business

JEONG | Seeking Emersonian Fulfillment at a Corporate Cornell

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When I was first applying to college, I fell in love with the idea of going to a school where I could see the stars at night. Having been born in a city and raised in suburbia, I imagined something idyllic and romantic about living in a rural city completely removed from the rest of the world and from the noisy humdrum of daily life. It wasn’t just about being out in the nature; it was a symbol for the education and intellectual environment I wanted — an oasis of thought and individuality. However, the truth is that Cornell is a neoliberal, corporate institution designed to churn out human capital in the form of polished, Ivy League-educated graduates ready to tackle the toughest models Wall Street has to throw at them. The stream of freshmen walking down the bridge from North Campus before 11:40 classes resembles an industrial assembly line — we walk from class to class, and each class serves as a mechanical arm preparing student after student for assimilation into the corporate world.