Author Archives: kv253

6 Years of Rose

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Last week, I attended the last coffee chat of the year. It was hosted by Blalock as he reflected on the past six years as house professor at Rose. Every 6 years, a new house professor is brought in and, unfortunately, Blalock’s time has come to an end. It was so inspiring to hear everything he was able to accomplish during his time here at Rose. He listed off so many accomplishments but the two that stuck out to me the most of were creating the scholar’s program and eliminating car accessibility on west campus by putting up the two lifting gates on each side. I had never even paid much attention to the fact that there were very little cars on west campus. However, he shared that pizza delivery cars used to be speeding on west campus every night. Though I do wish I could have fresh pizza delivered to the building instead of having to walk to baker flagpole to pick it up, I am even more grateful that we are able to walk around safely at any hour of the night.

One of my favorite parts of living in Rose is the fact that the staff is so caring for the residents and everyone else in the Rose community. Throughout the talk, you can really tell that Blalock dedicated so much time and effort into making this a better place for everyone to live and spend their time at. I’ve talked to him a couple times in the dining hall and he always makes sure to ask how we are doing and make sure that everything is running smoothly. Though I have only known him for a year, I am confident of how much of an impact he has made on this community and I’m sure his influence will live on for the years to come.

All About Organoids

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Last week I attended a cafe hosted by my GRF, Shiv. He explained how he is currently pursuing his PhD in Biomedical Engineering and upon completing this feat, he will be applying to medical school. He also studied Biomedical Engineering during his undergraduate career at Boston University, so he has many years of experience in this field. He explained how organoids are basically mini organ models in a dish that aim to mimic a target organ’s functionality and structure. There is huge interest in these models to understand how the local environment affects how organs develop, undergo processes, or change into a disease state. His organoid model specifically aims to model the lymph node to understand how B cells make antibodies for therapeutic purposes. I was amazed to hear that he is the first one to successfully make B cells turn into antibody-secreting cells outside the body. He explained how you can take a Zika virus, put it in his system, and form antibodies to make a widely distributable cure in a matter of 4 days. Basically, he uses the organoids to make different environments since each patient is different. From these environments, he can predict which drugs the patient will respond to and make patient-specific treatment plans. In short, he’s using organoids to make cancer treatment personalized, and I hope he can make difference in the field. I’m so proud of his work, and I can’t what to see he will accomplish by the end of his PhD.

Eddy Gate

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On Saturday I was able to attend Eddy Gate with other rose scholars and friends. I had seen the olive green signs all over campus for a couple weeks, so I was excited to be able to see what all the advertisements were for. Eddy gate was a student-led project that aimed at revamping the empty area beneath the gate behind Cascadilla hall. The vision was to create a space that would be open to all members of the community to gather, eat, play games, and overall just chill. The team was able to fundraise money for the event through their go-fund- me page as well as several donations from different organizations on and outside of campus.

Overall, I had a great time at the space! We were able to play games like Connect Four and Katan. They really transformed the space from something that is scary to walk through during the night time to a well-lit and welcoming park. We were also able to see performances from different talented individuals and groups on campus which was a treat. It’s exciting to see students take charge and create change on the campus because often times it seems like rules are so set in place that nothing can be changed on such a large scale.  The team inspired me to look for something I want to change on campus and go for it! I hope they can make this change a permanent addition to campus.

Patriot’s Day

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Last week I was able to watch the film “Patriot’s Day.” I had heard of the movie before but hadn’t seen the trailer or even knew what the plot was about. The movie was about the 2013 bombing that occurred during the Boston marathon. The beginning of the film introduces characters who are key to the story without the viewer understanding why the movie is presenting random characters. The movie is formatted in a very fragmented way because it breaks down the occurrences of that day and the two days after the attack down to the hour. It was captivating because although it wasn’t as flashy as an action movie, it was extremely realistic which really brings an audience in. As viewers, we were able to get a sense of what being in Boston on that horrific day was like through the camera angles and time stamps.

It was interesting to see how officials decided on the best way to respond to the situation. First, they needed to decide who would take the case between the Boston police department and the FBI. When analyzing the scene and finding pieces of home-made bomb materials, the FBI was able to decide that it was most likely a terrorist attack. They faced other challenges such as trying to figure out whether or not they should release the photos of the suspects to the public prematurely. Often times we expect these professionals to be able to give us answers almost instantly, but the movie highlighted how delicate these situations are and how patience is often times the better answer.

The movie was heartbreaking because it showed how this act changed the lives of hundreds of people forever. However, it also showed how strong the city of Boston is and how resilient they were after the accident.

Moo!

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Last Sunday, I was able to visit the Cornell Teaching Dairy Barn with fellow Rose scholars. I was excited about this event because it was an opportunity to venture away from the places I usually frequent on campus. I had always heard that the milk we drink in the dining halls comes from the cows at our dairy barn, but I didn’t realize how close they actually were. I honestly went in with the expectation that we would be able to see the cows from far away and attend more a lecture like activity. However, as we entered, we were able to see dozens of cows no more than 2 feet away from us!

The veterinary student who was our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable about everything regarding the cows and the facility. She explained how there are 150 cows (and 56% of them are pregnant)  in the facility on average and they rotate between laying on their “beds”, eating, and milking throughout the day. Because the cows produce 9 gallons of milk on average per day, it is no surprise that they need to consume pounds and pounds of food to keep up.

We were able to watch the cows enter the milking facility and place themselves in their individual milking stations (they do this on their own)! While at the stations, an employee attaches a machine similar to a suction cup to the cows and once the machine calculates that it has received the right amount of milk, it disengages from the cows. Watching this was very fascinating because I didn’t realize how much engineering went into making the process more streamlined.

Once we left the milking facility, we were able to see where the cows eat and sleep, and finally, we were able to see all the babies that had been recently born! Overall, this was probably the best event I have attended!

Considering Life Post-Undergrad

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Last week I attended a talk with hosted by Sarah, a GRF in Rose house. We talked about grad school applications and ways to navigate the process. It was extremely insightful to hear from her because she experienced transitioning from the workforce to grad school, which was a unique perspective. She shared with us how she was a History major during undergrad and then went into consulting. After a couple years of working in consulting, she decided to take an unconventional path and apply to get her Ph.D. in English. In addition to her diverse background, she also mentored pre-MBA students in their application process. Once she shared this information with us, I was extremely excited to ask as many questions as possible.

One of the career paths I have been carefully considering is consulting, and she was able to share her experience with me about her time at a small firm. Due to the fact that I am not an economics or business major, I was concerned that I would not be able to break into this extremely competitive field. However, she gave me tips on how to be successful in the field and reassured me that my undergrad major was only a small factor in the decision-making process. We were also able to talk about what the best timeline would be, and I decided that getting experience in the field before ultimately returning to school to obtain my MBA is the best option for me.

Overall, attending this event was extremely useful because I had just recently been starting to consider what I would be doing after graduation. I am grateful for all the useful advice Sarah shared with us, and I plan on remaining in contact with her throughout the rest of undergrad and beyond.

Let’s Talk About Bikes

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A couple days ago I attended a table talk with GRF Seema and fellow Rose scholars and we discussed the history of bike sharing systems worldwide. We dove into how these systems influenced the lives of people in a variety of different countries across hundreds of years. In Europe, in the mid-1800’s there were many fatal accidents involving automobiles and as the number of children dying because of these incidents increased, the concern regarding these vehicles grew stronger. Soon, policymakers began to consider alternative means of transportation that would not pose such a high threat to pedestrians and other members of society. Many iterations of bike sharing systems were created and implemented starting in Europe but like any other technology, the first implementations failed. However, in 1991 Denmark (now one of the leaders in amount of people using bicycles for commuting) launched the “next generation” bike sharing system in Farso.

Many countries have since implemented similar bike sharing programs, however, there is still a long way to go to improve the numbers. During the talk, I couldn’t help but think that a system like this would never work in my hometown of Miami, FL. Commuting basically anywhere in Miami requires a car because of the poor public transit systems. Also, there is a high chance that wherever you will be commuting to requires taking an extremely busy highway. Implementing bicycles into the city would only work for leisure around the beach/dock areas, if that.

I enjoyed this talk because it made me realize how helpful these systems could be in cities that are designed in conjunction with them and how city planners should keep initiatives like this in mind when thinking of ways to create ways cities that work for everyone.