Professor Beck, a social and cultural Anthropologist, led a Rose Café session that was decidedly atypical, but not bad by any means. It was different in how open-ended it was and it wasn’t necessarily the audience listening to the presenter. Prof. Beck, with the focus on the Urban Semester Program, asked questions to each audience member about what they want to do and tried to give some advice on possible career paths. At the beginning, it was a bit awkward as people didn’t know how to answer but he was very impressive in introducing levity into the room and defusing the apprehension. The major takeaway was how he connected what we were studying at Cornell to what we could do in the future. Often the major is not a determinant of your future career but he did tried to suggest possiblities that each person might like. The Urban Semester Program is an initiative that allows students to take on an internship in any field they feel interested in and also managing the Cornell course load. I think it is easy to get lost in the daily academic requirements at the university but it is important to start exploring and understanding the possiblities for future career paths and trying to obtain internships. Studying and taking exams doesn’t translate to work experience so getting the practical aspect of potential careers is important in my opinion to decide if it is a fit for me. This is the reason why I sought out opportunities to work at clinics and hospitals to understand the atmosphere, the responsibilities involved and interplay between people of various medicine-related professions.

I think this was quite an enlightening talk with Prof. Beck and has inspired to look more closely into the Urban Semester Program and see if I can take advantage of it accordingly. He mentioned that they could connect me to major hospitals and clinics of different specialties that interest me so it is definitely something useful for me; doing it during the semester and juggling the academic workload looks to be difficult but I am sure it would be an unbelievably valuable experience if I decide to do it. I appreciated his talk and loved the reverse format. He mentioned that this learning style was very effective and while he didn’t explicitly mention what it was, I think the style was the Socratic method. If the students arrived at the answer themselves and instead of being told it, then they will be able to understand and reach that answer again in the future since they did it once.