Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Please Accept Me!

Today is the first day of my last week here at Cornell and I am already feeling my class starting to wrap up. My instructor is giving us more assignments and projects in a small frame of time. One of those projects is a presentation on Yemen which was due today. After class I went with my friends to study in Olin Library and then we almost immediately went to a presentation about college admissions and it was extremely helpful and the admissions officers went over the elements of an application and what they were looking for.  After dinner I took pictures in my new Cornell clothes today with my fellow cohort members then I went to the slope with some friends. I liked today and I am feeling myself falling into a nice pattern even though I am leaving in a couple of days.


Today’s class was very intense. It was the day of our presentation. Our presentation was a model Security Council were several governments and organizations speak about the crisis in Yemen and recommended certain remedies and solutions that they could either provide or in cases like mine recommend what the Security Council could do. In working on the project I was taken aback by how terrible both sides were, on further research I was more confused as to what to do about the situation to remedy. When we got up there we covered the human rights abuses and the solutions we proposed was the blocking of all weapons in the region, we recommended that the Council put sanctions on Iran for supporting the Houthi rebels and Saudi Arabia for carrying out many of the human rights violation and we also demanded that there should be international pressure put on the United States to stop the sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia. This sparked a lively debate. I focused a lot on Saudi Arabia and their human rights abuses. Lassan brought up the point that the Houthi rebels are an illegitimate government and have the right to protect themselves. I found it hard defending my pints has our debate got deeper and deeper because I didn’t fully agree with my group’s position and a lot of my classmates’ questions were very valid, questions such as “How will both sides protect themselves from the threat of Al Qaeda in the area?” I had a hard time answering them, but I got through it. And it turns out I got an A which I thought was surprising, but I’m not complaining.


Afterward my friends, Pooja, J’nai, Javaria, Sultana and I went to Olin to work. As it turns out we weren’t the most productive study group. After studying a little we went to a college admissions presentation where admissions officers told us about the components to an application and what they are looking for in an applicant. They said a lot of what I was hearing. They said that they looked at the whole application, there isn’t a magical formula that gets you accepted .They went over essays and they said something that I made sure I remembered. They said that essays are there to display a part of that the rest of the application can’t . This was very helpful because it helps me make sure that I keep my essays interesting and it helps narrow down the things I can talk about. Throughout the whole presentation I was thinking "Please accept me Cornell!" as I quickly jotted down notes.
 

Then I went to my dorm to get my brand new Cornell gear so that my cohort could take a group picture. I wore a grey sweatshirt with Cornell’s emblem and name written in red. It was a quick photoshoot and afterwards I went to meet Pooja and Sultana at the Slope. Today was great, but I feel as if every day this week will be bittersweet because I can’t wait to go home, but I don’t want to leave. My cohort talking about departure plans before our photoshoot made it all seem real. I’m sad, but I guess I’ll just have to make the most out of the time I have left. 

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