Although high school was an okay experience for me, I loved my high school. It wasn’t just the beautiful campus or the tremendous extracurricular activities; it was the relationships that I was able to have with my teachers that extended beyond academics. Not only were my high school teachers passionate about what they taught, but they were also interested in knowing us as people rather than students. To this day, I still go back to my high school campus to say high to teachers that I considered friends.

In contrast, all of my classes at my previous university (I’m a sophomore transfer) were large lectures ranging from 300 to 800, and that didn’t even include all of the students in the other lecture sections. Furthermore, because there were so many students taking the same class, it was also almost impossible to get to know a professor on a more personal level during office hours. During my first year of college, I was disappointed that I would no longer have a more personal relationship with the teacher as I did in high school.

This is how I felt until I went to the Rose House Scholars Meet and Greet last Tuesday. This was an excellent opportunity to get one-on-one face time with professors who are not only passionate about what they research and teach but also care about getting to know students that they gladly participated in such a program. For example, I met Mike (didn’t catch his last name), who is a professor on campus. We started talking about my interests in sustainability, and he pointed me towards resources that I might be interested in. It was this kind of mentor/advisor relationship that I felt I lacked last year that I am glad to be able to have now as a result of the House Fellows Meet and Greet.

Being students on Cornell’s campus, I’m sure that the majority (if not all) of us have had to attend networking events, cocktail parties, alumni gatherings, or situations of a similar nature. For some, these can be fantastic opportunities to make connections and gather insight from experienced individuals in your field– for others, they can be highly dreaded events. It’s not the idea of meeting new people that is so terrifying, per se, but when all of your past experiences have consisted of highly awkward interactions and uncomfortable bouts of total silence, you tend to avoid gatherings that throw you into a forced environment of conversation.

That being said, the Rose Cafe House Fellows meet and greet was nothing like the embarrassing and unpleasant experience that I had been expecting. In fact, it came to an end long before I would have even liked it to. As a mildly antisocial individual myself, I have to thank the event coordinators’ foresight to design the meeting in a speed-dating type of style with a list of provided questions to reference if things started to lag (which they never actually did, for me at least). It was the ideal layout for avoiding uncomfortable lapses in conversation, and even preemptively took care of the typically awkward end of the conversation by providing a strict time limit for each chat. Needless to say, the structure made the process of interaction as painless as possible, and for once I was actually able to learn and enjoy myself at such an event.

Getting the chance to interact, entirely one-on-one, with some of the fellows was a great experience and really gave me a sense of the Rose House community– a perfect takeaway for my first event attended. Every single fellow I had the opportunity to chat with seemed genuinely interested in my area of study, view of Cornell, and hopes for the future. Our fellows come from such a wide variety of backgrounds that I felt as if the thirty minutes I had to interact with them taught me more than a good portion of my lectures this year have so far. It was a surprisingly good end to a very long day, and one particular fellow smiling and saying “I support you” turned out to be the exact encouragement I needed to solidify my decision of a major in that same week.

I will definitely be attending future events with our House fellows, and I one hundred percent encourage you all to do so as well. We’re very lucky to have direct access to some of the most incredible people on campus through Rose House, and I would highly recommend taking advantage of it.

On Wednesday 9/4, I attended this semester’s first Rose Café event. I enjoyed other Rose Café events that normally have a group of students with one house fellow introducing an interesting topic. However, this Rose Café event was special in that students were meeting various house fellows and networking with them through “speed dating” activity. I had a chance to introduce myself to about six house fellows and learn about their unique stories. It was such a great opportunity for me to meet professors outside of class and have a conversation with them in a more relaxed environment. I enjoyed learning about different subject fields including philosophy, international labor relation, entomology, etc. I am grateful to be part of such a diverse and welcoming university.

I few days ago, I went to the Rose House Fellows meet and greet. We got a couple minutes or so to talk to each fellow, and rotate through as many people as possible over an hour. Having just transferred from a small, liberal arts college in Southern California I still do not know much about Cornell, so the meet and greet was perfect for me. I learned about Ithaca’s weather, Cornell’s gorges, psychology, and most notably, quantum biology.

Though I was only at the event for an hour or so, it has left a lasting impression on me. I feel very welcomed here, and I got to talk to many new people that I otherwise would not have met. I also feel inspired to expand my mindset regarding the classes I plan to enroll in and careers I’m considering. I had conversations with fellows in all areas in academia, such as latin, philosophy, evolution, and psychology. Each person was clearly passionate about their own work, and it made me realize that I should not limit my future goals based on a decision I made years ago. I chose to major in biological sciences, for instance, because it seemed like a safe, unrestrictive option that covered a breadth of sub-topics (none of which I could choose between). I am also on the pre-med track because I have always wanted to help people, and being a doctor seemed like the most obvious way to do that. However the fellows’ passion in their niche subject was contagious and I now feel inclined to dabble in those subjects here at Cornell. Unlike my previous college, Cornell has courses in food science, animal science, and plant biology; and with only five semesters left after this one, I can’t wait to start adding some of these more specialized courses into my schedule very soon.

My most memorable discussion was with Professor Andre Kessler, from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He opened up the world of quantum biology to me — a subject I didn’t know existed. Physics is pretty much the underlying fabric of the universe, so if it applies to planets and basketballs, it ought also to effect receptors and their associated ligands. Apparently, quantum biology may help elucidate a facet of biochemistry that is still cloudy. Kessler told me that at this point, there are only mathematical explanations for some of these abstract mechanisms. One such example is the odor receptors in our nose: they are membrane-bound receptors that change conformation just like any other receptor. It changes conformation after an interaction with a stimulus, with an electron transfer typically involved. In the case of the odor receptors, he said, the mechanism is still obscure, because it is thought to involve this quantum biology, specifically something called “electron tunneling.”

According to Kessler, part of the reason why we don’t know much about this mechanism is because we haven’t yet fleshed out exactly what the receptor looks like — it’s 3D conformation is unknown. To do this, electron microscopy imaging is typically employed. However, the membrane protein involved in odor perception cannot be deciphered when it is taken out of its natural context, and covered in gold (which is how the object under the electron microscope is stabilized while it is bombarded with high energy rays). Fortunately, Kessler mentioned new technology that is able to match the resolution of electron microscopy, but without the obstructive gold covering as a pre-requisite, called cyromicroscopy. The new technology utilizes zero degrees kelvin as a stabilizing mechanism. It hasn’t yet been applied to this receptor in question, but it could be in the future, and the ripple effect of that could be impactful.

I was lucky that Professor Kessler was the last fellow on the rotation, because I got to ask him a lot of questions about all of this science he knew about that I didn’t even know existed! I was impressed by the degree of complexity and detail many scientists work with. I hope to continue learning from future events to come!

-Hana

Where does the constitution of a community begin? Or rather, how does the constitution of a community happen? Is it always already given: does being human always imply being with the Other? Or does membership exist in the nexus of becoming with the potentiality to be or not be, something that demands investment?

From Freudian psychoanalysis to Agambenian biopolitics, the question of the community is a question of the singularity, care, commitment, and responsibility. To be a part of a community is to affirm and promise the other, to pronounce a certain fidelity to the other.

Reflecting on the Rose Café, I am reminded of these central questions of community beyond the realm of the theoretical and within the space of the actual. Amidst the ceaseless pace of classes, coursework, and extracurriculars, it is unbelievably easy to lose yourself and others in the immeasurable demands of the university. Yet, the event was an important reminder of the diverse community we are a part of as students of Cornell living in Ithaca. Such an opportunity enabled me to engage with brilliant and accomplished people and to appreciate all that being a student at Cornell has given me. These deceptively commonplace encounters were laden with meaning and always seemed to arc towards the possibilities of the future. Despite our vastly different backgrounds ranging from architecture to conservation, Rose House Fellows were willing to invest their time in affirming my hopes and dreams and in telling me about some of their own. In creating this space, the Fellows reminded us of the worth and power of our voices. The experience reminded me of the importance of listening and the responsibility we have to make sure the voices of others can be heard. It seems like no coincidence, then, that many people will point out that gorge, in French, means throat, and that Ithaca is a place of homecoming. In Ithaca, there is a home for us, a community to support us, and a place to be heard. And in the very same place, we have the power to make others feel more at home, to welcome them into a community, and to listen to their voices.

When I first heard about the Meet and Greet, I imagined a room full of people and our House Fellows introducing themselves to a general audience. A one-to-one interaction wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. As soon as I learned that was the case (and, even more, it’d be on the format where you meet a lot of people really, really fast), I thought it’d be really difficult for me, and that I wouldn’t enjoy it.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

All House Fellows I met were really kind and approachable, even for someone as shy as I am, and this honestly felt really comfortable. They all had completely different interests, so our conversations went from the 3D printing of concrete to Ithaca to Physics in a matter of minutes. And I loved it. I also really appreciate how supportive they all were: I’ve recently decided I want to be a Physics teacher for my future, and whenever that showed up in our conversations, they all very much encouraged me to follow it!

I’m really happy that I attended the Meet and Greet: I met some really interesting people, I now know several more Fellows than I did before – which makes me feel a bit more integrated into our community -, and I very much look forward to seeing them around Rose! =]

Earlier this evening, I got the chance to attend a mixer with Rose House Fellows, and I had a great time. Vice President Lombardi, Thomas, and I got the chance to have dinner before the mixer, and we spoke at length about quite a few things. Specifically, we spoke about changing the world. I had shared my story of speaking to my advisor about wanting to become an attorney that changed the landscape of the criminal justice system. When I had told my advisor, I had undermined myself saying, “I know this sounds cliche and dumb, but…” My advisor had stopped me and told me not to think like that. That you can change things on a small scale too, through everyday interactions and the daily connections you make. VP Lombardi agreed saying that it’s all about one person at a time in order to facilitate larger movements of change. I also enjoyed the mixer, as I spoke with Judge Miller about some of his recent cases as well as what he finds to be so fulfilling about his job. This evening was exciting because I got the chance to meet so many different people who were not only very friendly but who also made me think in a more positive light about my future and the world.

Today is the day the Rose Scholars program begins. I joined the House Fellow Meet & Greet to meet fellow residents living at Rose. It was an awesome event. I met someone who graduated Class of 1964, and it’s absolutely heartwarming to see the amount of pride she has and contributions she invested for Cornell. We should be grateful for the amazing alumni we have here.

Some things  learned include the traditions of old societies (e.g. women had to return to their dorms at a stipulated time every night), subtle ways that we can connect with one another after we graduate (Cornell songs), as well as ample great advice from wisdom only the old generation has. It was a memorable bonding event, and I am glad to have made a awesome new friend!