The Get That Internship Panel had some good tips on how to work your way up though internships by starting small and locally, and using those connections to help you move onto bigger, more competitive internships, and using past relationships to provide recommendations and prepare for interviews. I did notice though, that this panel focused heavily on internships in government fields. I wish that there could have been more STEM panelists to give advice to those of us going on a different path. Either way, there was some good advice provided, and coming from a person that has never had an internship before, I will definitely apply the tips and skills from these panelists in my future endeavors. It is definitely a scary thing to put yourself out there for scrutiny and rejection and feeling like a failure after getting denied by a bunch of people…. Anyways, you have to stay hopeful and I wish the best luck to everyone else applying for internships!
Author Archives: ort9
Succeeding in college and life
Professor Schwartz’ seminar on the art of learning made me look back on my educational journey and examine a lot of things that I could improve in my mindset towards learning. One of the key things he discussed in his seminar is that learning should be about both goals and enjoyment, and we should not worry so much about our GPA and the meaning of our classes and what we are getting out of them. Like many other people at this seminar, I am a transfer student to Cornell this semester and the transition has challenged and also pushed me to be better and change my mindset on school. In the past, I very much viewed school as something I had to do, focusing on getting the best grade without taking an actual interest in the work and just trying to get through to the next semester. Now, I am not only studying something that really interests me, but I am reflecting on this opportunity and using it to get the most out of my studies and attempt new opportunities I previously would have shied away from.
One thing that Professor Schwartz advised that I am still trying to work on is the skill of time management. I think that is one of my weakest skills in and out of school, and affects my performance in many ways. In this seminar, he gave us a few tips on improving our time management skills but I will definitely have to do more work in picking up tips and developing this aspect of my life.
ASL, New skill and new opportunities
This seminar, Signing On: An Introduction to American Sign Language, was a fun and informative that taught me a valuable skill in a inviting and easy way. Before taking this seminar, I knew a few words in sign language like “thank you” and “more” and a few letters that I had picked up from a class my family took many years ago, so I essentially knew nothing. This seminar taught us a lot of new key phrases like the alphabet, how to introduce ourselves, different majors, and some essential questions. I really enjoyed learning more about sign language and feeling a little more confident in a new skill. Most new languages can be very challenging, but I feel that ASL is easier to learn because a lot of the signs are more or less intuitive in acting out the motion or objects for words you would like to convey. Probably the hardest parts of learning sign language are remembering all of the slight specific differences between gestures and utilizing your face and emotions to express the correct word or phrase, and also how the sentence structure in ASL is switched from English sentence structure. Nonetheless, I thought this was a great class and is a great skill to have. Being a hearing person, a lot of the information I take and how I communicate with occurs through sound and I do not often think about people that are hard of hearing and how they navigate the world in a completely different way. After learning some sign language, I am thinking more about this and I am happy that I am slightly more able to be empathetic to this community and communicate with them through speech a little better than I could before.
Thinking About Grad School
The seminar about planning for grad school, hosted by Zach, helped me plan for my future and ask different questions about entering higher education that I had not previously considered. I plan on applying to veterinary schools which I think eases my process a little bit because I have decided what I want to study and it is a pretty big field with lots of opportunities and programs. I still have to look into specific schools with different focuses and unique qualities, but I think there will be a lot of varieties of schools that cater to my interest, unlike someone with a very niche specialty that might have trouble finding programs for that study at many schools. I do not know how this application will differ from other graduate program applications, but this seminar taught me that I should reach out to students in programs at different schools to learn more about the application and life at that school. I also have to think about other factors of different schools like what it is like to live there, the specific curricular focuses of each school’s program, and the perspectives of current students on life and the curriculum and work or research outcomes and opportunities after the degree. Overall, this seminar helped me to start thinking about these different things early, so I can better prepare when the time comes.
My Neighbor Totoro, a great film for the ages
For a while now, I had been familiar with Studio Ghibli films and seen Totoro themes desserts and plushies across the internet, but I never understood the love for this movie until this Film Friday. This movie was delightful and whimsical and brought back the feelings of imagination from childhood. There is a beauty in the simplicity of going on adventures to another world all from your backyard, whether they are real or assisted by the creativity of a child’s mind. The family in this movie was sweet and heartwarming and made me think of my own parents and sisters, especially as I have been more disconnected from them this year since being at school and separated by the pandemic. I think I will definitely have to try watching more Studio Ghibli films if they are all this wonderful.
Disappointments in our criminal justice system and hope for the future
When I was younger, I used to think that criminal justice just mean that when people committed crimes, they went to jail, and everyone who went to jail was guilty of their crime and it was as simple as that. I never thought of the criminal justice system as a whole being made of interconnected parts; I never thought about what happened to people after they were released from prison, and I never thought about the impact it had on their families and their futures after prison. As I have grown, and listened to the stories of people affected by mass incarceration through documentaries like 13th, and this eCornell Keynote, Criminal (In)Justice: How Mass Incarceration Disrupts Families and Communities, I have learned that the criminal justice system is much more complex and life altering that I thought. America’s current criminal justice system is one that disproportionally affects black Americans through excessive policing and cycle that perpetuates crime and incarceration in black communities. When somebody goes to jail, they are removed from society and while life pauses for them, it keeps going for everyone around them. Families and children of incarcerated people are equally affected. They are separated from their family, they lose the income and emotional security from their incarcerated family members, and children affected by mass incarceration, especially, are born into the world already with an unfair disadvantage that will affect their whole life. For the people who become incarcerated, their lives after jail or prison will never be the same. A permanent record make it difficult for incarcerated people to find jobs, to pay off their probation fees and fines from their criminal charges, and it greatly hindrances their acceptance back into society. The lingering affects of incarceration are deeply rooted in racism and focus more on profit and punishment than rehabilitation of incarcerated people, which is why it is so toxic to our society. I am happy that the speakers in this keynote are doing so much hard work to help the people affected by this system rebuild their lives and overcome the difficulties and setbacks that go hand-in-hand with criminal justice. I hope that one day our system will be reformed to better rehabilitate people who commit crimes instead of destroying their lives to perpetuate this cycle.
Tiger King: Educational or Sensational?
Like most Americans, I spent the early days of quarantine watching Tiger King and debating the role of Carole Baskin in her husband’s disappearance and laughing at the antics of Joe Exotic. I think as a documentary, Tiger King was entertaining, but missed the mark on it’s original goal. When I first heard about this show, I expected it to focus on the mistreatment of these animals and the fad of owning and breeding big cats as accessories for the extremely wealthy. I learned in this discussion that the show was inspired by the documentary, Blackfish, which followed this format to expose the mistreatment of whales at SeaWorld. After watching Tiger King, I was disappointed in its execution on conveying this message though. I do think that there were some good educational parts of the show, and it demonstrated a lot of the mistreatment of these animals and the evil side of owning and breeding wild animals in captivity without proper regulations and controls. However, I think this message was largely overshadowed by the sensational drama between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin. After hearing other people’s impressions of the show in this discussion, and from seeing peoples’ reaction to it on the internet, it seems like the main takeaway from the show surrounded the flamboyancy and controversy of the two opposing cat owners, and not the cats themselves. While I think this makes for a good piece of entertainment, I wish the creators of the show could have used this attention grabbing drama to draw even more attention to the cruelty and animal rights violations demonstrated by these for-profit “zoos.”
The role of whiteness in discussions on race
Discussions on race are always difficult to have, but they are important for the structure of our country and necessary to improve relationships between communities and institutions. As a white person, I came from a predominantly white community and school and I have always felt slightly uneasy when discussing race. I don’t think I have been left out from these discussions, but I understand that my place is less to speak on these issue, and more to listen to the experiences of BIPOC. I felt that this table talk provided a good space to have these difficult discussion and I was interested to hear from new people from a variety of backgrounds on their experience with race in America. It also made me examine my whiteness and the role that race and privilege has played in my life in my schools, communities, friendships, and achievements thus far. When I listened to other peoples experiences and addressed my own experience with race, it made me more confident to participate in these discussions and continue to work on dismantling racial divides in our country.