Author Archives: Max Dopsch

Advocacy in Ithaca

Posted on by
Reply

GRF Laura’s talk about her work as an advocate in various places around the world made me reflect on my own experiences doing similar work, albeit in a much less impressive manor.  I was fortunate enough to go to a high school with some great programs–one of them was that instead of descending into senioritis, we were given the option to spend the last trimester of our senior year working full-time in a service capacity.  For me, this ended up being an internship at a small non-profit 501(c)(3) organization on the Lower East Side.  Most of my time there was spend just generally assisting the case managers with their clients, many of whom had problems ranging from pending eviction to trouble securing their welfare.  I appreciated Laura’s talk not only because it reminded me of my own brief experience in the field, but because it gave me more perspective on the tireless work that case managers/advocates do for their clients on a day-in/day-out basis.  It really does take a lot of heart to put in the work for those who need it most.

Another place that I need to see

Posted on by
Reply

Professor Mertha’s discussion about Cambodia was illuminating on several fronts.  Most importantly to me, I just knew very little about Cambodian history prior to the quick briefing that he gave us at the beginning of the talk.  Like many areas of Asian history, Cambodia’s bloody past is an era that is often overlooked in American history courses and text.  Most people understandably have little idea about what actually went down and how horrible it was, myself included, so receiving a quick lesson on it was much appreciated.

 

I also really just enjoy to Professor Mertha tell his war stories.  I took his class last semester (China Under Revolution and Reform, a GOVT class) and he always has a funny anecdote about his travels in Asia.  I’d highly recommend him as a professor for anybody interested in eastern Asia.

More than dirt

Posted on by
Reply

Well maybe not technically.  I’m not entirely sure.  While Dr. Solomon explained the distinction (or lack thereof) between the two at the beginning of his slides, I can’t quite remember what that was.  But this bit of terminology wasn’t the important part–the thrust of his talk was that the soil that we walk on every day has a much more important place in our world than one might expect.

 

For me, the most interesting component of Dr. Solomon’s talk was how important a role soil can play in the management of climate change.  It never occurred to me that soil has the ability to store carbon.  As a physics person, I hear a good bit about how science can impact climate change problems.  But normally the people I hear talking about this are engineers in the like, those using applied principals to create new ways of addressing the root causes.  I never realized that one of the potentially best solutions is one that the Earth already has in place in storing carbon in the soil.  I look forward to learning more about how this field can be part of the solution.

A Coach’s Wisdom

Posted on by
Reply

Coach Tanasoiu’s talk about his coaching philosophy was in some ways nostalgic for me.  I suspect that many people who have ever played a sport will feel the same way, the reason being is that there’s a very particular wisdom that only really good athletic coaches seem to capture–and Coach Tanasoiu absolutely has it.  The way that he talks and the passion that he displays about making people better is inspiring to me.  When I was growing up, one of my greatest influences were the football coaches that I had.  Pretty much more than anybody else, these men had a profound impact on essential characteristics.  When they would talk, I recall a distinct excitement in hearing what they had to say.  Coach Tanasoiu had the same effect in his short time with us.

 

The particular point he made that I like the most is about being very “intentional” with using time; I highlight intentional because I think it to be a great choice of word.  Too many of us let hours slip by with nothing good to come of them.  Just think of what we could get done if we put those wasted hours to a purpose–we could accomplish a lot more.

DREAMing in New York

Posted on by
Reply

For me, most things concerning issues of immigration and citizenship status are anchored in my memories of New York City.  Having gone to high school in New York, I consider myself to be decently familiar with the different components that make up the city’s population, the undocumented portion being of particular interest.  In some of the different service experiences I had during high school, a lot of the work revolved around helping undocumented persons find suitable means of living, which of course is quite challenging in an expensive city when you don’t have the paperwork to get help form the government.  My experience there shifted my perception of immigration issues from the policy level to the more human level.  Politically, it’s wildly complicated.  But on a different plane, everybody should have a warm place to live at night.  Esmerelda’s talk about the personal experiences of DREAMers reminded me of that.

Experience For Sale

Posted on by
Reply

While Prof. Shwartz’s talk has no real utility for me, I did find it interesting as a member of the larger Cornell community.  I’ll never end up at (or even look at) Cornell Tech because it lies so far off of my career trajectory.  That said, hearing about the model of education being employed at Cornell Tech on the whole and the Jacobs Institute in particular is interesting from a pedagogical perspective.  I really like the model that they’ve implemented in their masters programs–as far as I can tell, they’ve synthesized the skill set usually gained by years in industry and turned it into a curriculum, essentially allowing you to buy job experience (this is absolutely an oversimplification, but I think a decently apt way of looking at it).  Having programs like this should change the way that people access high-level positions that lie at the intersection of multiple fields in the same industry.

Not just for Mondays

Posted on by
Reply

GRF Sara’s talk on melancholy left a few impressions on me. First, it allowed me to redefine my usage of the word and have a more keen eye for it in everyday life. Before the café, I would’ve defined melancholy as a deep sadness, but would have neglected the temporal component of the definition, which I now consider to be crucial. The resulting mental state is made much less acute via the addition of the drawn-out quality, and as a result perhaps much more subversive. Thinking about it now, it seems like most people have some degree of melancholy, regardless of whether or not it always manifests itself. Everybody regrets, longs for things of the past, and mourns the image of things that never came to be. Because of this, I now hold the opinion that perfectly happy people can hold some degree of melancholy, and that the two are not in opposition.

 

Also, I need to watch more Hitchcock. That’s the second impression.

Paying attention to the local

Posted on by
Reply

Lisa Nicholas’s talk on Wednesday was nice because rather than focusing on the big, grand issues that people at Cornell usually do, it made us think about the changes that are undergoing our local community.  A lot of people consider themselves to be residents of Ithaca while students here, but at the same time don’t really take a minute to pay attention to what is going on in our city.  That is, until the conversation turns to the lack of student housing, which was conveniently a centerpiece of Ms. Nicholas’s discussion.

Another benefit was that the talk actually explained the questions that I had about what was going on in the Commons (side note: the number of people who haven’t been to the Commons is astonishing; I don’t know how you could go more than a few weeks at Cornell and not take a trip down there).  I think that injecting a dose of commercialism into the area will actually be great for it–while we might lose some small-town feel, the vivacity that follows should be great.  Right now, I feel that the businesses down there don’t have enough appeal to turn the area into a lively district.

An African Reminder

Posted on by
Reply

Prof. van de Walle’s discussion on his studies in Africa had a lot of significance to me, for a couple of reasons.  Firstly I’m a government major, so I find academic areas such as this to be very interesting.  Since I was sitting in the front, I couldn’t see if there were any other government majors in the room when he asked, but I get the impression that there weren’t many.  And while I’m more of an international relations kind of guy, the comparative sub-field that Prof. van de Walle’s works in is very related.  Additionally, I found the talk interesting because I’ve been to Africa before–specifically Nairobi on a school service trip during high school.

The discussion served as a good reminder to ward off a unspoken misunderstanding that many people have when thinking about Africa.  People tend to just consider it as a single sovereign unit, as if Africa is both a country and a continent.  Of course, there is a much greater degree of complexity that underlies all conversations regarding it.  Hearing about the differences between the various regions and nations, ranging form political to social and economic, helps remind us of this.