’ often intense atmosphere and pre-professional alignment reminded me of thoughts that I had, but did not know that other students shared. One student discussed how she was shocked to come to Cornell and discover just how career oriented everyone was. What especially resonated with me was VP Lombardi’s warning against being a part of the rampant comparison culture that I will admit I partake in. Whenever I hear someone discussing the internships they have had, or the positions they hold in certain selective student organizations it makes me so anxious. It makes me feel as if I need to be doing more, trying harder. Unfortunately, this mentality had led me to over commit myself time and time again. This talk was a much needed wake up call. Mr. Lombardi ended the talk by urging us to enjoy our lives now, and to really take advantage of the unique resources and people that Cornell had to offer. This made me reflect on my time at Cornell so far. Although I am a sophomore, I often find myself in not a good mood concerning the combined job of balancing academics, student organization obligations, and seeking out professional opportunities. However, I will try to change my perspective of life on the Hill, and work towards making my experience here more enjoyable!

2 thoughts on “Words of Wisdom”

I’ve always hated how all of us are encouraged to have the best curriculum, to be the best student, to have the best grades, etc. As a society, we give way too much credit those things, in my view. Too much credit to what can be put in a paper or resume, to test scores that supposedly reflect our knowledge in a single moment of our lives. We essentially simplify and objectify people in this sense, and that has terrible consequences. It’s unhealthy and it makes us lose focus of what is important in favor of a meaningless competition (I’m not saying that competition itself is bad in principle; just that, in this scenario, it doesn’t make sense). For a few years already, I’ve wondered how this could be changed. It’s not simple to change it if it comes from a larger culture of our society, so a college-limited response may not be the answer (although it might alleviate the issue). So I always thought if there was a practical way to change application processes or something alike to avoid this issue, to change this grade/curriculum culture, the idea that we constantly need to be better than others, and the romantization and rewarding of this kind of behavior.
Back in Brazil (where I’m from), we have a different system of college entrance. It’s just a test of all subjects (the educational system is also quite different, and students theoretically have classes of all subjects in middle and high school). I’ve seen brazilians who studied in the US favoring the US application system over the one we have, since it’s more holistic. And I’ve always wondered which system was better. Although the system for the US is holistic, it also restricts students’ activities by favoring those which can be put in a curriculum. So, although it is broader and more sensitive to particular contexts (and doesn’t rely on a single score), it is also more invasive and restrictive of people’s actions and personalities. Maybe the brazilian system doesn’t contribute much to an unhealthy competition culture as does the US application system (although ours does create a lot of stress during high school since it’s a single test)? If so, which system would be more favorable? And what would be a better system that solved those glaring and important issues, since both of them are clearly not ideal?

I honestly have no clue for approaching those questions. And so I have no idea how we, as a society, could tackle the roots of the issue. Maybe that would only be possible if more and more people had access to a good education, so that competition for spots in a college wouldn’t be as high as today? Possibly. Maybe, at least right now, we are restricted to college-specific policies to tackle this kind of problem. How, then, should we approach, as a community, this issue? How to deconstruct a societal culture that students bring with them and that has pervaded their lives for a least a few years? I could see specific talks and events during the Orientation period as helpful for that, but I wonder what more can be done.

Personally, I also end up partaking in this whole comparison culture. I absolutely abhor it, but it’s hard to ignore it when we’re constantly forced to be the best students, instead of being the best people we can be and pursuing our passions for their own sake. I also hope to overcome this issue with time.

I’ll preface this by saying I didn’t attend the talk myself, but I really appreciate the points you’re making here. I do think that this school is fairly stratified in this regard, however. People are going for different things in different majors, more or less. I’ll speak to what I know, the math major. Among those majors specifically concentrating in mathematics, the culture is not exactly “career oriented”. There is definitely this stress and pushing for amongst ourselves – and it definitely comes with a lot of the toxic side affects you mentioned – but there are two really positive aspects that I want to mention, because the absolutely intense academic drive at Cornell has become my favourite part of being here because of them.

1) The goal of the majors is a professorship – And to that end, we specialize, sort of in a vague attempt to get out of each other’s way. Obviously there is a lot of overlap in our skill sets, but the community is small enough that we can specialize to avoid conflicts, and in that way encourage helpfulness.

This brings me to 2) Everyone is helpful, and so the intense work becomes, often, fun, in its own peculiar way. The most fun I’ve had here is working on problem sets with this group of students, or just engaging in the culture around problem sets from classes I’m not in. I have dinner with these people almost every night, and naturally, there’s a lot of talk about classes and math. Comparison between ourselves, because we are distinct enough, becomes an exercise in making sure you’re not falling too far behind, or missing something critical, rather than a fear that you don’t have enough.

This isn’t to say that these cultures that you mention on campus don’t exist or aren’t a problem. Certainly, the opposite is true. I just wanted to add my own perspective, since I’ve enjoyed a lot (not all) of the intense grind that my major has required.

hcz5 on October 25, 2018 at 11:23 pm said:

I’ve always hated how all of us are encouraged to have the best curriculum, to be the best student, to have the best grades, etc. As a society, we give way too much credit those things, in my view. Too much credit to what can be put in a paper or resume, to test scores that supposedly reflect our knowledge in a single moment of our lives. We essentially simplify and objectify people in this sense, and that has terrible consequences. It’s unhealthy and it makes us lose focus of what is important in favor of a meaningless competition (I’m not saying that competition itself is bad in principle; just that, in this scenario, it doesn’t make sense). For a few years already, I’ve wondered how this could be changed. It’s not simple to change it if it comes from a larger culture of our society, so a college-limited response may not be the answer (although it might alleviate the issue). So I always thought if there was a practical way to change application processes or something alike to avoid this issue, to change this grade/curriculum culture, the idea that we constantly need to be better than others, and the romantization and rewarding of this kind of behavior.
Back in Brazil (where I’m from), we have a different system of college entrance. It’s just a test of all subjects (the educational system is also quite different, and students theoretically have classes of all subjects in middle and high school). I’ve seen brazilians who studied in the US favoring the US application system over the one we have, since it’s more holistic. And I’ve always wondered which system was better. Although the system for the US is holistic, it also restricts students’ activities by favoring those which can be put in a curriculum. So, although it is broader and more sensitive to particular contexts (and doesn’t rely on a single score), it is also more invasive and restrictive of people’s actions and personalities. Maybe the brazilian system doesn’t contribute much to an unhealthy competition culture as does the US application system (although ours does create a lot of stress during high school since it’s a single test)? If so, which system would be more favorable? And what would be a better system that solved those glaring and important issues, since both of them are clearly not ideal?

I honestly have no clue for approaching those questions. And so I have no idea how we, as a society, could tackle the roots of the issue. Maybe that would only be possible if more and more people had access to a good education, so that competition for spots in a college wouldn’t be as high as today? Possibly. Maybe, at least right now, we are restricted to college-specific policies to tackle this kind of problem. How, then, should we approach, as a community, this issue? How to deconstruct a societal culture that students bring with them and that has pervaded their lives for a least a few years? I could see specific talks and events during the Orientation period as helpful for that, but I wonder what more can be done.

Personally, I also end up partaking in this whole comparison culture. I absolutely abhor it, but it’s hard to ignore it when we’re constantly forced to be the best students, instead of being the best people we can be and pursuing our passions for their own sake. I also hope to overcome this issue with time.
pls239 on October 26, 2018 at 3:04 pm said:

I’ll preface this by saying I didn’t attend the talk myself, but I really appreciate the points you’re making here. I do think that this school is fairly stratified in this regard, however. People are going for different things in different majors, more or less. I’ll speak to what I know, the math major. Among those majors specifically concentrating in mathematics, the culture is not exactly “career oriented”. There is definitely this stress and pushing for amongst ourselves – and it definitely comes with a lot of the toxic side affects you mentioned – but there are two really positive aspects that I want to mention, because the absolutely intense academic drive at Cornell has become my favourite part of being here because of them.

1) The goal of the majors is a professorship – And to that end, we specialize, sort of in a vague attempt to get out of each other’s way. Obviously there is a lot of overlap in our skill sets, but the community is small enough that we can specialize to avoid conflicts, and in that way encourage helpfulness.

This brings me to 2) Everyone is helpful, and so the intense work becomes, often, fun, in its own peculiar way. The most fun I’ve had here is working on problem sets with this group of students, or just engaging in the culture around problem sets from classes I’m not in. I have dinner with these people almost every night, and naturally, there’s a lot of talk about classes and math. Comparison between ourselves, because we are distinct enough, becomes an exercise in making sure you’re not falling too far behind, or missing something critical, rather than a fear that you don’t have enough.

This isn’t to say that these cultures that you mention on campus don’t exist or aren’t a problem. Certainly, the opposite is true. I just wanted to add my own perspective, since I’ve enjoyed a lot (not all) of the intense grind that my major has required.