Author Archives: amt258

Finding the Right Fit

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Interviews can bring up lots of emotions. They can create a sense of flattery and joy because a company in interested in you. But, an interview can also incite panic and nervousness. The seminar on interviews that I attended really got me thinking about how I really shouldn’t just be applying to companies blindly and thinking about the prestige. Not only will aligning myself with the company help me get the job, but I would be doing my research in finding a company that aligns with my beliefs. So, it’s not all about showing the technical skills you have. It’s showing that you fit into the company culture.

I know that company culture sort of seems superficial. Since what is company culture and why does it matter? Company culture is really important. It creates an identity for everyone inside that company. Hiring someone who disrupts that culture can be disastrous. Here’s an example. Xerox had offices in the East Coast and West Coast, specifically in Palo Alto. Well the East Coast people were much more formal going to work in business attire, while the West Coast tech people were much more informal going to work in jeans and flip flops. Due to this difference in culture the two branches were in conflict as both sides felt like they other didn’t understand them. This eventually led to Xerox losing out in the tech race. The executives on the East Coast just didn’t understand the West Coast people resulting in them not realizing what breakthroughs they had. In fact, they had taken SRI’s Doug Engelbart’s idea of the mouse and evolved the concept. This resulted in them inviting a young Steve Jobs to look at the mouse they were working on. The people on the West Coast team at Xerox were against this, but higher ups pushed for it. Jobs was able to see the value in the tech they created that the East Coast people couldn’t, which allowed him to evolve the idea of the mouse.

Turns out you can make Lights with Gourds!

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Well last week was a first. I made a light using a gourd… I honestly never would have thought you could use a gourd for a light. Essentially, we used a dried gourd and drilled holes into it so that the light could come out of it in a design of your choice. It’s quite remarkable how drilling in holes into an object that I would have just thrown away can actually be turned into something quite beautiful.

I usually do my Rose Scholar events on weekends. This one happened to be on a weekday. I usually find art relaxing and that I’m not focused on schoolwork when I’m doing it. But, this time I felt really distracted while I was creating my light. Everyone kept commenting on how they feel so much better and how drilling the holes felt relaxing to them. I could not relate. I just kept thinking about how I need to be doing homework and studying. Maybe because it was a busy week, in which I had projects and papers due. When I reflect back on that day and how I felt incredibly stressed out when I should have been distressing through the art, I wish that I had honestly just “chilled out.” Since I ended up getting everything done that week in an efficient manner. What I learned is that I need to calm down about my work a little. This is because I have proven to myself time and time again that I can get all my work done.

Art from Dirt

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Looking at the ceramic mug I made at the Johnson Museum it’s amazing to think that this was once just dirt. Clay really is just dirt that is turned into a paste. The most simple component of nature can be turned into art.

Dirt can be seen as useless and valueless. But if you think about it, dirt offers us life and beauty. Not only has dirt allowed for trees, flowers, and grass to grow but it’s allowed me to make this mug.

The simplest components of life can be turned into joy. In our society we equate our happiness based off of having the most up to date technology, so we can watch Netflix and YouTube. Those medias have allowed others to create, but we don’t really take it amongst ourselves to create. I found my time at the Johnson Museum so much fun! There’s just something about turning nothing into something.

I’ve never really done sculpting before, but I felt like I was a natural at it. With the moist clay in my hands I got to use my imagination. There’s sort of a child like wonder involved with art since you’re using so much of your imagination. I personally wasn’t worried about it not looking good. I sort of just let my hands and imagination do the work.

I think everyone is artistic. People like to joke that they’re awful at art, but I feel that if you silence your mind and just dive in you’ll find that you are good at it.

In fact, I believe humans are meant to create. Creating allows me to let go of anything that is on my mind and silence it. I can convey happiness, sorrow, love, despair, and victory through art. It has the ability to be therapeutic, to turn a negative into something positive in the world.

Whenever I go to museums and see really old pieces of art I wonder if the person who made the masterpiece ever imagined that hundreds and even perhaps thousands of years later someone would still be marveling at their art work. Was it on their mind? Or were they just living their life unconcerned with what others would think? Their art is their mark on the world. It’s their legacy that proves that they walked this Earth and impacted the lives of others. I look at my mug now and wonder if someone in the future would look at it and feel happiness.

What makes the boss tick?

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Ever wondered what drives your boss nuts? Well, that’s what we discussed with Mary Opperman, the Chief Human Resources Operator at Cornell. A lot of what we’ve talked about seemed like common sense to me and that it should be intuitive. Though I feel like in the workplace maybe it doesn’t seem like common sense to everyone because no one has ever talked to them about how to deal with conflict or how to negotiate. Perhaps this seemed like common sense to me because I came to Cornell as an ILR student, so I’ve taken courses about the topic of human resources. In ILR classes we talk a lot about the workplace and how to foster a comfortable environment for everyone. So, I guess that if you had never really spoken about this with anyone and didn’t have anyone to guide you this wouldn’t seem like common sense.

I feel like there really was one main theme to that event. It was that knowing how to communicate effectively is incredibly important. I feel like in projects a lot of things go wrong because people didn’t understand what they were supposed to do. I don’t think it was because the person is lazy and doesn’t care. It probably has to do with the person just not understanding. Yet, the problem is that people don’t know how to ask for help. For some reason we’re trained to think that asking for help or clarification is a bad thing. Why is it that we think that asking for help makes us look stupid? Is it a societal problem? Or is it just a problem the human race deals with? The interesting thing is that it’s done out of not wanting to look “dumb”. But, the irony of it is that by not asking you do end up looking incompetent to your supervisor because the result isn’t going to be good when your supervisor was under the impression you understood the task.

Learning how to communicate isn’t something we learn once we get in the workplace. I feel like one of the main purposes of school, beyond the academic material, is to socialize us so that we can learn how to work with others, listen, and communicate. For example, in school we learn how to work in teams in group projects. Group projects teach us how to deal with conflict and how to talk to someone who is not holding up their end of the bargain. The situations we face in the workplace may have new details and complexities added to it, but in school we’ve probably been in situations that have taught us how to solve the problem and communicate.

How ‘Bout Them Apples?

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What I’m really learning from my Rose Scholar excursions off campus is that there really is a world beyond Cornell, though sometimes it doesn’t feel like it during the heat of prelims and finals.

I had never been to the Ithaca Apple Harvest Festival before. I had heard people talk about it but I never thought it was as worthwhile as they described it to be. Especially since it’s just apples.

The world of apple growing is far more complex than I had imagined it to be. Farmers breed apples in order to achieve certain textures, colors, and taste. In fact, farmers even have patents on the apples they grow! There is a lot of business savviness involved in apple growing. Farmers with patents actually pick who they want to grow their apples. It’s basically to achieve quality control. They’re trying to protect their crop to ensure that other farmers who grow it will treat it with the same respect as they do.

At the Ithaca Apple Harvest Festival, apple cider donuts are really popular! There are numerous varieties of them! Some donuts are big, some are small, some are drenched in frosting, some are lightly dusted with sugar. That showed me one basic thing about life. Just because something is done one way doesn’t mean that is the only way to do it. In fact, that’s how innovation occurs! This is an idea you see in tech a lot. For example, telephones. People kept making changes to something that already existed, which gave us our modern day smart phone. Thus, to create something you don’t have to create something brand new or novel. Rather, you can take an existing design and have it somehow solve your own need.

The variety of apple cider donuts got me thinking about a concept in User Experience Design in tech, in which you design for an audience that has specific needs. In this case, we’re talking about an audience with specific needs from donuts. The bakers at the festival were thinking about this idea when they came up with their recipe. They were thinking about whether or not their customer likes frosting and how much cinnamon they like. It’s trivial seeming things that can totally alter the customer’s experience.

So, my take away from the Ithaca Apple Harvest festival is that there is no one correct way to do things. Rather, allow your creativity to take charge and you can create something even better than the original!

Not a Secret Garden

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During Homecoming I chose to go with my fellow Rose Scholars to the Botanical Gardens. The funny thing is that the first time I went there was before Homecoming last year. If there’s one thing I learned is that to really appreciate a place you can’t just aimlessly walk around it.

Our tour guide was Peter Davies, a former professor at Cornell. He told us the history of the gardens. We learned, for example, how part of the property was owned by the Comstocks. Davies encouraged us to interact with the gardens by letting us in the herb garden and allowed us to break off different herbs and smell them. One that stood out to me was chocolate mint! It actually sort of smelled like chocolate and reminded me of those Andes Chocolate Mints!

From being able to interact with the garden, I felt that I was better able to appreciate having it at Cornell. It didn’t seem like an uptight garden where you feel like you can’t touch anything. Since we were allowed to touch the plants and smell and even eat them I felt like this was our garden. That it wasn’t the garden of the university that we don’t have access to. Rather, it felt like the garden was made for the students to enjoy.

When I had originally gone to the gardens a year ago I didn’t feel that connected to the gardens. It sort of just felt like a garden and that was all because I had no idea we were allowed to touch the plants! Being able to interact with the plants makes such a difference!

Davies told us that students at Harvard have to drive an hour and a half to their botanical garden. This helped me to appreciate Cornell more. Because we have such a big plot of land here on Ithaca everything on the main campus is accessible. We’re able to walk to each building here at Cornell. Cornell’s campus, unlike other Ivies, isn’t split up where you would have to drive to get to another building. Plus, the botanical gardens from West Campus I think was only about a 20 minutes walk.

It’s a common complaint that Ithaca is in the middle of nowhere. We’re not in the bustling city. But, that’s what’s so great about Cornell. I’m breathing in fresh air here and since we’re not in a crowded city we can have a big garden that is open to all. And it’s serene in the garden here. I’m not hearing the blaring noise of traffic. I hear nature: the wind, the birds, and the leaves rustling on the trees.

The botanical gardens reminded me that Cornell has a special magic quality that other Ivies don’t: it’s peacefulness.

A Short Walk From Campus

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We know Ithaca isn’t that big. Yet, so much of it is left unexplored due to the boatloads of problem sets and upcoming readings. On Saturday, September 8th a few of the Rose Scholars and myself got to burst our Cornell bubble and go out and see what Ithaca has to offer.

The walk from West Campus to the farmer’s market really isn’t that long. It’s about a 1.5 mile walk from campus. Plus, it’s not even a complicated walk. It’s really just walking straight for a while and making a few turns. Even though it’s such a short walk I had only been to the farmer’s market once before. One remark I heard that I related to was, “I’ve never walked this far away from Cornell before.”

It’s hard to leave campus, at least for me it is. Since when I’m out I’m having constant guilt thinking about how I could be spending this time doing homework. However, when I was out on Saturday I didn’t really think about it too much. The thought popped into my head a few times, but it wasn’t in the nagging way that I have experienced before.

The walk is pleasant as you get to talk with friends while venturing around Ithaca. The conversations aren’t about class. The conversation ranges from popular movies to what house in the neighborhood we think is the prettiest. There’s something far better about walking than just taking an Uber over. Not that I don’t do a lot of walking at Cornell, but walking helps to clear my mind. I get to breathe in the fresh air and live in the moment.

The farmer’s market is a hub for the Ithaca Community. And when I say Ithaca Community I don’t just mean Cornell students. Though I saw a few Cornell sweatshirts, the farmer’s market brought together couples and families.

The vendors at the farmer’s market are honestly the best at what they do. The farmer’s market isn’t like meandering through Wegmans. It’s a social experience. You get to meet the person who grew the crop, which is an opportunity that a big chain doesn’t give you. You’re greeted with a warm smile as you approach each stall and you’re encouraged to try samples. For example, when I bought a kimchi spicy pork taco the vendor encouraged me to try the hot sauces he made. He enthusiastically told me about each one and which ones he liked. You can tell that these people aren’t in it for the money. They’re doing what they’re doing because it’s their passion.

Reflecting on today I don’t see my time as a waste of time. That time out gave me a moment to get away from the hustle and bustle of Cornell. It allowed me to come back to campus refreshed and gave me a new perspective on what Ithaca has to offer me besides Cornell. I even found that I was more productive and that I got more done; perhaps because I went out and explored, instead of just sitting in my dorm room writing code.

The lesson I’d take away from today is that to be productive you can’t just sit at your desk and work. You have to be kind to yourself and give yourself time to step away and see a world beyond the task at hand. Life is about experiences, friendships, and being connected to others in our community.