Author Archives: gw277

The Revisitation of a Political America

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Today at professor Roberts’ talk about political divides, it reminded me a great deal of my background before coming to Cornell and the back and forth I participated in back in high school. Back in my hometown, I took a lot of political theory and political science classes. In one of these classes, we had a strong partisan divide, representative of the county I lived in. In the 2016 election, Suffolk County voted 55%-45% in favor of Trump and when he won the election, people came into class with Trump banners and celebrated the next day, yet, just as many came in crying. Leading up to, and for months after, the election, the class had two extremely strong democratic and two even stronger republican viewpoints constantly duking it out in class. Their debates would get so fiery that they eventually had such a disparity in views that they started attacking each other in class for non-political reasons. I hope to learn how to bridge their ever-increasingly radical viewpoints to come to a moderate compromise and prevent this extremely superfluous, uncalled for conflict.

With this lack of cohesiveness in my past  political settings, I am still not used to the idea of everyone having such a similar, liberal perspective on life and politics here at Cornell. With the lack of conflicting views marking a lack of differentiation and political conflict on campus, I found it so interesting that such a small percentage of people here have not experienced the world I did back in high school. While I believe in a healthy political debate, the ability to have a much more controlled environment with such a homogeneous population has its vast amount of benefits too. Whenever I notice political debate and forum in my classes, they end as quickly as they begin, with near-complete agreement on the idea of increased diversity, healthcare and other liberal policies needed to be further incorporated.

A Remembrance of the Adventures of Yesteryear

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When looking back on attending the “How to Make a Tough Call” social sit down, I remembered some of the magnificent events I experienced when visiting Rome myself, and what all of this put together elicited in me.

I visited Rome when I was 13 as a birthday gift from my grandparents, and one of the days we spent in the ancient city, we saw the ruins of the ancient Roman forum. I remember thinking to myself when I was standing in the actual Roman senate itself that I was witnessing history itself. The ability to actually stand in the very spot that Augustus Caesar sported his throne and the other Roman senators sat and to traverse the forum that a plethora of vestal virgins, generals, legions and ancient commoners walked made me feel so insignificant, it reminds me of when I look at the pale blue dot by Carl Sagan. I could only hope that the journey has instilled in me some of the very values of morality and virtue Cicero once preached over the topography; thus bringing me to my experiences this evening. 

As I ponder the questions of morality posed at the social sit down, I couldn’t believe how relevant the events and morals Cicero spoke of in ancient Rome are today. The idea of tagging someone of hatred-filled thoughts and accusations translate to the idea of the hashtag, and the idea of the ring of invisibility to evade the glance of others corresponds to Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak in the movies. When looking back on some of the moral questions of taking one for the team and what is important when it comes to taking positions of power, I wonder how the moves I have made in my life measure to these standards. Relating to the idea of taking powerful positions, I feel I have not yet been posed with any sort of challenges here, but when it comes to taking one for the team this one hits close to home. Sometimes I fantasize about being the prince charming and saving the damsel in distress, as many cisgender men do, even at the risk of my own life. I suppose while lofty an idea, it poses the idea of when and how to actually go about doing this. I feel that I hope to use this idea to its fullest down the road when needed but, after sitting down and really thinking about it, to keep fantasy, fantasy and reality, reality.

A Resurgence of Attention to Our Food

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The talk by Frank Rossi at the Bethe house today about food was both informative and inspirational. I had no intimation to think of food beyond the nature of what it says on its label. At the talk, I learned that while a product in a supermarket may be labeled as “organic,” it does not mean it is immune to pesticides. In fact, being organic may mean it has even more harmful products applied to it than its non-organic counterpart. This is extremely concerning as a consumer as I attempt to put the best fuel into my body as possible to be the best version of myself possible. To think that my food may be doing me less justice than my intention feels like an injustice. The speaker’s definition of the hopes of the millennial generation speaks best to this philosophy, we want transparency. 

In the hopes of achieving said transparency, I believe political action and legislation overhaul is necessary. This talk by Rossi has inspired me to support the changes necessary in US FDA law to force the transparency of our food. With that said clarity, we hopefully will find out the truth behind the curtain and eliminate the malpractice and societal poison fed to the masses. Evidence that change follows transparency can be found after the movie Super Size Me. After a month, Morgan Spurlock proved that McDonald’s’ popular products and limited availability of healthy alternatives were responsible for the destruction of his once healthy lifestyle through his controlled experiment. This forced the McDonald’s industry to change the way they marketed their products and offer healthier alternatives. Either through legislation forcing the change or through proven, well-documented experiments such as Spurlock’s, I believe we can instigate this change and fundamentally change the FDA standard of food in the United States in our lifetimes.

A New Perspective on the Importance of Workers’ Rights

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The talk with Angela Cornell about the google strike today was an intriguing journey into the world of the abused, neglected and contractually assaulted. Being from the ILR school, I knew a lot of the background to Cornell’s lecture and what my professors likely would have argued concerning her thoughts. While I went into the talk thinking that the entire theme would be about an intangible evil that happened only to others, I was soundly mistaken. One of the topics of thought Angela Cornell posed to us was that when we get jobs and sign contracts, we should make sure we do not have any contractually binding elements in them that limit our rights in the unfortunate event legal action is necessary. 

When hearing this, I immediately began thinking of my future. I want to go into law, but I also have a few other possible options, including some other office jobs and think tanks. It is always important for workers to protect themselves from harassment, even men, who are also susceptible to this kind of unwanted advances under rare circumstances. Therefore, I wanted to share this advice with other future employees in the labor market. As a child, I remember hearing stories of workplace misconduct that my parents either experienced in their jobs or that they saw other colleagues go through. While I had forgotten most stories, considering I heard them a decade ago, I now remember a lot, from the simple suggestive comment to the explicit exchange of sexual favors for promotions. Now, many may ask, if this is a prevalent mindset and an exposed concept to prospective employees at a company, why don’t they take a stand when initially signing their contracts. Angela Cornell expressed the reason for this quite well in the fact that new workers initially believe that this type of discrimination won’t befall them, as the company selected them out of many other applicants because the managers liked and valued them. While this may very well be the case, I urge every new worker to review their contracts and protect themselves from the corporate paperwork that limits their rights in our free world.

An Inspiring Talk and Even More Important Message

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When at the talk with Julia Felippe, I found a lot of similarities with her life story and that of my own family. Julia Felippe’s story of her immigrant parents and their hardship when first immigrating to Brazil reminded me of my family. My family came over as refugees from eastern Europe during WWII and translated what they knew, or pretended to and later learned, to make a living. Julia herself, however, reminded me even more of what I hope to become later in life. Julia’s ability to translate her passion in equine studies and other veterinary disciplines into a successful career at Cornell is what I hope to accomplish with my passions in life. While I have yet to fully commit nor decide what I want to do out of school, I hope to enjoy my career as much as Julia Felippe does hers. 

One of Julia Felippe’s biggest messages that stuck with me was the idea of continually keeping in contact with many advisers. I have always struggled with keeping in contact with many of my teachers and professors from years past. I now realized from her messages that it’s important to keep in contact with them not just for the letters of recommendation but because they have been in our shoes before and many of them made the best of their situations to get to where they are now and can impart a great deal of wisdom to us to get us to the best place possible in our lives. I definitely can recall many times I could have benefited from that type of advice and the ability to know I am going in the right direction. I know that now I will make sure to get in better contact with my professors and elders in terms of my life decisions and make sure to have that type of support going forward. This was my first Rose Scholars talk and I highly recommend attending to learn about those of other cultural backgrounds.

The Beginning of Tomorrow Starting Today

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The headshot and resume review seminar was a game changer! In the past, I have had a lot of difficulty in getting interviews and callbacks about job applications. Over the summer, I applied for five jobs, all in slightly different, but similar enough sections to fit my skill set. I got an interview for two of the jobs, but I went 0/5 in actually landing a job opportunity. One of the jobs I applied for with a friend had an extremely high employment rate. One of the most embarrassing things to experience in the job application process is to have to admit you didn’t get the job when all of your other friends did. After all of that rejection, I laid the groundwork myself for the majority of my resume changes. At the event, I met with Sara and she advised me to make the activity descriptions more verb oriented rather than summary oriented. This helped me hone my resume and make it more presentable to potential employers in the future. Along with all of that change, the photos and Sarah’s advice on how to fix my resume statements hopefully will get me higher employment to application ratio.

I hope my updated resume and the new headshots will improve my ability to get jobs by uploading them to my Linkedin profile, thus making it more attractive to firms and companies. With the vast opportunities hard work and a Cornell education could facilitate, I would hate a poor self-representation to be the reason that it all goes to waste. With my grandiose dreams of one day stepping into the political spotlight and leaving a lasting impact on the community, presentation is king. Some common adage that I have always subscribed to is that the way an applicant is portrayed to the employer can be his best friend or his worst enemy. Thank you once again for the ability to take the first step in getting my dream job by helping me present for it.

Safety, Awareness and Familiarity

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I really enjoyed my time at the “how to write a blog post” event for Rose Scholars today. While learning how to write a blog post I also began to think critically about events that I see daily. For example, the state farm commercial we examined for its edits opened my eyes as to how truly magnificent the film industry is. While keeping us nearly oblivious without a watchful eye, we see an all-encompassing, nearly three-dimensional view of a scene on a 2D screen, a feat that amazes me each and every time I think about it since examining it with my fellow Rose Scholars a couple of hours ago.

The other commercial we analyzed, the Subaru one, also reminded me of just how important it is to make sure you are safe on the road when driving. My friend in Texas got into an extremely bad car accident, at the complete fault of the other individual, that caused a massive amount of damage. The ability of learning and remembering all of this while familiarizing myself with my other Rose housemates and being introduced into the Rose Scholars program was amazing! Very excited to embark on a fantastic year in the Rose Scholars program!