Author Archives: rps245

The Importance of Interviewing Back

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This Rose Café with Ms. Mary Opperman opened my eyes to tackling job interviews and selecting the job that is right for you. I believe that as students, it is easy to take any job that is offered to you no matter what the conditions are because the job is in an industry you always wanted to work in. For instance, people who aspire to be in investment banking or consulting tend to take the offer no matter how they are treated by management during the interview and the selection process. While it is true that we do not have much bargaining power as students, it is always important to keep an open mind and “interview back” as well so that we can spend the most constructive ten weeks of our summers. If we cannot enjoy the work environment and cannot trust our mentors, there is no way to actively pursue growth or learning within that company.

While “interviewing back” has never been my mentality, I have been fortunate enough to meet mentors and engage in summer internships that have allowed me to define my career interests over the past two years. I am looking forward to an engaging experience again this summer and believe that this new mindset will allow me to make a proactive career choice that is the best fit for my character.

Living in a Sustainable World

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I attended the Rose Café talk on Wednesday and was surprised by speaker Chris Alabi’s mindset on sustainability. While I like to think that I am conscious of the environment as I recycle everything that I can, I did not think that much of what he said was realistic in the near future.

One example that Chris brought up was how his purchased bag of popcorn was “unnecessarily wrapped in plastic”. While it may not be a necessity to wrap consumer products from the eyes of us, there may be certain food regulations set by the FDA to protect food products from getting easily contaminated.

Chris also brought up how we could all possibly purchase milk in glass bottles instead of bottling it in plastic. While this could surely be a feasible possibility in rural areas of the United States, it would not be a very feasible idea in an urban center such as New York city as people most likely go to the supermarket by foot or via the subway.

I believe that while maintaining a sustainable mindset is incredibly important, the speaker’s suggestions were rather unrealistic. Personally, if I lived in New York city and a glass gallon of milk was $3 while a plastic carton was $7, I still may purchase the plastic carton because of convenience. Establishing better recycling programs seem more realistic as of now.

Poverty in the Digital Age

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This Wednesday, I attended a Rose Cafe discussion on Virginia Eubank’s book Automating Inequality. While I did not get the chance to read the book myself, I decided to attend the event because the content seemed interesting I wanted to listen to what students had to say about the poor/working class in the United States and how information science is related to the issue. Personally, I believe that the introduction to technology has significantly widened inequality especially in the United States because people with more wealth are able to invest in life-enhancing technology while people who fail to purchase similar items are left behind. As technology is created by the wealthy for the wealthy, it will be increasingly difficult to shrink the wealth gap between the underprivileged and wealthy communities. In addition, poor communities inherently have less exposure to such technology, making it difficult for children in underprivileged communities to take on interest in such academia. After hearing of the many stories summarized during this discussion, I was caught in awe because I had never imagined how new technology may be worsening the quality of lives for people living in underprivileged communities, as bias (from the wealthy) may be present in any software created (while unintentional).
On the other hand, in Japan, many people are equally “poor”; the average household wage is slightly under 40k a year for the entire adult population and the top 1% holds much of the nation’s wealth. However, there is no “poverty” in the nation and mostly everyone owns a computer and smartphone no matter what income class they are in. I believe that this is the biggest differentiator between the two nations: the impact of new technology does not detract from the overall living experience in Japan because most people have a minimum amount of technology and understand how to use it best to their advantage because there are opportunities to enhance one’s technological literacy in local communities. While this is surely an important issue to solve, it will take some time as the United States is a much larger and heterogenous nation than (the homogenous nation of) Japan in terms of the many cultures, races, ethnicities, and income classes that intermingle on a daily basis.

Enjoying your Cornell Experience

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Last Wednesday I attended a Rose Café discussion by Todd Bittner from Cornell’s Botanical Gardens. Listening to his discussion made me wonder if I was truly taking advantage of the Cornell experience; there are so many hiking trails nearby campus, and the gardens are probably a good place of relaxation for stressed students in the fall and spring times. Cayuga lake is a short drive away from campus. I have never been to the botanical gardens, I have never hiked a trail near Cornell’s campus, I have never truly enjoyed the beauty that lies within the city of Ithaca. As students, I feel that we do not think of how privileged we are at Cornell and tend to complain about what “we do not have” here. However, I was able to recognize that there is more than studying on this beautiful campus; we often fail to realize this as busy students because we are not exposed and told about the plentiful resources that are available on campus. Listening to Mr. Bittner opened my eyes to how I must enjoy my days as a student at Cornell because there is a rich history here and there is so much to do on this beautiful campus.

Preventing Sexual Harassment

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This Wednesday I attended a talk by Laura Weiss who works at Cornell health helping victims of sexual assault on campus. While I had never really thought of the topic matter on how it pertains to the Cornell campus, I realized how prevalent of an issue sexual assault is on campus.

Laura spoke about how 90% of sexual assault incidents have historically been committed by fellow students (likely in fraternity party settings), which makes it very difficult for the administration to intervene. Laura went over the 3D’s (distract, direct, and delegate) as strategies for us to protect our friends who may be vulnerable to sexual harassment when they are under the influence of alcohol.

The most memorable part of the talk for me was when Laura spoke on how Cornell Health played a role in possibly eliminating unwanted sexual harassment by suggesting the installment of coat hangers in fraternity homes. This was seen as a kind gesture by the houses, but was in reality a way for sexual violence prevention; students will now be able to leave the house without asking for their locked up jacket in a brother’s bedroom. These subtle strategies definitely have helped in eliminating instances of sexual harassment, especially at a large school like Cornell.