This seminar made me realize just how powerful art could be in changing people and society. I think the part of the seminar that stood out to me the most was the demonstration on how murals were used in the NYC climate change protest, and many other kinds of protests as well. If I imagine a protest without a mural or any artwork, all the power of the protest comes from the sheer number of people attending the protest as well as how loudly the people are screaming, but it is hard to prove a point or actually make change with that since people are not very likely to feel any emotion from that, just statistics. However, if I image the same protest with murals and many works of art visualizing what the people are fighting for, it definitely resonates with me a lot better, and I think it would most definitely resonate with many others as well. Seeing a depiction of the world burning or people dying created by an artist can be much more powerful than mere words and numbers, so this made me change my mind on the importance of art when trying to make a change. I originally thought that adding art to a protest was no different than just writing words on a sign, but I realize now that actual art with hours of effort put into them is much more effective in striking people in their hearts and bringing about change.
Author Archives: kps59
The Complexity of Ethical Dilemmas
In this week’s seminar, we discussed many different kinds of ethical dilemmas, and this discussion helped give me a new perspective on how different people think about the world, as well as how certain people think about situations differently depending on the context of the situation and the background of the person. For example, a dilemma that was raised during the discussion was “If you find $20 on the bus, would you take it or ask around for the owner?” While some people said they would take it and some people said they would ask around, there was another option that I did not really expect: they would just ignore it and let someone else handle it. This made me realize that not all ethical dilemmas are black and white, and that some had many options to choose from. In the case of the third option, the person being asked this question is conveniently avoiding it by passing the dilemma onto someone else entirely without actually saying it, which is something I had never thought of. This third option could have also arisen from the fact that some people have social anxiety, and would much rather just not talk to anyone than receive or give $20, so the answer to the dilemma depends on the background of the person. It also depends on the context, because if the amount of money found had been something like $500, the answer would definitely have been different with the consequences of both decisions becoming more severe. Another question I liked was “if your dentist is fully booked, do you get an appointment with someone else?” This one also depends on the context, because if you’ve only met this dentist once, changing dentists wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but if you’ve been visiting this dentist for decades, then some might consider changing to be rude, while others might think that the dedication would nullify the effects of rudeness that might come from temporarily changing dentists.
The significance of “forking”
For this week’s discussion on episode 5 of “The Queen’s Gambit”, we discussed what the significance of the word “fork,” which was the title of the episode. One thing that was revealed to me was that the word can mean many things depending on the context. first, the word “fork” in terms of chess, means to attack two pieces at the same time, meaning one can be saved but the other cannot. In terms of life, a fork can mean two different life choices, as in a “fork in the road” which can be both literal and figurative. In the episode, both forms of the word “fork” were used. When Beth was playing speed chess, a fork was played in one of the matches, and she was also presented with two different forks in her life. First, she had to choose between two men. It was shown that she was attracted to two different men in the episode, so she had to choose wo to be with. The other fork was that she had to choose between a normal life and a life of chess. The episode focuses around Beth’s obsession with chess, and reveals that she is so obsessed with it that she pushes everyone around her away in an effort to keep learning, so she can’t make any meaningful connections. She must choose for herself whether she wants to pursue this career in chess and have her entire life dedicated to chess, or to have some fun while doing it.
The Importance of Mental Health
At this interview, I was reassured that Cornell is always doing everything they can to preserve everyone’s mental health, and I greatly appreciate this school for that. However, I also learned that even if the Cornell staff does everything they can, they cannot help fix everything, so it also up to the students to help themselves. The two biggest pieces of advice Weiss and Downey gave that resonated with me is that you should never be a bystander and to have someone to vent to. The first is very obvious, but not a lot of people actually follow through with it. Even if someone is just being slightly mean, if you’re a bystander and witnessing this happening, speaking up about it can improve someone’s day and even their life immensely. Not everyone has someone to vent to either. A lot of the stress that students build up is from not being able to properly express their frustrations and thinking to themselves “why is this happening to me?” so being able to vent to someone is very important. I also learned that it is important not to only have someone to vent to, but to be someone that people can vent to as well, so you can help everyone become less stressed.
The Hidden Inequalities of Climate Change
Before this event, I always thought that the concept of climate change was simple: if nobody does anything about it, then everyone suffers, and if everyone does something about it, then nobody suffers. However, it was revealed to me that there were much more important factors to take into consideration when talking about climate change. The first fact that surprised me was that climate change does not affect everyone equally. During this event, it was stated that African Americans were more likely to die from climate change than Caucasians due to various factors, which I had never thought about before. This means many people are privileged enough to not worry about climate change while others are suffering because of them, so the negative consequences of climate change are not spread out equally among humanity. Another thing I learned was that at this point in time, the problem was no longer about the science and technology, but the politics. There are people who benefit from tackling the problem of climate change, while others may suffer a loss. This makes educating the public about these issues much more difficult, and getting the people with power to actually do something even harder. There were many other things I learned at this event, but I think these were the points that stood out to me the most, and points that everyone else should be made aware of, because even if they support efforts to fix climate change, they might not realize how privileged they are.
Mind Your Community
This table talk was very insightful considering the current state of the world. With a global pandemic ravaging everyone, it is more important than ever for everyone to mind their community and make sure they do their part to keep everyone safe. I really liked this discussion in particular because it had us break out into small groups to try and solve a theoretical community problem involving salmonella. This made me much more aware of my surroundings and what I can do prevent things like diseases from going around. It also made me much more wary of diseases in general because I had no idea that salmonella could easily be spread. During this pandemic, I have been doing my best to keep myself safe from infection so that nobody else gets infected, but I’m starting to realize that maybe that is not the right way of going about things. Instead, it may be better to have a mindset to keep everyone safe, and not just myself by not doing things that might cause somebody else to be infected even if I don’t. Everyone should also adopt this mindset and mind their community.
Stimulating the Brain with Pictionary
I play pictionary a lot with my friends, so it was somewhat of a new experience being able to play with people I did not know. Usually when playing with my friends, our drawings might include references to inside jokes, and we each have a general idea of what each other person can recognize, so the game sometimes got very convoluted. However, by playing with new people, I got to enjoy the game in its original way and actually draw the prompt I was given. For example, with my friends, if someone uses the color red, we might have to consider obscure words like communism because of a joke someone made a while ago, but with these new people, red could simply mean apple, and it was likely that the artist was doing to their best to draw the prompt instead of trying to deceive anyone. Everyone’s art was amazing, and their thought processes were interesting to look at through the chat and the art they drew. I hope to play more pictionary with these new friends some day.
Eye-opening Wisdom from Cornell Fellows
I have never touched anything close to human resources and law, so this interview was very insightful for me, helped me gain a better understanding of the world. In particular, it helped me realize just how flawed our society still is, and I found how they got that information to be very interesting. According to the fellows, there have already been many cases of discrimination among workplaces that not many notice, despite all the efforts to make workplaces inclusive for everyone. Then, when the coronavirus pandemic hit, even more of these problems came to light. Thanks to the many examples that were given to me, I now understand the severity of the situation, and how I can act to change the world. Through this interview, I found a new dream of becoming a leader capable enough to analyze workplace conditions and determine if they are truly inclusive and supportive as I would claim them to be. That way, my company will succeed even more and everyone will become happier in general.
Safety at Cornell
During Thursday’s seminar on love and relationships, many important issues about safety during a relationship were brought up, and I was glad I learned so much from that conversation. Although I’m not in a relationship, I have always been worried about where I should go for help if something did happen that I did not feel comfortable talking about to just anyone. Thankfully, I learned that Cornell and Ithaca in general has a plethora of resources available, with the important fact that they are all inclusive. This makes me feel at ease because I am of a minority group, and also have friends that are part of the LGBTQ+ community, so I feel safe knowing that they are safe. My only disappointment is that these resources are somewhat difficult to find and I would not have known about them had I not attended the seminar, but I would love to share the links they provided us with everyone I know.
Newfound Hope for Learning During a Pandemic
After listening to the interview for Professor Schwarz and Professor Samuels, I was blown away that such teachers even existed, especially Professor Schwarz. Based on everything they were saying, I could tell they were extremely passionate about teaching and were proud of it. This is completely different from most of my other teachers who treated teaching as through it was a chore, and I was instantly envious of the students who learned under them. However, there was one particular statement that Professor Schwarz made about teaching during a pandemic that struck me deep. He claimed that teaching on Zoom was still just teaching, so blaming the online classroom setting for a teacher’s inability to teach was not a good excuse. Ever since the pandemic started, I became less motivated to learn because I was convinced everything was only going downhill, at least until I heard this. I realized that there was still hope, and that there might still be teachers like Professor Schwarz out there who do not try to blame everything on the pandemic. In fact, I just started taking CS 3110 taught by Michael Clarkson, and I think he fits this exact role. Thanks to this interview, I now look forward even more to taking classes in the future taught by people similar to Professor Schwarz and Professor Clarkson, even if the pandemic never goes away.