Author Archives: izk2

Mark on West Campus

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Before this talk I never fully appreciated the opportunities presented to me by living in a West campus residence. I knew immediately from moving in that Rose is immensely better than the North campus freshman dorm I lived in last year, but I did not recognize my role in creating and inspiring change. We discussed four main topics in this talk, but the ones that resonated with me the most were health and wellness and intellectual inquiry.

Health and wellness is something I would like to strive to incorporate more in my next semester here, as I noticed that my anxiety has become very bad since starting college. I would like to take moments to meditate and relax, especially before going to bed, to have a break from thinking about all the work I have and to ease my mind. I would also like to better take advantage of my opportunities next semester. I would like to take on more leadership roles, as leadership is something I haven’t tried yet, and to become more involved in clubs. I also would like to look for summer internships to see what opportunities are available. Overall the talk was very useful, as it got me thinking about ways for self growth and improvement during my time on West campus.

Why Do We Believe in Free Will?

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This presentation and discussion introduced me to the concept of free will. The most interesting part of the presentation to me was the videos of the children and how they think. In the video of the kid being offered a present, but told he needed to look away while it was getting wrapped, you could physically see how difficult he had to work to restrain himself from looking in the direction of the present. I found the marshmallow video we talked about also very interesting, where kids were asked to choose between either eating the marshmallow right away or waiting and getting more marshmallows. I feel like it is easy to say that you would rather wait and get more marshmallows, but in reality, there is no guarantee that more marshmallows will come, and the only certainty is the marshmallow on the table in front of you. The videos illustrated the concept of free will in an interesting way – many of the kids in the videos said that if a tasty food was in front of them that they wanted, they would have to eat it – they would not have a choice. However, the older kids generally said that they could choose not to eat their favorite food even if it was in front of them and they were very hungry.

The videos provide some evidence that free will is a learned behavior, not something inherent as I had expected. Theoretically, kids need to be taught that they can control their own behavior – that even if they want something so much, they can still choose not to have it. Since the older kids knew they had free will but the younger kids did not, it seems that self-control comes with time and experience. This discussion really opened up my mind to concepts that I had never thought about before, and I found it so interesting that I now would like to take a psychology class during my time at Cornell to learn even more about it.

Making Gourd Night Lights

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In this workshop we learned how to make cute night lights by carving gourds with powertools. I got to learn how to use drills for the first time, by placing the tip of the drill into the gourd to make small holes. I had not known that gourds could be made into night lights, as I thought that they rot eventually, so I was surprised and excited to try this activity. The woman who ran the event seemed super passionate and experienced with gourd carving. I decided to make patterns of holes at the top and bottom of my gourd, and then I glued red beads in the larger holes made with a bigger drill. This added a cool effect to the gourd when it was plugged in, as it tinted the light a red color. To decorate the body of the gourd, I wanted to make a star effect, that would look like a bunch of stars sweeping over a night sky when it lit up. To attempt this, I drilled holed with the largest size drill and then interspersed it with the holes with the medium size drill and holes with the smallest size drill. Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I think it would have looked cooler if I had used multicolored beads and stuck with a consistent pattern rather than two different patterns and also made the holes more random. I’m really glad I attended this event though and learned a new craft.

Pumpkin Carving and Painting!

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Painting a pumpkin was a fun experience for me and perfectly timed for Halloween and Thanksgiving. It was a great Sunday night break from classes and homework and a nice socialization activity. I have not painted 0r carved a pumpkin in a long time, since I was a young child, so it brought back lots of memories. There was a big turnout at the event so I’m glad that lots of people took advantage of this fun opportunity. There were lots of pumpkins that were the perfect size for carving and painting (not too small and also not too big that they would be difficult to carry), and lots of tools, so overall the event was planned and put together very well.

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Table Talk: The Playlist of Life

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I thought that this table talk would be a discussion of our favorite music, artists and albums. It started off that way, but quickly moved into a debate about a certain controversial musical artist: Kanye West. I believe Kanye West is not a good person, and thus I refuse to support any of his music. He actively supports President Trump and continuously shows he does not care about or respect women. He rudely interrupted Taylor Swift at an award show in 2009, physically removing the microphone from her hand and announcing Beyonce should have won instead. Then in 2016, he wrote a song called “Famous” where he degrades Taylor Swift further saying that he “made her famous” and that “they might still have sex,” and in the music video, he depicts her naked body in bed, without her permission. A few people in the discussion brought up that Kanye is a devote Christian, but that in no way excuses any of his actions. The debate comes down to separating the music from the person, and I believe that the music cannot be separated from the person; in supporting someone’s music, you are effectively supporting them by giving them money, fame, and success. And artists that continuously prove themselves to be bad people do not deserve money, fame, and success.

Genetic Engineering

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In the rose scholars genetic engineering lecture I learned about GMOS and their impact. This talk was very relevant to me as a Plant Science major, and GMO discussion comes up in a lot of my classes. GMOs are foods that contain the DNA of a foreign organism, that is put in to improve the food in some way. Most GMOs are created to improve the flavor, color, yield, and for pesticide resistance. We talked about the debate over whether GMOs are good or bad, and I think that GMOS overall are a positive thing, and are necessary to feed the growing world population. Many people are worried about the safety of genetically modified crops, but there have been no proven health concerns. I think that the general public seems to be scared of GMOs because they do not know enough about them, but that with increased education and exposure, they will be more supportive. I truly believe that the population cannot be sustained without the use of GMO crops. A lot of talk right now is about Roundup resistant crops, as people are scared of weeds becoming resistant to the herbicide itself. This is definitely a valid concern as it has happened in some places, but there are measures we can take to prevent resistance from developing without forgoing the benefits of GMO crops, such as using a variety of herbicides besides Roundup, or manually tilling resistant weeds.

Headshots

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At the rose scholars headshots event I got professional portraits taken to be used for career related events. Overall, I thought it was a great event and I am very glad that I participated in it as the headshots will be very useful. I plan to use the headshots for things like my linked in profile, career fairs, other social media profiles, and job interviews. I liked how we were given advice on how to position ourselves to get the best angle in the picture, and how she let us take multiple pictures so we would have a variety of different poses to choose. I hope there will be a similar event like this next semester so I can update how I look.

Book Talk 9/11/19

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In the Rose Scholars book talk we discussed the summer reading book that was assigned last spring and the wisdom and strategies it provided. I learned a lot about overcoming adversary, making decisions, and power. Lots of people struggle with making choices, especially when there are many different options to consider, and how getting into routines can help to reduce the number of choices we have to make. For example, getting into the routine of going to the library every day after dinner can eliminate the decision of how to spend the time between dinner and sleep. Also, just choosing something is better than comparing that thing to all the other options that are available. This conversation really resonated with me because making decisions is something I struggle with, even just choosing which dining hall to eat at every night. I realized that instead of carefully reading all the menus every night and comparing them to decide which has the best options that night, I would save a lot of time by just choosing a dining hall to eat at, and most of the time I would still be able to find something I like. Another concept I connected with was failure and how to deal with it. I learned that anything worth doing is worth doing badly, as power can come in recognizing failure and getting in a position to prevent its reoccurrence. Overall, I learned a lot from the talk and will look to integrate these lessons throughout the semester.