Columns

ONONYE | Time to Stop Womansplaining

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I joke to my friends that my column is the only thing about Cornell that’s never felt like a chore — I’ve never cried about my column, never fought over my column (except with my mom who is fond of censoring my writing before I send it to my editors) and never questioned if it was the right decision for me. Rather, my column has encouraged me to open my eyes to new career opportunities, encouraged me to reflect on the best and worst parts of my Cornell experience and was fun when life wasn’t fun.

Opinion

LEE | Into the Unknown

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I decided to give myself a break over the weekend to relax and rejuvenate. I tend to do things in chunks such that I spend either a full day studying or a full day unwinding all at once. I realized, however, that I now have less than two weeks until graduation, and that I can’t leave spending time with and appreciating my friends here for later. So, with final papers and exams in the back of my mind, I went to watch Frozen II at Regal Ithaca Mall. The scene where Elsa begins singing “Into the Unknown” particularly caught my attention.

Opinion

SNABES | Writing in the Sunlight

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One evening, while editing at The Sun’s office, a fellow editor walked into the building and informed us that a car had hit an elderly woman a few blocks away from the office. The other news editor in the room was busy writing an article, which meant that I was the only one available to go outside and check out the scene. I was used to timidly playing a secondary role and relying on other news editors to step up to solve a problem in the newsroom. But, at this moment, I was the one who had to cover the task at hand. I walked out of The Sun’s office, excited for this chance to cover breaking news.

Columns

PIETSCH | From Birkenstocks to Black Heels

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A few days before I started classes at Cornell, I walked into the Human Ecology Building for the first time. I frantically called my sister, a recent Cornell alumna, at least four times to ask her how to find the building. This followed two public phone calls to my mom — in tears. I wanted to find my classrooms on the overwhelming campus before the first day. When I finally walked inside, what I found was more staggering than the dread of being a new student as a sophomore.

Opinion

REDDY | 22

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Warning: The following content contains sensitive material about mental health and relationships.I always imagined my last column to be an “I proved you wrong” to all my nonexistent haters. After listing out all that I’ve been through over the past five years — where are all my super seniors at? — I would say “I did it.” I overcame! Of course, that sentiment is there, and it’s always one to rely on when you just can’t see the light. In that type of reflection, what I would omit is the fact that I have to give a presentation in Spanish that will make or break whether I pass the course or not — whether I graduate or not.

Opinion

GROSKAUFMANIS | Odds and Ends

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It only took a few hours after my brother dropped me off at my freshman dorm for me to text him something along the lines of “I don’t think I’m going to like it here.” In some ways I was right. But  in more ways, I was wrong. My time at Cornell has since followed a pretty common formula: I arrived and found that this school is not necessarily the easiest place to be immediately happy. Eventually I started to like it more, recently I grew to love it and now it’s almost time for me to leave. I imagined before coming here that my favorite moments would conform to Cornell-y college tropes: throwing fish onto the ice at hockey games with some kind of regularity and watching daily sunsets over Libe Slope.

Opinion

KAMBHAMPATY | Vampire Weekly

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Sometime sophomore year of high school, 2013
“A-Punk” plays on the radio while my friend Elizabeth and I are driving back from a high school tennis match. The following month
I’ve refused to listen to anything but Contra for this whole period of time. The rest of high school
My confusion with being a person of color in a predominantly white high school, love for the Polo Bear, lust and disappointment with life and fascination with Futura are all manifested, fostered and finally made sense of through Vampire Weekend’s lyrics and work. Freshman year through the first half of sophomore year of college
I don’t listen to Vampire Weekend as religiously as I did during my formative years as an angsty adolescent who hated her suburban hometown, but they remained part of the background music of my life throughout the years. The winter of sophomore year
I move to the Upper West Side of New York to complete a fashion internship.

Opinion

TRUSTEE VIEWPOINT | Lessons From the Hill

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After two years, two months and three days (but who’s counting), my time as the Student-Elected Trustee has begun to come to a close. Serving as the Student-Elected Trustee has been one of the greatest honors in my lifetime. In an act of nostalgia and personal curiosity, I spent this past week looking through my past viewpoints and notes to pull out my most memorable lessons from the Hill and the Board of Trustees. While I still am unable to describe industrial and labor relations to my grandma in Chinese, I’m happy to report that my time at Cornell has been filled with learning moments that I hope others reading this can carry forward. I learned that organizational traditions are not all pure.

Opinion

AHMAD | High Hopes

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Well, we made it. We have at long last reached the end of the road. It was a tough journey, certainly not one for the faint of heart, but despite all the pain, I believe it was worth it. This right here is my last column. As I sit write, I have to admit I’m glad I decided to go to Olin to do this because I can already feel the emotions that would no doubt have poured out in the form of tears if I wasn’t in a public place.

Opinion

LIEBERMAN | Tender Points of Contact

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My senior year of college has been a whole lot of “lasts” that happened without me even realizing them. I slammed down my pencil and released a big sigh as I submitted my last prelim without noting it was my last. My last Ithaca snow — dreadfully late into spring — fell onto my unsuspecting head without any consideration for how this would never happen again. When would be my last time crying in office hours? My last all-nighter, making ramen and a soft-boiled egg at 3:00 a.m.?