Cornell’s students have a lot of influence on shaping and changing the campus, but that influence is also limited. Students can feel like they can not actually create change due to corruption. It seems that the school will listen to people who have money or provide the school with money. These people will have strong opinions on how the school handles certain situations. For instance, in greek like on campus, many fraternities and sororities have powerful and wealthy alumni that will not allow for the greek organization that they were a part of be negatively portrayed or be taken off of campus. It is known that fraternities that are higher ranked are allowed to do anything they want and no action will be taken against them. Due to this, it can be hard to feel like students have the power to change anything on campus. We can change something that may not have an actual influence on campus. We do understand that the school may listen to what students have to say, but sometimes it may seem that they will still do whatever they believe best even if it goes against what students requested.
Author Archives: sl2974
How polarization has progressed in American Democracy?
As someone who didn’t have much understanding about how the polarization between the two political parties occurred, I found this rose cafe seminar to be very helpful and informative. I found it shocking that the polarization of the two parties really emerged after the civil right act when people believed that there had to be a greater divide between the two parties. They had to better represent the beliefs of the American people. Also, I found it shocking that both the democratic and republican parties found themselves more to the far right and the far left when compared to other parties around the world. The polarization continues to progress with our current president and other political campaigns dividing the two parties more and more. I found it really fascinating that we are currently in a very detrimental political climate, but yet it seems like when I am with my friends we very rarely bring up conversations about politics. I always wondered as to what the reason for this was. I didn’t know if it was because everyone understands that political decisions just end up becoming very heated and since we all have to deal with stressful academic life, we don’t want to add more stress onto that with decisions on politics.
Who knew you could make a nightlight from a gourd?
I have to admit I never heard of sculpting using gourds, but I was pleasantly surprised when I attended the event. I have always loved anything created to arts. As a child, my favorite pass time was arts and crafts. I have multiple of my various artworks just hanging in awkward locations around my house and I am glad I was able to gain another artwork to add to the collection. I found this event to be very relaxing. I was very stressed the whole week due to academics and really needed something where I could channel that stress. The gourds really allowed me to get rid of any tension that I had and I found to be overall more relaxed after the event was over. This event inspired me to take more time during the day for myself and to do activities that allow me to destress. I even bought myself a coloring book that I could use to continue expressing my creative side and have a helpful, artistic way of de-stressing. This event really showed me the importance of taking the time to care for your mental wellbeing and to reconnect with my artistic side that I have forgotten due to focusing on school.
Gained A New Skill: Sewing
I attended the Learn How to Sew Rose Scholar event. I had some experience sewing prior to the event from my mom, but I have long forgotten what she taught me. I feel like now that I am living away from home, it is important to improve on these skills because you never really know when it is going to come in handy. It actually turned out that I bought a skirt that was too big for me, but I had no time to get a smaller size since the event was going to be soon. This event gave me the skills that I needed to successfully sew my skirt. Also, I was really happy to get a free mini sewing kit as well. This came in very handy because I actually needed to use the skills that I learned from the event at the kit multiple times following the event.
The History of How America Came To Be
I attended the table talk on the Making of Urban America. An interesting fact that I learned during this event was that Halloween did not originate in America, but rather it originated in Ireland and Scotland. This was really interesting to me because it always seemed to me that America was the one that celebrated that holiday the most out of any other country. I feel like nowadays people associate halloween with America. I thought this fact perfectly symbolized how Americans take things from other people and other countries. For instance, the talk was about how the colonization of America entailed eliminating a majority of the Native American population. America belonged to the Native Americans, but we have depleted their numbers to approximately 1.2% of them in our current population. The Native Americans had their own history in America that the textbooks never mention, but rather that Americas history starts when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. The reason is because we as Americans feel a huge guilt for eradicating a huge portion of these Native Americans and stealing all of their land, claiming it as our own. This is all symbolized in the holiday of Halloween. We have taken the celebration of Halloween, which was intended by Celtic paganisms to celebrate the new year where ghosts and spirits would come out to haunt them, and turned it into a day where children and adults dress up in costumes while sharing and eating candy. It is the American way to take things that were not ours to begin with, but make it our own.
Conversation About The Toxic Masculinity Experienced By Women in STEM
A question that was posed throughout the table talk was how to face sexism in the workforce and if we can every reach an age where their is equality in the workforce. We are living in an era where women are speaking their minds more freely than ever before. The current MeToo movement has women uniting and standing up for the ways they believe they should be treated. We are breaking down the wall of sexism. It is occurring slowly, but with more and more awareness toward the daily scrutiny and verbal expressions that women experience will hopefully bring us toward a better future. I saw this very interesting post on Twitter about the phrases that women hear on a daily basis that we should not be fine with, but since they occur daily we have become accustomed to them. For instance, these phrases are “you should smile more,” “you should wear makeup,” “you shouldn’t act that way because you are a girl,” “you should do this career because you are a girl,” “girl’s can’t do math.” All the phrases are a representation of sexism that women experience daily, but since society has told us this is normal and that this is what we should be used, we do not get mad about it. However, none of these things should be said because this creates the division between females and males, which gives men the power over females. There should be more conversations and more change occurring so that women can live their truest life without having to listen to this kind of scrutiny. This kind of mentality can especially be seen in the STEM fields because they have been predominantly overpowered by males. In many instances, males, whether knowingly or unknowingly, will diminish the intellect of women in the same career path just solely on the basis of her gender. For instance, in my STEM class when I am working on a group assignment, the males in the group will give the females the easier roles because they believe that women cannot handle the more challenging tasks. This divide is small, but it is still very prevalent. The only way that change can be implemented is if women speak up more about the sexism they face and demand that males change their actions. If we do not demand that men change their way of though, then we will not see change. Women need to attain more higher up positions, so that women can feel empowered to chase after their dreams.
The Political Climate of America
Glen Altschuler gave an interesting talk on the midterm elections and presented his predictions on the future of American politics. An interesting fact that he brought up was the many people who voted for Trump to be the president were women, especially women affiliated with the independent political party. This came to a great shock to me because during Trump’s presidential campaign the video surfaced of his locker room talk. When this video came out, I thought to myself that there is no way that any women would be in support or Trump now. However, I guess I was proven wrong because Dr. Altschuler stated that the hate for Hilary Clinton was greater than their dislike for Trump’s locker room talk. However, he believes that at this upcoming election that the deciding factor will be the women voters. We have entered a new climate of women with the MeToo movement. This movement allowed women to stand up for themselves and fight for their rights. They learned how to stand up to men. Therefore, I believe that any women in today’s society cannot vote for Trump because it would be a step backward for the MeToo movement. Additionally, another deciding factor in the presidential election is going to be the turnout of young American voters. Young American voters have a shockingly low turnout during the presidential elections. However, since today’s political climate has created an immense amount of dislike toward President Trump, especially following the shooting in Florida. I can see at Cornell University during the voters registration the amount of students that registered themselves to vote. My whole suite registered themselves to vote and if this increase in voters is emanated in every college campus then we may be able to see more young Americans stepping up to vote. After all, it is our future that we are voting for.
Maximizing Your Relationship With Your Supervisor
I attended the Rose Cafe with guest speaker Mary Opperman where I was able to gain insightful information on how to avoid issues that may annoy your supervisor. I have had many different work experiences with different types of supervisors. When I worked as a research assistant in a biochemistry lab, I experienced a week of training. During training, the supervisor would teach me how to perform the experiments and use the equipment. However, I found that when he was teaching me that I would often become very confused. I found that he rushed through many of the presentation, but everyone else in the lab seemed to be very experienced, so I was always afraid to speak up. However, after the rose cafe, I found that the best thing to do during this situation is to speak up and tell your supervisor that you are not understanding the given task. This will not only save future frustration from you and the supervisor, but it will also communicate to the supervisor that they may need to describe the information in a better manner. Additionally, if you are intimated by your supervisor, then ask your colleagues for assistance. I found that once I got comfortable in the work environment that talking to my colleagues about any of my problems provided me the assistance that I needed. The reason for this is is that your colleagues probably were in the same situation as you. They had their moments where they did not understand the information presented to them and they understand how that feels. They want to help you through those situations. Also, it is good to talk to colleagues because I found that they often times will present information that is more understandable. The supervisor may have had multiple years of experience, so at times he may present information in a vague manner because they may assume that everyone has the same background information as he does. However, this is not always the case, so talking to colleagues may help to simplify information in a more processable and understandable way. Hence, I believe that the key to maintaining a good relationship with your supervisor is through communication and not being afraid to admit when your are confused or have failed.
The Beauty in the Fall Creek Gorges
On Sunday, I decided to take part in the guided hike around Fall Creek Gorge. This hike made me realize how close I truly live to a very beautiful Gorge. If you walk a little past where all the fraternity and sorority houses are, you come across the Fall Creek Gorge. An interesting fact that I learned about all the gorges in Ithaca is during Pangea Ithaca was situated on the equator. This means that the climate mimicked the climate of a tropical rainforest. Additionally, this meant that the coniferous trees that we have today were once more tropical. However, once the tectonic plates began shifting and North America collided with another continent, we got the formation of all the gorges in Ithaca. This truly mesmerized me because I think as humans we are very focused on the present and the future. We take very little consideration for the past, but there is that famous saying “the future influences the present just as much as the past.” The past influenced the landscape that we have today just as in future events we will have continuous erosion and movement of sediment that will once again change the way that the landscape looks. This really made me realize that nothing is permanent. Everything is constantly changing, which means that we should learn to not dwell on the negatives or the things that we can’t control. Instead, we should learn to accept our experiences, the good and the bad, because they are shaping us into who we are today just as the gorges were shaped into what they are today from the events that occurred in the past.
How we view the world through the lens of Garry Winogrand
I attended the Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable event on Thursday, September 20th. This event delved into the life of Garry Winogrand, exploring his career through the years. Garry Winogrand took pictures of everyday people, but he took it in such a way as it if felt like you were getting a glimpse into a secret. The juxtaposition of the many people in his photos made it appear as if you were getting a front seat to the story of someone’s life. This really made me wonder what it meant to truly live. We are always focused on attaining the next goal or chasing after some kind of dream. We never really stop to take in our surroundings, but Garry Winogrand dedicated his whole life to exploring the world around him. I think in many ways we fear taking a break from the paths we have predetermined for ourselves. We fear that if we for one second take our eyes off of our goal then we will lose it forever. Garry, on the other hand, took a risk when he was in college. He picked up a camera and started to photograph the world around him. He describes a perfect time that if we stray from our predetermined path then we find something that we were truly meant for. I think what I learned and what I will take away from this film is that I’m going to start living more curiously and with less fear. I think the greatest thing we can do is experience the world around us before it is too late. Maybe we should all just pick up a camera and start to photograph what we see because maybe it will make us notice the world we live in.
Tips on Professionalism
I attended the Professionalism and Headshot event on Thursday, September 13th. This events was very useful in providing me with helpful tips on how to be professional. As someone who is going to be pursuing a career in business, I found that many business clubs and organizations on campus require for applicants to understand what it means to be professional. Talking with Sabrina, I found that when an interview requests for someone to be dressed in business casual that they mean for someone to wear flats, dress pants, and a nice blouse or button down shirt. Also, I have recently created a LinkedIn account, which I really wasn’t quite sure how to navigate through. Sabrina showed me how she wrote her introductory bio that hooked employees. I learned from this event how to impress employers through biographies that tell them about yourself and I gained a headshot that I can now place on my job applications. However, I realized that the key to being successful professionally is learning how to be confident with yourself, so that you can successfully pitch yourself to any future employers.