Cornell Club of London

2008 winner's report

David Jones

My first glimpse of Cornell was from above. After an atmospherically rainy night spent on Manhattan I touched down in Ithaca, at a refreshingly small airport, not knowing quite what to expect. The drive to the campus was filled with cascading streams and wooded hill roads hiding impressive houses. The scale and opulence of the frat houses, the view of Cayuga Lake from the slope, the clock tower watching over the rest of the university - these were my first impressions of Cornell. I checked into my room in the newly-constructed William Keeton Hall and went to explore.

I applied for the Cornell Club of London Summer Scholarship on something of an impulse. It was only about a week before the application deadline that I received an email with the application form, and I almost didn't spot it amongst everything else in my inbox. But my lectures were cancelled that day due to the flurry of snow London experienced early in the year; with nothing else to do I thought I may as well fill out the application. Never for a moment did I imagine that I would actually be awarded the scholarship, particularly as I felt that I didn't do myself justice at the interview a few weeks later.

While it has the compensation of being fairly central in London, my own university, Imperial College, is the size of a postage stamp. Cornell is enormous, and beautiful; there are woods and fields, gorges and lakes actually on campus. Some of these places are a little difficult to reach on foot without a slightly hairy walk along winding roads - it seems to be assumed everyone will drive everywhere and indeed most Cornell students I knew had cars - but it was well worth the effort. Minutes from the miniature town that is Cornell, you can be completely alone in a secluded spot of stunning beauty.

The university has all the facilities you would expect, and more, to a very high standard - in particular the libraries were magnificent. The Uris Library had a room that I more than once heard colloquially referred to as the "Harry Potter room", which probably paints a fairly accurate picture. Browsing the collections of the various libraries gave a good sense of the breadth of vocation represented on campus; some of the books were pretty obscure. I also made good use of the Cornell Cinema, an inexpensive and friendly establishment which showed a tasteful selection of films. In one movie Cornell was mentioned, and the audience erupted into a cheer; I was pleased to be able to join in!

Even over the summer, there was plenty going on. On Friday nights there were open-air concerts on the Arts Quad, and all kinds of music were played - blues, salsa, country and western, rock and more. Families from the environs of Ithaca congregated in a courtyard framed by some of Cornell's oldest buildings with picnics and blankets and enjoyed the (sometimes) sunny evenings. One night I went to see a free, open-air production of A Midsummer Night's Dream; the stage was simply a clearing in a copse on the Cornell Plantations. And of course the 4th of July was celebrated in style - one of my professors described Independence Day festivities as comprising "fireworks and flamed meat", and lo, it came to pass. My residence hall put on a barbecue during the day and I ate my fill of burgers and hot dogs. A few days earlier the annual Ithaca 4th of July fireworks had taken place at Ithaca College, which like Cornell sits atop a hill on the edge of the town. Hundreds of people had congregated on the slope at Cornell to look across and see the firework display; it was an impressive sight, and the atmosphere was electric. The strains of Yankee Doodle emanated through the night, played by the bells of the clock tower.

Ithaca itself, framed by verdant hills and Cayuga Lake, was very well appointed for a town of its size. The almost limitless eateries of Collegetown provided a pleasant way to spend evenings with friends, and I was delighted to discover how easily food could be ordered for delivery via the internet. As with fridges that dispense ice and Jennifer Aniston's haircut, I'm looking forward to this innovation becoming increasingly common in the UK a few years after its catching hold in America. This was my first time in small-town America, so I enjoyed wandering around leafy streets lined with quintessential clapboard houses, rocking chairs on the porch, soaking up the ambience. At the weekends I often wandered down to the lakefront around mid-morning to find Ithaca's Farmer's Market in full swing, and marvelled at the variety of products to tantalise and delight the senses - Thai, Italian and Tex-Mex food, eggs and meat, coffee and orange juice, and even locally-sourced wine and cider (although sadly being a month or two shy of 21 I could only enjoy the latter vicariously).

The classes I took at Cornell were introductory courses in American Government and Politics, and International Relations, chosen for their lack of similarity to my degree (which is in Maths, or Math if you will) and, in the case of the former, for its American focus. Most of my teaching for the past two years has taken the form of lectures to over 200 people, and of course being Mathematics there is little room for debate. By contrast the classes at Cornell were much more discursive and much more opinion-based, which made for highly interesting if sometimes heated exchanges. One recurring theme of the summer was the healthcare debate currently raging in the US. As I am a Brit the NHS came up, and a not insignificant contingent in the room seemed to view the very idea of it as dangerously communist, an opinion which I can't say I share. It was an education in cultural determination; views that would mark you out as a crackpot in the UK are widespread in America, and vice versa. I was expecting this to some extent, but Cornell does have a reputation as a particularly liberal school, and I was taken aback by the degree and depth of political disagreement in the room. This was not bad thing, though - I felt that never before had I engaged in such intelligent and stimulating discussion with people who disagreed with me!

As much fun as I had, being at Cornell wasn't a holiday. Every day I had a pretty serious amount of reading assigned to me, and I pity the student that fell behind - material was covered quickly and you were expected to be familiar with the work that was set. The American Government class was assessed by three exams equally spaced through the six weeks of the summer session, which took the form of short answer questions and essays. There were two such exams on top of two papers for the International Relations class. All this amounted to a constant stream of preparation for graded work; there was a firm policy of continual assessment. Providing you worked throughout, therefore, there was much less pressure on at the end of the course (and if you didn't work throughout it was already too late). This is a big difference from the British system. More broadly, a big advantage that US universities have over British institutions is the liberal arts system; it is possible, and in fact encouraged, to take a wide curriculum. Insofar as specialisation is required it's only to 'major' in one subject. In Britain it is only possible generally to take one subject, and to my mind this makes for an unnecessarily narrow education.

I made some good friends both in and out of my classes, from all over the world - the US and UK, Italy, Spain, El Salvador, Nigeria, Thailand, China and more. The Americans I met represented all corners of the country - New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Texas, Arizona, California, Hawaii... These acquaintances included high school students, undergraduates at Cornell and elsewhere, graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, and even some faculty. There was no jockeying for status; these people all treated me alike - as an equal. Cornell is a hub of extraordinary diversity, which is testament to its quality and global reputation, and the breadth and depth of its academic mission. This comes at a price though - I was told a year at Cornell costs in the order of $60,000. It astounds me that anybody can afford that; I suppose parents have to save with a single-minded determination, but this inevitably leaves some out in the cold.

Around Ithaca there was a lot to explore, and I took a few day trips to local attractions with friends. In the nearby town of Watkins Glen it is possible to walk for about a mile and a half along a breathtaking gorge, carved out by a stream whose progress downhill is punctuated by idyllic waterfalls. There was also the upmarket lakeside village of Skaneateles, which gave the impression of being a weekend retreat for the wealthy of New York City. Taughannock Falls, just up the lake from Ithaca, was like nothing I had seen before. I even stopped in at a vineyard to the west of Cayuga Lake. The most impressive spot I visited, however, was Niagara Falls. A kind of primeval excitement and dread filled me as I thought, peering over the railings by the Horseshoe Falls, how easily the water could sweep a human along with it over the precipice. The sheer volume of water that passes over the falls is incredible (three-quarters of a million gallons each second), and apparently as much again is diverted for hydroelectric power.

After I finished at Cornell, I spent another couple of weeks in North America. I visited Washington DC, Toronto and New York City. Washington was interesting; I had spent six weeks studying American Government, so I was glad to see where the action happens. I witnessed the Senate in session the day after Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice, but all that really happened while I was there was that the Senate adjourned for August! Toronto was a beautiful city, and it was my first time in Canada. What struck me about Toronto was the fact that, unlike any British city I know, there are quiet residential streets within minutes' walk of the downtown area. I'm sure they're not cheap, but I could get used to that mode of living.

Most impressive of all, though, was New York City. In all the other North American cities I'd visited I had wondered vaguely where all the people were - not so in New York. From the hubbub of Fifth Avenue to the oasis of relative calm that is Central Park, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the financial district, New York scintillated. For several days I wandered around Manhattan sampling a tiny fragment of the cultural experience it has to offer. The whole place seemed oddly familiar - images of the island are so ubiquitous that I doubt I could have felt otherwise. While there I met up with a friend from Cornell; it was a heartening reminder of all the people spread across the United States and, indeed, the entire world that I now knew personally. Institutions like Cornell make the world a smaller place, and that can only be a good thing.

I can honestly say that my summer at Cornell was the most exciting of my life. Travel is always fun, and I did a lot of that - my carbon footprint for those two months was, shall we say, immoderate - but this time I feel as though I left a little bit of me behind. I referred earlier to my own university, meaning Imperial College, but that's not the whole story. Cornell too belongs to me now, and I shall forever think of it in that light. Thanks to my time in Ithaca, I have resolved to apply for PhDs in the US when that time rolls around. My heartfelt thanks go out to all the members and donors of the Cornell Club of London, without whose generosity I would never have been able to spend a summer in such an enjoyable and educational way. In particular I would like to thank Liz Simpson, Natalie Teich and Jonathan Silver for their kindness and support throughout the entire experience. I was also lucky enough to be put in touch with several people while in Ithaca who variously picked me up from the airport, helped me find my feet, took me out for picnics or for dinner, gave me advice on academic Mathematics, and much more - so I would like express my sincere gratitude to David Yeh, everybody in the Cornell Abroad office, Bea Szekely, Catheryn Obern and Graeme Bailey, who helped make my stay such a comfortable one. I would urge anybody reading this and thinking about applying to go for it - you cannot win if you do not play!