Columns

KANKANHALLI | Who’s Behind the Trigger?

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Voices flock to controversy like bees to honey. The case surrounding the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High shooting is no outlier — without delay, a multitude of sentiments regarding the affair has peppered the national landscape. As in prior responses to tragedy, we have heard vehement accounts from survivors, onlookers, afflicted families, and of course, politicians. This is precisely what we would hope for in response to an unthinkable calamity, is it not? Hardly.

Columns

KANKANHALLI | Why the Super Bowl?

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You’re told to write about what you know — with good reason, in order to avoid assuming the likeness of a total dud and expounding on topics that are far beyond your expertise. Today, though, decorum begs to be broken as I attempt to comprehend the national spectacle that is the Super Bowl. Powerful enough to coax a purr out of President Donald J. Trump, Super Bowl LII transported us to an alternate universe where viewers’ pride and happiness are inextricably linked to the wins of their athletic counterparts. [Spoiler Alert] “Congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles on a great Super Bowl victory!” — a tweet posted last night from Trump’s own account, staggering and confounding in its authenticity, begins to capture the scope of this annual match. Such a priority is the occasion, in fact, that previous commitments are rescheduled and responsibilities are dismissed for a fateful few hours.

Columns

KANKANHALLI | I Never Learn

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What do a green circle, a blue square and a yellow triangle all have in common? You might recognize these humble shapes by their sturdier aliases: Open, Closed, Wait List. Student Center’s three beloved icons, occupying hardly a few pixels on screen, command quite a few fates. In my experience, they share a mandate to gamble recklessly with my intellectual journey. They taunt me, as if saying “it would be a shame if you accrued massive debt to attend Cornell and didn’t glean a single practical thing from your stay, huh?”

Yeah, it would be.

Columns

KANKANHALLI | Intermission

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Pardon me for conveniently overlooking finals week, but we’re just so close to Winter Break. Risking my immediate success but securing my longer-term sanity, I would rather dream about a post-finals utopia than dwell on what is required to usher that utopia into being. So, the holidays! They are less than a month away now, and in college time, that’s hardly longer than a heartbeat. I’m usually not one for prior planning (in cases where it actually matters), but when something as liberating as Winter Break is around the corner, I’m a fan of shirking the present and doting on the future.

Columns

KANKANHALLI | The ‘I’ in ‘Team’

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Recently, I’ve been grappling with my group identity. My courses this semester have placed an emphasis on collaborative group projects, and as such, I’ve been viewing myself through the lens of my teammates, as a part of a whole, rather than as a completely individual entity. In academic settings, the concept of group work is interesting in that it anchors a set of strangers, without much consistency in background or passion, to a common goal – likely a desirable grade. Usually, then, after teams are selected, the professor gradually decreases the level of imposed structure, and the madness begins. Four of my six classes have currently assigned ongoing group projects: one of my teams is designing a website, one of them is building an application, one of them is filming a video and the last is dedicated to studying the role of technology in group work.

Columns

KANKANHALLI | The Weather Outside

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Cornell under 60 degrees feels more like a battlefield than a college campus. It gets this way every year without fail, but the initial hints of winter are always jolting. As the daylight fades, so do motivation, energy and moods. For the average college student, these virtues are not especially high to begin with, so the impacts of a shift in seasons are profound. Thankfully, Cornell is generous with its winter break.

Columns

KANKANHALLI | To Netflix: Chill

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Veiled by political unrest and other persistent distractions, Netflix has been up to no good. The company recently increased its standard monthly subscription prices from $9.99 to $10.99, which I would have totally missed had it not been for some pointed research. Granted, $1 extra is a reasonable trade for surplus dopamine, so maybe this is justified with some business terminology. Still, it was a bold move, considering 600,000 forward-thinking, likely SolarMovie users closed their accounts following the 2011 Netflix price hike. What’s worse than the increased rates, though, is Netflix’s ascension atop the Internet Ethics soapbox.

Columns

KANKANHALLI | The World, My World

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Everything worth saying has already been said. Everything worth writing has already been written. We’ve heard it all before. We’ve read it all before. I just hope that everything worth doing has not already been done.

Columns

KANKANHALLI | Brotherhood Inverted

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It is sometimes tempting and often convenient to claim that all fraternities recruit and produce insincere, pompous, self-serving men — but this is as accurate as claiming that all foreigners are terrorists. So, there must be an alternate explanation – why is brotherhood, so harmless and so inviting, so often laced with destruction and loss? In employing humiliation, degradation and pain as the gatekeepers of their brotherhoods, fraternities stray from the very essence of family that they strive to mimic. Times were much simpler when laughable bouts of sibling rivalry did not result in emotional scarring, physical abuse or death. Admittedly, families fortify their bonds by sharing heartache, troubles and worries, but these adversities are natural.

Columns

KANKANHALLI | How to Fare Well at Career Fair

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Career Fair is this week, and it’s my chance to shine (and yours too!). I don’t know if I’ll shine brightly, given that 500+ eager Cornellians will join me in attendance, but try I must. Since preparation is key, I neglected my course assignments all weekend long to redo my resume — that is, to make it more closely resemble the standard template that every career-minded individual also follows. Now, I look pretty good on resume paper ($20 well spent!). It seems counterintuitive to conform in hopes of being distinct, but standardization is the nectar of the H.R. Gods.