New Friends and New Experiences

Today I woke up to get ready a little earlier than usual, dressed comfy because I knew today was going to be a long day and also Cornell is a lot of walking. Something that I have never had any problems with was printing; at home I have my own printer as well as several that are easily accessible at school and even work. I don’t have a printer in my dorm room; as my dad was telling me on the phone I could have taken a portable printer. Last night I asked Sloane, who lives across from me if I could use her printer, which then didn’t work because it was out of ink. I made my trek to RPCC to print my strengths analysis test results for class today. There were surprisingly not many people and I was in there for less than ten minutes; I felt a lot of the stress I was feeling melt away.

I had some time before class began so I grabbed some coffee and a bagel and just walked around campus for a bit because it was a little cold which is one thing I love about the mornings in Ithaca. I arrived to the discussion room where the first part of my class took place and was returning some calls from my friends until a few minutes before 9 a.m. Our discussions keep improving because more students speak up every day, something I try my best to implement is bringing in abstract concepts about the book we are reading as well as various perspectives which is something not many other students have been doing. A girl named Angela, from China, sits with me and is my discussion buddy; she has the most amazing contributions to the class discussions and she says it is because she has so much experience working with underprivileged children teaching them the English language, which is why she is able to bring in multiple points of view as well.

An improvement which could be made in regards to our discussion section of the class is that I feel the TA has been joining in quite a  bit, I understand that he is mediating the conversation but not many students are speaking, so there should be more to allow the introverted leaders to also weigh in on their thoughts and opinions. We also talked about a lengthy strengths analysis quiz we took the night before and what we were most surprised in with the results. Many people were surprised with their weakest points such as focus or determination. But I was surprised with my strength description as listing occupations such as designers and managers because I actually am those things; for me it was very accurate so I would definitely recommend it to anyone, long but worth the wait.   

During the lecture we were taking notes on strength-based leadership and building a common vision. We even watched a Ted Talk with Simon Sinek; he explained the golden circle and the process by which marketers convince us to buy something: typically we see a product and how amazing it is and how it will change our lives forever, then it's asking us if we want to buy it. Other companies such as Apple do it in a different order: first explaining their values and how they build on them by creating innovating products as part of the way they operate, which makes you want to buy it. Something he repeated was, "It's not what you sell, it's why you sell it." It was simple and straight forward and easy to understand so I really enjoyed it, plus I love Ted Talks. 

After class I began talking with a girl from Queens, New York named Khirishana Koomar who is also here on a scholarship through another program called SEO which helps her and other students in her area prepare and have the opportunity to take challenging classes as high school students. I found that very intersting and really felt connected with her. We went to Olin Library which was much less depressing than my dorm room and I was very productive in completing my initial reflection of the class which was due later at night, and we had lunch at the Trillium for the first time, I could see why everyone like it so much better than RPCC because of the lack of buffet style setup. 

We later went back to her dorm which is in Mary Donlon. I had never been there before, and let me say, the hallways are much less creepy compared to South Balch. We talked about our different scholarship opportunities available for college as well as future plans for our careers. She wants to go into medicine and study either Neo-Natal or Pediatrics and her first choice would most definitely be Hopkins. We talked and later had dinner when she invited me to watch some movies in her room, but I had to come back and work because I had to submit my reflection and create an outline for tomorrow's class discussion, which is what I spent the rest of my night doing.