Thoughts on Graduation

Here is the obligatory college graduation blog post. “I’m alum now yay! blah blah blah”  That kind of thing.

The ceremony was Sunday, so I waited a few days to wrap my head around it and get some perspective.

For my family, I didn’t seem too excited. Maybe I was overwhelmed by the sudden pomp and circumstance. Maybe I’ve never been comfortable being the center of attention. Maybe I felt like it was just a short breather since I have a minimum of four more years of formal education.

Any one of those (or more than one) could be correct, but I think the best approximation is that it was an enjoyable but tumultuous four years on The Hill in Ithaca.

When I came to Cornell four years ago, I was a cocksure little smarty-pants who never worked hard in high school yet got straight A’s. I was “that guy” who a majority of my high school probably looked on with a combination of envy and contempt. The kid who spent his evenings with friends and clubs and fun activities, never cracking books but somehow flying through honors and AP classes.

There was just one problem. Cornell is full of kids like me. And most of them are smarter.

Beginning second semester in my chemistry and biology classes, I got smacked with The Curve. For those fortunate enough to not know, The Curve is an ingenious academic invention designed by professors who want to write impossible tests 95% of the class would otherwise fail. What happens is whatever the class “average” is becomes an arbitrary grade point like B or C, then going above or below this in relation to the standard deviation raises or lowers your grades.

For example, sophomore year my organic chemistry class had a final exam where the mean (average) was a 59. I think the standard deviation was 8-12 or something like that. Someone getting a 52 on this test would get a B- or C+. To get an A would require getting in the high 70s or 80s. Keep in mind the average grade in the class was a 59. Why so low? Because professors love to put “challenging” questions on exams to keep scores low (high scores in academia, especially the sciences, make a professor look bad because it was “too easy”), and often these questions are based on information not covered in the class.

So I performed at an “average” level compared to my classmates, many of whom were magnet school students or products of elite prep schools like Exeter and Andover. Considering that a large chunk of the student body were incredibly smart “Harvard-rejects,” I felt enormously outclassed. Doing my best, contrary to the old adage, was not good enough. 

Given my goals of going to graduate school, a few semesters of scattered Bs and Cs along with the occasional A were depressing. I found it bizarre that grad schools expected students at a difficult school to somehow have straight As in a system that pitted students against one another. Since an individuals grades depended on how well other students did, there was a rampant culture of sabotage and not working together. There was no camaraderie for many classes. I saw kids switch pins in lab practicals to screw kids behind them. I watched kids give out wrong homework answers.

And some kids just cracked. I knew one of my friends from freshman year who flunked out. A few dozen of my friends transferred majors from pre-med or engineering to communication of a liberal arts major (sorry arts guys, I was a communication/animal science double major and pre-med and I can tell you, liberal arts classes are MUCH easier). I watched many students self-medicate on alcohol or use study-aid drugs like Adderall.

Academically, things were pretty rough.

But I don’t mean to make it sound like Cornell was some horrific place of torture. Ithaca itself is a magical, almost mythical, little city in the middle of rural New York where everyone (the townies, at least) is friendly, the community pulls together to help its poor, and a majority of people are liberal hippies. The public transit is great. The scenery (as you can tell from previous posts) is breath-taking. There are great farmers markets and coffee shops.

One of the great things about Cornell itself was the variety of extracurricular activities and clubs. During my four years, I was in the football marching band, two fraternities, a world-hunger and poverty awareness club, and a handful of odd student jobs (including chemical disposal, post office, and tech support).

I have fond memories of going to epic hockey games where the crowd stands and cheers and sings for the entire game, even if we were losing (not that we often lost, hockey is one of Cornell’s strong sports). I was fortunate enough to see great concerts and speakers at Cornell, including The Strokes, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Maya Angelou.

Before this post drags on too long, I’ll wrap it up with a few closing comments. I’ve tried to show that I worked my ass off at Cornell for 4 years. It was stressful. But I enjoyed the town and university and had some great memories. I had to leave behind some great friends and I hope we stay in touch, but distance has a way of weakening relationships. I have a lot of conflicting feelings about leaving Cornell, joy, sorrow, pride, remorse, hope, nostalgia.

In a few years I’ll return for a visit, and I’m sure the campus will look a lot different. I’m sure I’ll have great memories.

For the great times and the trying times, thanks Cornell.

 

Tags: Class of 2008, college, commencement, convocation, Cornell, Cornell '08, Cornell University, curves, drop-outs, graduation, ithaca, The Curve