Cornell: my retrospective

I’ve been volunteering to speak with prospective Cornell students for the past few years now as part of the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network (CAAAN). CAAAN is incredibly organized, with a regional organizational structure that keeps hundreds of volunteers accountable for reaching out to and connecting with students who have applied to Cornell and indicated interest in speaking with an alum. 

The meetings are non-evaluative, something that I’m keen to emphasize and re-emphasize all the time. And they truly are: as a CAAAN volunteer (phew, that’s a bit of a mouthful!) I don’t see anyone’s application, I don’t report back on our interaction, and whether or not someone takes me up on meeting has absolutely no effect on their admission decision, as far as I can tell. 

I remember having a few such alumni meetings when I was a high school senior in Hong Kong. I’m pretty sure they were informational meetings just like the ones I offer to do now, and not actual alumni interviews (which also exists/existed for some schools). That said, I also remember my parents being absolutely adamant that they were evaluative, even if I was told that they weren’t. Sometimes these layers of mind games really do exist: for example, I’ve been to conferences where, at the invitation-only happy hour event of a big, desirable company, after all the students (aka prospective employees) left, the actual employees stayed in the room and evaluated every happy hour participant, one-by-one, sharing notes and coming to a decision whom to invite to apply to their company’s internship program.

The CAAAN meeting is definitely not that. It’s just an opportunity for high school seniors to learn about Cornell through one person’s memory of their Cornell experience. Given that Cornell is such a big school - 16,071 undergraduates enrolled for the Fall 2023 semester, with 3,537 being first-time, first-year students - one person’s perspective is definitely not representative of the whole experience, nor is it likely to be predictive of what anyone else’s experience may be in the future. That said, precisely because Cornell is such a big school with so many resources, I firmly believe the Cornell experience is “yours for the taking.” It’s a school that truly offers the opportunity to customize one’s experience however one wants (to work for it).

There’s a few commonalities in what I get asked in CAAAN meetings, so I wrote up my responses below. I’ve met many brilliant young minds in the last few years; the cliche holds true: I’m constantly wowed and impressed by the students I meet, in the brief meeting we have, and I end up thinking, “I’d never get in Cornell today if I were applying.” I’ve come to realize that I’m invested in these individuals doing well and having a fruitful, constructive and inspiring educational experience, whether they attend Cornell or some other university. So, peppered in my responses is also a good dose of unsolicited advice - because I agree with Baz Luhrmann that “advice is a form of nostalgia” (from the lyrics of Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)).

• What did you like most about Cornell?

  I loved that Cornell was its own self-contained world: everything was right there. I mean this in two ways. First, because Ithaca is “in the middle of nowhere,” Cornell has a big campus and even if you live off-campus, there’s a built-in Cornell community physically there. For example, as a freshman, you’re required to live on North Campus, so almost everyone you run into on North Campus is another Cornell student, and very likely a first-year student at that. There are big campus-wide events that are free to attend (and I fell in love with organizing a bunch of them: Casino Nights, Drag Bingoes, etc.) Even if I didn’t know everyone, I still felt a sense of community. Because it’s a big school, there’s plenty of strangers to get to know, but at the same time, it still feels pretty safe. (Not to say that bad things don’t happen, because crime can occur anywhere.) I enjoyed that campus bubble because there’s just nothing comparable before or after college. I know lots of people who, upon moving to a big city and getting their first job, were lost as to how to start finding new friends or finding a sense of belonging. Sure, being on a big campus could mean you sometimes feel isolated, lost in a sea of others, but I always found a sense of security in knowing that I’d find some commonality with those around me as long as I start looking.
  
  The second thing I loved about Cornell was that they truly seem to live up to the motto of “every person, every study.” Even now as an alum, I’m still discovering really cool things that you can study at Cornell, or groundbreaking research coming out of Cornell, and so it feels like absolutely everything, every potential area of study, is at Cornell. I made a conscious effort to take a lot of classes outside of my major, and I still look back and wish I expanded further beyond my comfort zone to explore more topics. I probably miss that about Cornell more than anything.
  
  This was true even outside the classroom. I know people who went to Cornell and started learning tae kwon do, and then they competed! Sure, lots of people continue to do what they did in high school, but there’s opportunities to branch out and try something totally new. Very few people who joined women’s rugby had played before. I hadn’t ever tried making stained glass before I picked up a shard of glass. I fell into event planning without ever really conceptualizing the term to exist! There are just so many things to try and experience and “study” through living. That vibrancy is a lot harder to recreate and access when it’s not all there, concentrated on one campus.
  

• What was your favorite class?

  On that note, my favorite class was a mushroom identification class. It was so different from anything else I had ever taken. Every Wednesday, we’d spend three hours in a forest somewhere - always a different forest - pretty much walking around with our noses pointed to the ground, scanning for fungus growth. It’s amazing how, once you start paying attention and getting used to looking for them, the forest floor comes to life with so much variety and stops being a homogeneous stretch of brown. We’d pick mushrooms we find, carefully put them away, and that evening, spend two hours in lab looking at what we collected under microscopes and trying to identify them.
  
  I loved this class because it was just so different, and it’s given me a lifelong appreciation of a different perspective when I’m out and about. No I can’t name most mushrooms I encounter in the wild (I learned that we’ve barely scratched the surface of understanding fungi; only an estimated 3% of species are even identified and named) - but I can point out main distinguishing features for identification, and it never fails to make for some good conversation on hikes. I skipped the famous Intro to Wines for this mushroom class, and I also skipped a labor law class with one of my favorite professors (who was perhaps understandably baffled when I informed him I was not taking his class and instead taking a course on mushrooms). No regrets - I look back on that as an example of how enjoyable truly unexpected exploration could be. As a side bonus, I also learned a lot more about apple varieties because the professor would bring bushels of fresh apples from the Cornell Orchards, and it was the first time I really sampled and tasted the difference in apple varietals. I wasn’t a big fan of apples prior, but I have a much better idea which ones to go for now.

• Majors and minors - how easy it is to change, what subjects are available, etc.?

  Your options for majors are determined by the school you enroll in at Cornell. I was in the ILR School, and the only major option was ILR: Industrial and Labor Relations. Changing schools is fairly easy, though you’d have to go talk to an academic advisor to get the process started. There isn’t a real “deadline” for you to decide on your major or what school you have to be in, but if you want to graduate within four years, then you want to make some decisions before senior year.
  
  Majors and minors work the same way: you “earn” a major/minor by having taken enough qualifying classes (or rather, class credits). Each major likely has a set of core requirements, e.g. here are the 5 classes (or 15-20 credits) everyone who graduates with this major will need to have taken. Then there are elective credits, usually in themes or groups. So for example, here’s four categories A, B, C, D, and under each category is a list of qualifying classes, and you need to fulfill at least 1 class in each category and a total of 30 credits across all four categories. If, by the time you graduate, you’ve checked all the criteria, you get your major, yay!
  
  Minors work the same way, except the overall credit requirement is less. The exact numbers will differ but can be easily looked up. It’s usually based on course credit and not course count - there are classes with 3 credits or 4 credits (that’s the norm) but also sometimes you can get 2 credits for a shorter class, or half a credit for something else, etc. In any case, achieving majors and minors is a process of making sure you know what the criteria are, keeping an eye on the qualifying classes that are of interest to you and are offered in the semesters you might be able to take them in, and making sure you don’t fail any of those classes. (As the saying goes, C’s get degrees!)
  
  “Declaring a major” is just a statement of intention that you’re working towards the credit criteria for that particular major. It doesn’t bind you to anything, and if you later realize you’ve made a horrible mistake the option to change is available. What you may lose, however, is time - if you switch majors from Chemical Engineering to English, you now have a whole bunch of credits that were relevant to qualify you for an Engineering degree but aren’t accepted by the English department towards an English major, so you have to cram a bunch of classes to “qualify” for the English major. Sometimes folks decide to take winter or summer classes for that reason, and sometimes they have to stay extra (more than 8 semesters) to get all the credits they need to graduate in the field they want a degree in.
  
  One last word about minors - and this comes from someone who graduated with THREE minors: don’t bother. I’ve never seen or heard of anyone getting ahead in any way - be it a job interview, personal health, life or romance - because they had minors. In retrospect, my advice is: take the classes you’re interested in, drop the classes that doesn’t seem promising (before the drop deadline), keep exploring and enjoy the learning. Don’t obsess over “having something to show” for your efforts (your transcript will list all the courses you completed, so there will be a record to look back upon). Frankly at this point, having three minors is more of an embarrassment than a boon - like I had to say this and admit to being THAT much of an ultra nerd. And I’ll also be honest that it’s nowhere as impressive as it sounds: I figured out there were three minors that had a lot of overlapping qualifying classes, so I could take one course and use it towards two or three minors. Yay efficiency! I thought I was being so smart. In reality, I probably stayed in a handful of courses that sounded promising but weren’t as valuable, but I stuck with them instead of finding something more meaningful and actually educational because, well, this class would fulfill the criteria for two minors! Trying to earn minors locked me into courses that I would have otherwise ditched or not chosen at all in the first place - and the opportunity cost was other classes (that didn’t fulfill any minors I was working towards) that could have been way more fun and interesting. So, again, my advice is just to take the classes that interest you, try new things that seem strange and that you don’t know anything about - and then, in those “interest courses,” bail if the course turns out to be boring or unappealing (before the drop deadline).

• Did you study abroad?

  I did not study abroad, but the ILR School offered something called the Credit Internship Program, so I did that and worked in India for a semester (while getting school credit for it). I loved it, and it was certainly very tempting to do a study abroad program, but I both didn’t want to spend more time away from campus (being away for a semester really highlights how much you can miss out on socially and how proximity is a big factor in relationship closeness between friends) and I didn’t want to pay Cornell tuition for non-Cornell-grade education. While there are some study-abroad programs offered by Cornell that are also taught by Cornell faculty, there’s also a lot advertised (on campus or otherwise) that are not. One that comes to mind was something called Semester At Sea. I thought it sounded super cool and I looked into it more than a few times, but in the end I opted against it, because it wasn’t actually taught by Cornell, even though Cornell would accept the course credits. (I didn’t need course credits.) Maybe it a was a little snooty of me at the time, but I was happy with how much there was to explore on campus and I already didn’t have enough time and bandwidth to do all that I wanted to do there.
  
  Two years after I graduated, I was in Spain and met some American students studying abroad there. I learned from their experience that a lot of study abroad programs actually just bundle all the American students in one classroom, so you’re “studying at X university” but with other American students - not the students who regularly attend X university. The American students ended up living together, going to class together, and they generally did everything together except in a foreign country, with no real immersion. This is not necessarily the case for all programs - and I think this may be one of the differences between a study exchange (where you’re actually integrated into the regular campus) and a study abroad program. Just something to bear in mind if and when you get to considering studying abroad.

• Did you feel safe?

  Yes. Like I said, crime happens, but I don’t really recall significant instances where I felt unsafe. Most college campuses have a Blue Light system where you can call (on an old-fashioned intercom-like device) campus police and get an escort to walk with you where you’re going. The escort may not be in the police force; they have Blue Light volunteers that walk around in pairs at night to answer these calls and generally be around. I remember calling for Blue Light escort once when I didn’t particularly want to walk at night from the Ag Quad back to North Campus and cross the bridge over the Beebe Lake falls, which somehow that night seemed extra creepy to me. The two volunteers showed up fairly quickly and just walked me back to my dorm. Nothing about it felt weird or awkward. The other time I called for Blue Light it was super cold and in the middle of winter break, I honestly wasn’t even sure they were working since school wasn’t in session, but someone responded and I actually got a ride from Cornell Police…it was the only time (so far) I sat in the back of a police car (yep it had the bars!) and I was probably inappropriately excited and giddy about that. (The policeman was like, it’s way too cold, hop in, I’m not walking!)

• Why did you choose Cornell?

  No fancy glorious answer here: I chose to go to Cornell because it was the best ranked school I got accepted to.
  
  My high school would only send 6 transcripts (8 if you petitioned for it), so I basically picked a handful of top-ranking schools in the US and 2 in Canada (as my safety schools). I didn’t do any campus visits because I was in Hong Kong and everything was super far away. I had wanted to go to a US university since I was little because, well, because I was naive and had been told Harvard was the “best university in the world.” It was only later that I doubled down on that decision after realizing that the liberal arts education - where you could take courses outside of your declared major, have that flexibility to explore and even change your mind - would be perfect for me; I’ve always been fascinated by a breadth of topics, in fact, I was drawn to learning about and understanding new things, all the time. I didn’t want to be stuck with a major (mildly ironic because the ILR School offered exactly one major, but then it was super interdisciplinary so it didn’t quite feel that way).
  
  I also had very little understanding of “school culture” - and in fact, I definitely scoffed at the concept back then. I still kind of stand by that though, because it’s pretty difficult to get a true feel of how one school is different from another through their websites. Only after when I was already at Cornell did I get the chance to visit and see other campuses - I went to UPenn for a conference, I visited Harvard over a fall break, one of my best friends from Hong Kong was at NYU - and that’s when I realized I was really lucky I “fell” into Cornell (or that Cornell chose me). I loved that Cornell had a defined campus and I had the option of staying within the campus bubble (or leaving it, which I did too, but the choice was there). In comparison, my friend at NYU would leave class and go to a dance class that was just some other New Yorkers. My perspective was I could get that experience for the rest of my adult life, but I could never be exclusively around folks roughly my same age with the same kind of drive and curiosity and smarts again.

• Is Cornell really competitive?

  Competition is in your own head. No, really, it’s all about your own mindset. I definitely know some people who thought Cornell was really stressful, and I know others who seemed immune to it all. The reality is that everyone who gets admitted to Cornell is excellent and smart and hard-working - or some combination of those qualities. That saying about being a big fish in a small pond but a small fish in a big pond? It’s true. I started Cornell in the Fall of 2009 with 3,181 first-time freshmen. That’s over 3,000 individuals who were probably the top 5-10% of their graduating classes. But at Cornell, it’s just statistically true that 50% of these students are going to find themselves “below average.”
  
  Well what does that mean? It means the real life lesson to learn is to give yourself perspective - and then hold on to it. This is obviously easier said than done. I know from personal experience it’s disheartening and jarring to have fashioned your sense of self around being “the smart one” or the one who gets good grades (straight As, or whatever the equivalent) and then realizing…you’re nowhere as smart as these geniuses you’re meeting! When that’s part of your identity, it’s natural to be in a panic or a little rueful when that’s no longer true (hopefully in addition to being inspired). This is also your moment to start pondering who you want yourself to be (known for) - outside of the ways you’ve been told you are.
  
  This is what I’d try to practice more of if I could go back and do it again (as an eighteen-year-old freshman): I’d be clear to myself that my objective was to explore new topics, learn new things and have fun. In addition to not chasing any minors, I’d be more ruthless deciding whether to keep or kick a course I enrolled in within the add/drop period to ensure that I enjoyed the material I was learning, and that it was as challenging as I wanted it to be or estimated I could handle with everything else going on (I was hyper-involved in extracurriculars). I would take classes that I didn’t need for my major pass/fail and draw a firm line at somehow thinking that was less glorious. I would really think about why I needed an A for a class (or not) and then decide what grade I would be happy with - and even force myself to assign Bs or Cs to certain classes. Then I’d stick to it. I would try to guard against doing extra credit work for a class I designated as a “B” class if I didn’t need that to get the “B” I set as a goal. All this because it’s actually way too easy to feel like an imposter, feel insecure, and feel like you, too, should strive for whatever it is folks around you are striving for. Some of my classmates were targeting law school, and they absolutely wanted that A for Labor Law because they believed it would be significant on their transcript. Then maybe they didn’t need to get an A in Intro to Human Resources. It’s so easy to slip into a “but it will be better if…” mindset; there’s no end to the improvements that could be made, but all improvements come at a cost. Everything is a trade-off. If you pursue straight As and a 4.0 (or even a 4.3!) GPA, you’d necessarily give up time socializing, participating in clubs or maybe picking up a new activity.
  
  A word on getting help (academic, emotional, or otherwise): there is a whole army of people who are so dedicated to students having a great experience at Cornell and thriving as individuals they went and studied in Masters programs and PhD programs before coming to live in Ithaca, NY. Use them. Turn to them. Ask them for help. Make friends with them. Who are they? The wonderful, tireless and supportive people at the different Resource Centers, Program Houses, student program offices, etc. You can turn to folks who may resonate and “get you” more based on your racial and cultural identity, your sexual orientation and gender identity, your faith and spirituality, or your professional aspirations. And guess what - if you don’t gel with those you first encounter, look elsewhere! Cornell is a big campus, and while that may mean it can feel isolating, it also means there are fresh starts and possibilities around every corner. Shit happens - that’s just part of life. Identifying that you could use a little help and support and then going around looking for it is a strength and a skill you should definitely prioritize developing and honing while you’re at college.

• How was the food?

  The food’s fine. I’d say the food’s great except that evaluation does depend on what you’re used to. I always found more appetizing options I wanted to eat than I could eat - or should eat. Freshman Fifteen is a real thing, and I don’t believe “all the walking around campus” is halfway enough exercise to offset any weight gain if you, like I did, discover that you can microwave a brownie or a slice of apple pie slightly in the dining halls, and then top it off with Cornell Dairy soft serve.
  
  I don’t know what the current meal plan options are, but when I was selecting meal plan options as an incoming freshman, the standard meal plan was pretty pricey and I opted for the cheapest one, which offered less than 7 “swipes” into an all-you-can-eat dining hall. My mother was concerned about my survival, but she needn’t have worried. Here’s why:

  
  There’s more than dining halls. There’s also a-la-carte eateries like Trillium (part of Cornell Dining) and Temple of Zeus on campus that don’t require a “swipe.” Some may even argue the food’s better at these locations because it’s prepared to order… I will certainly say they’re more convenient options for breakfast and lunch, and occasionally dinner if you don’t end up with a routine that involves going back to your dorm room in the afternoon or evening.

  
  There’s plenty of free dining hall meal opportunities. Sometimes with faculty, sometimes without, you can find regular programs that include entry to a dining hall. When I was on campus, I met two lovely professors in departments I would have otherwise never had contact with this way: one offered dinner at Risley on Tuesday nights, one did brunch at Appel on Sunday mornings. I know folks who participated in the foreign language speaking dinners and got free dinners. These types of opportunities exist, some one-offs but a lot on a regular schedule.

  
  There’s lots of free food! Fine, it’s usually pizza, but don’t you like pizza? I got good enough at the free food game that I was turning down pizza by senior year because I was hauling full cheese plates and Pad Thai. Let me repeat: there’s a plethora of free food on campus. You won’t starve.
  
  And then of course there’s regular “dining out” - local restaurants, and I’m sure folks get food deliveries all the time.
  
  The other big reason I started with the smallest meal plan was, at the time, you were allowed to upgrade to a more expensive meal plan once the semester started but you couldn’t downgrade. So I figured I’d start small and see what I would really end up using, and upgrade if I needed to.

• What’s one thing you learned at Cornell that has been useful in your life now (at work)?

  I’ll be honest: I don’t remember a whole lot of facts I learned at Cornell. Actually, it’s pretty hard for me to attribute any of the concepts I hold in my head to a particular point in time - all my classes are pretty much a blur. Sure, some things stand out, but a liberal arts education isn’t the same as vocational training; there’s no one time I could recall where I was faced with a difficulty and I said, “Aha! I learned exactly what to do in this situation when I was in school.”
  
  Instead, I think the most valuable thing I took away from my education was the ability to figure things out when I didn’t know the answer. I believe that’s what the oft-used term “critical thinking” really describes. Thinking through uncertainty, applying some common sense where appropriate, knowing that there are things you don’t know and being able to identify at least a couple of them - and then taking action to find out about those things so you educate yourself and those “unknowns” turn into “knowns”...and continuing with this process to a point where you judge it to be sufficient (not exhaustive, you don’t have all the time in the world) to make a decision. Rinse and repeat, because nothing exists or happens in isolation. You keep learning, keep observing, keep remembering and keep trying.
  
  I think I picked up lots of things at Cornell that I no longer remember I got from there; there’s probably plenty of things that I actually learned there that I attribute to having had “all my life.” Growth is funny that way: you don’t realize how much you’re doing when it’s happening to you. Each semester would come around and I’d petition to take more than the ILR School’s recommended allowance of 16 credits, and then the semester would end and I would blithely forget how much I actually learned from the 21 credits of classes I just finished. But whether it’s the actual “critical thinking process” or the confidence that I can pick up new and strange things (like history - I had never taken history before college and it was the first course I had to take at Cornell) and perhaps even find them enjoyable, I look back fondly at my time on the Hill because it was so foundational to who I feel I am as a person today.
  

• Anything else I should be thinking about when it comes to Cornell or college in general?

  Two things come to mind:
  
  First, it’s easy to assume you have four whole years to explore. You don’t. The pressure to specialize is strong and it’ll hit you sooner than you think. Realistically, you’re expected to decide on a major no later than sophomore year. Career-wise, a lot of people who go into investment banking or finance or consulting end up doing “return internships” - meaning they’ll try to land an internship freshman or sophomore year, then go back to that same company junior year, and end up with a full-time job offer by the time they start senior year. This even happens with clubs, especially if you want leadership positions and titles. You join a club freshman year, become a junior officer sophomore year, get an “executive” position like President or Vice President junior year, hand over the reins and party senior year.
  
  All this means your actual wandering time is cut down to a year, two at most. Now, you can buck this trend, of course - your experience and life path is what you make it to, and don’t let anyone else decide for you! - but you should also be aware of these expectations and trends so you can plan accordingly. Nothing is absolute (you can change majors late in the game, it’s not impossible, it’s just extra work) and you do learn something from every experience you have, no matter what you do, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to take a more efficient path if you can help it. Maximize exploration in your first two years, and get good at being decisive, especially judging if something is worth more of your time or not. Marie Kondo it - if it doesn’t spark joy, give it up in a hurry and move on.
  
  Second, part of what makes Cornell wonderful is the sheer breadth of excellence the school envelopes you in. It could, however, trigger insecurity and fire off your imposter syndrome. (See “Is Cornell really competitive?”) It could also totally skew your perception of where the bar is and what is “normal.” I actually didn’t realize this until just a few years ago. When you’re surrounded by all these high-achieving people who are used to going the extra miles, you become used to that being the standard. Well how else would you do this? Well of course you always follow up with a thank you note, that’s just standard practice. Well everyone does that, it’s no big deal.
  
  Except that a lot of the things you’ll learn and encounter at Cornell, and the habits you might develop there, may truly be above and beyond what folks in the “real world” post-graduation might expect. Whether it’s your speed and accuracy, your attention to detail, your thoroughness or thoughtfulness, you may find that you’ve gotten so used to a raised bar that you’ve miscalibrated where the bar is in other people’s minds. Is this an issue? It can be. I’ve experienced it as an issue in two ways: one, when I’m routinely disappointed that others aren’t putting in as much effort as I am or don’t produce results like I do; two, when I undersell or undervalue my contributions, or my ability to make contributions (think personal statements and job interviews), because I don’t see anything I’ve done as “all that special” (mostly driven by the fact that I know all these other people who’ve done more amazing things than I think I have).
  
  Just something to keep in mind and be aware about. The more applicable part is probably making sure you can truly value how much you’re shining - even if, next to other Cornellians, you think you’re no brighter than anyone else. Remembering, context definitely matters, and Cornell is such a stellar environment is can truly warp your sense of comparative context.

I was “hyperinvolved” when I was at Cornell. And I guess it bled over into my life as an alum, because I joined the Reunion Committee for my class’ 10th Reunion. And together, we transformed a functional dorm common area into this!