Over the Top

This year has definitely been a tough year for me for a number of reasons, but I can’t help but appreciate all the stuff I have done through this year at Cornell. One of my last posts will just be highlights of what my sophomore year has pretty much been.

The first was just picking a major. I went from undecided in Arts & Sciences to Applied Economics & Management in CALS. Picking a major really changed me. I went from taking random classes that I thought I would be interested to taking a courseload that was pretty much all business and a biology class.

Just look at the pictures I went from wearing t-shirts to wearing a dress shirt and slacks for every ball, company presentation or interview I seem to have everyday now since I am an AEM major.

You can see the difference!!!

Next was going through another year of having roommates and by far my roommate took the prize for the craziest roommate. I got to see a perfect example of how weird some relationships at Cornell can be through my roommate. His girlfriend was definitely crazy and I still wonder why they are still together. There were times where my suitmates could hear her crying outside my door and banging her head against the door as a plea for attention. Situations where my roommate would have another girl sleeping in our room while his girlfriend was right across the hall. I got to hear their ups and their downs, the hugs and the crying or whatever else they would do. Really makes happy to know that I am in a good relationship!

This was also a year of tough classes. Biology by far was the most annoying class I have taken at Cornell. I still don’t understand why this is still a requirement for people who are interested in business. The Managerial accounting final didn’t end well with even my professor asking, ‘What happened?’ when he saw the results of my final. I still feel bad about not taking Chinese for a semester but I needed to catch up in AEM. Hopefully next spring I will be able to study abroad in China so I can make sure I have my language skills down.

This has also been a year of me doing new things. I went to events and workshops I have never been before. I really enjoyed all the opportunities to meet new people and just explore new places.

Here are some of the events  I went to where I have pictures: (Thanks to Facebook)

The National Black Student Leadership Development Conference in Washington D.C. where I got to fly to D.C. for free. Thank you Cornell!!!!

    That’s me on the far left doing INTO The Streets with the National Society of Black Engineers. I am member despite not being an engineer but I have fun so it’s cool.

   That’s me and my girlfriend going to one of the 500 balls that different groups at Cornell hosts. I think this is the AKA sorority ball but I’m not sure.

   Men of Color Conference somewhere in upstate New York. We got to play paintball. Please believe I was an assassin when it came to the paintball field.

This was an event known as It’s A Black Affair hosted by Black Students United where we have an upscale event with singers and awards. It was a really nice event.

That is me being fat at the NSBE conference enjoying a good meal. The National Society of Black Engineers host a national convention every year at a different location. This year I actually got the chance to enjoy my spring break in Orlando, Florida. It was alot of fun and definitely was better than spending my spring break in Ithaca.

That’s about it. Two years down, two more to go! I really enjoyed this year and I look forward to what is in store for me next year. Hopefully, it’s more money and more A’s on my transcripts.

“It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.” Boys II Men I thought that was good quote to end this blog with.

Finals are done and yet I am still in Ithaca. Thanks to bad planning on my part for my flight, I am stuck in Ithaca with nothing to do. When there is no books to read, no papers to write, or no last minute homework to finish Cornell can get really boring really quickly. I have already caught up on all of my TV shows in a matter of a day. While I have work to do, I try to give myself time off to recover from all the late nights and tough assignments throughout the semester. Every once in a while my brain needs a complete shutdown where I do nothing but watch TV shows, eat unhealthy food, and sit on my butt as much as possible. While most of my friends are still taking finals the boredom gets worse. I am sad to leave Cornell but at the same time without any work or classes I feel as though I don’t belong in Ithaca.

Argghhhhh…..I feel like yelling like Charlie Brown because I want finals to be over. Finals don’t end until Friday but fortunately I had 3 of my 4 finals last week so I don’t have to wait much further. My last final is tomorrow morning at 9am sharp in our big indoor track field Barton Hall where they just put a bunch of tables and chairs over the tarp. The lack of motivation to study or do anything productive is kicking in full effect as the bags under my eyes droop lower and lower. Even as I type this blog, I can’t help but feel my brain slipping away. This is the time of year where I wish I was at a party school and I could just study for a couple of hours and get an A. Arrrggghhhh… I feel so many confusing emotions right now: anger against Cornell for doing this to me, sadness because the year is ending, happiness because I go back home for the summer, sleepiness even though thats not an emotion but you get the point. This blog is just saying Finals Suck!!!!

Finals is probably the longest time of the school year. Finals starts on Wednesday night May 8th and drags on until Friday May 16th. Thanks to the generosity of Cornell, we are given three days which are designated for study. This is around the time where students pop open a couple cans of Red Bull and get ready to cram. It is a tough job to try to learn all the information taught in a semester into a couple of days but Cornell students always figure out a way to do it. All those days of procrastination leave a lot of regret as I try to figure out to recall all this information. It’s also a sad time because the school year is ending and you can see everybody facing that cold reality:

For seniors, it’s the reality that you are done with undergrad and unless you are going to go to grad school you will have to face the real word of having a 9 to 5 or 12am to 11pm (for the investment bankers). Most importantly, seniors have to face that question, “What are you doing for the rest of your life.”
For juniors, the celebration of senior year starts where spend your senior year going from one bar to the next and taking “fun” classes like HADM 4300 Introduction to Wines. As a sophomore, I am just happy half of my time at Cornell is done. Even though freshman and sophomore year weren’t easy, I know junior year is going to be a beast especially since I am taking Finance, the hardest course AEM has to offer, and Intermediate Accounting not exactly rainbows. I am also trying to figure out if I want to do Study Abroad in China or not spring semester because I think it will be a fun experience. Decisions, Decisions.
As a freshman, I remember having this great feeling of success because I actually survived my first year of school. Alot of Cornell students can’t say the same thing so I am happy.

So as I stare blankly at my computer screen trying to do practice problems for my Stats finals, I’d like to think that I only have two more years at Cornell. It helps my eyes feel like they aren’t burning as bad.

5 More Weekdays of classes and I am done with another year of Cornell. No more waking up early for classes, no more sitting through long lectures that serve no objective in my life, and most importantly no more waking up early for classes. Only 5 more days until I am done and I can’t help but feel that burnout creeping on me. No longer do I feel equipped to do work, I would rather watch Entourage or Best Week Ever. The 9:05 class I usually am attentive for I no longer feel the energy to go to. It is a terrible feeling. I am looking forward to Slope Day with performance from Gym Class Heroes (not exactly Lil’ Wayne but hey it could be worse.) Slope Day and the night before is just one huge party at Cornell where we celebrate the end of the year with plenty of fun. It means house parties, free barbeque, and plenty of other things that get your mind off school. This is what Cornellians look forward to as they spend their last minutes in Club Uris working on an assignment at the last minute. Slope Day is our day and I am looking forward to it. Yet there is that feeling in the back of my mind that I should be aware that finals are just around the corner where my life pretty much hangs in the balance. Oh well, I will worry about that later.

As Kanye West put it in the College Dropout Album, “Broke Phi Broke; We Ain’t Got It.”
So with only a couple weeks left of school, I couldn’t help but notice how empty my wallet is. I am definitely the definition of a struggling college student because right now, I don’t have the funds to have a social life. A social life gets expensive when every event you attend is 3 or 4 dollars and some parties want to go even higher with inflation after a certain time. This is why today, I am listing some of the ways I earn a living to be able to do something during the weekend.

Studies: Every graduate studies program offers paid surveys for anyone who is interested in participating. For instance, last week I sacrificied an hour of my time to participate in a group decision study. While we were videotaped, I along with 2 others had to make a group decision. It is definitely worth it to participate in that group study because I earned $17 in an hour. However, that money is already gone!

Loose Change: Sometimes you have to explore all areas of your room to find as much loose change as possible. If something costs $3 you might end up finding all that underneath the bed or in your closet. Change is money so you have to use it.

IOU’s: This is a last resort but if you have close friends you have to take the hit and ask your friends for money. It has happened where I didn’t have any money and I would ask a friend to help me out for the moment.

These are just some of the ways I earn a living for the weekend. Even though I do work-study, I still end up having no money a couple of days after pay day which is a sad fact.

Diversity Hosting Weekend is an opportunity for accepted minority students to visit and experience Cornell. For current students it’s a time of parties, MILRSO, and just having fun. Even though I didn’t have a chance to host, I did have a chance to interact with some of the students through discussions held in Ujamaa and just by helping them out with directions when they looked scared walking around our huge campus. One of the organizations I am a member of LINK: Black Men’s and Latino Alliance held a meeting for some of the prospective students just talking about some of the deciding factors about Cornell.

All of the discussions are great, but the highlight of Diversity Hosting Weekend is MILRSO. MILRSO means Minority Industrial & Labor Relation Student Organization and each year this organization hosts a fashion show using current students as models dressed up with gear designed by Cornell alums, current students, and other local designers. This is probably an exciting for prefreshmen as they are called because they get to see all of the ladies and fellas of Cornell with interesting fashion!!! If you don’t believe me check out some of the photos!!!!

Recently, Cornell has been receiving a lot of praise and hype about our #4 ranking by Businessweek for Undergraduate Business Programs in the nation. Warren Hall which is basically the home for the AEM program is littered with posters, signs, and photos all saying we are number #4. The question that comes to mind when I hear something like this is, “Why not number #1?”

It was brought to my attention thanks in part to my AEM 220 class: Introduction to Business Management that I might have found a reason why: ethics. Our lecture for Wednesday was a discussion about the relevance of business ethics and their application in the workplace. Our professor spoke about our #4 ranking and then displayed another ranking that no one really knew but no one was very surprised about; we ranked 82nd when it comes to ethics. 82nd……..that is extremely low. I was pretty shocked about the ranking at first, but then when I thought about it, it didn’t surprise me as much. If I could break down Cornell’s academic environment into a word it would be competitive. No one at Cornell likes to be two or three standard deviations away from the mean on a prelim which does happen.(if you don’t know what a grading curve you have lucked out) Cornell is comprised of the best of the best, and when you bring together the best of the best a war will eventually break out.

Cornellians are alot like a bunch of Terrell Owens, we all have the talent to accomplish great things together but in the end just like Terrell Owens it’s all about me, me, me. I have experienced a couple of times when friends ignore me because I needed help in a subject because they thought the time could be of better use studying by themselves.

What Cornell lacks in ethics, I think we make up with in achievement and overall work. While some of us aren’t always the best to work with, if both of our grades depend on a project you know the Cornellian will excel in his work. I even heard a student saying it’s hard to have ethics and be successful. If that’s the case, I don’t want to be that
successful.

Doesn’t this guy look successful??? I think so!!! He is probably making a business call to Bill Gates saying you have to put in some more money for Yahoo!

This weekend wasn’t really a productive one for me, especially with Pao Bhangra happening this weekend. Pao Bhangra is an annual event hosted by Cornell’s Bhangra team which showcases Cornell’s and other schools’ Bhangra teams. Some of the schools that performed include MIT and Yale. They even had a performance from Absolute Zero, Cornell’s break dancing team. If you are not culturally adept, Bhangra is a form of folk dancing originating in India. This is by far no ordinary folk dancing, there are some serious stunts involved with Bhangra. For instance, one move is with a guy basically wrapping his legs around another person’s neck and then being spun around like a windmill. Another stunt during Cornell’s performance was a guy standing on another guy’s shoulders while he was holding up their Air Bhangra banner. Hosted in Barton Hall, Cornell students were cheering on all the Bhangra performances. What I really enjoy about Bhangra is the music! Bhangra reminds me a lot like hip-hop because they like a lot of bass and play their music really loud. I could feel the bass erupting in my chest, it reminded me of when I blast music in my room. Some of the Bhangra songs sampled off some of my favorite hip-hop songs (Shake Your Moneymaker by Ludacris, Some Notorious B.I.G., and others.) Bhangra was a great event to get exposed to other cultures which I don’t often get the opportunity to do back home. While I am excited about Bhangra, I won’t even bother trying to do Bhangra because I don’t have the coordination nor do I want to embarrass myself in case someone catches me practicing. You never know, next year I might to shake things up and try out for Cornell’s Bhangra team.

If everybody wants to call Uris Library Club Uris, I have just decided to create my own new nickname for Mann Library, a.k.a. Motel Mann. While Uris Library stands as Club Uris being open 24 hours Monday through Thursday and having the largest occupancy of all the libraries, Mann Library has its fair share of advantages and is starting to become the new study spot for students. Mann Library has recently went over a major makeover which added new study rooms, an additional computer lab, and a conference room with SKYPE technology which basically allows for high definition video conferences. In addition to this, the biggest addition is fully loaded Macbooks for rental. These Macbooks include all of the applications: Garage Band, Keynote, Adobe Reader, and other applications I haven’t heard of. Once I understand how to use Garage Band, I can release my upcoming rap album entitled the Mean Streets of Ithaca. (Just Kidding, well maybe not!) Mann Library also has individual study rooms that people can rent out when they want to be trapped inside a room to do work. The reason why I consider Mann a motel is because similar to a motel, you don’t expect to stay there for a long period of time; you just stop there for a minute to catch your breath. Mann is only open until 2:00am which is child’s play for many Cornell students. However, it’s good enough for me because I leave Mann 12:30am at the latest because after that time my brain dies. Mann also is a good way to catch up on all the AEM classes because they lend Takenotes for most AEM large lecture classes. Takenotes are detailed lecture summaries that people get paid to write. For the students who never go to class, Takenotes give you lecture summaries to help you not fail your classes. There have been plenty of days where students compete just at a chance to rent out the Takenotes in order to study at the last minute for tests. Overall, Mann is becoming my new study place. Hopefully, the nickname Motel Mann will become catchy and I will be the legend who started it.

Enjoy a virtual tour on Mann Library to see how Mann Library is the best library around.