Semester at Sea: Canals and the Atlantic
In Fall 2019, I made the best decision of my life and joined Semester at Sea (SAS), a study abroad voyage of discovery. In my time there, I visited the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Morocco, Ghana, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. We would have classes while sailing at sea and then dock at a port for 3-6 days. In that time, we did not have classes and could go anywhere in the country as long as we made it back on the ship before it set sail.
Cornell Baja Racing is my favorite aspect of being a student at Cornell. Baja Racing is a club where students with many different skills and backgrounds come together to build an ATV! Our car can climb hills, go fast, pull serious weight, and go anywhere off-road. During the school year, we build the car by dividing into different sub-teams. Each sub-team is responsible for designing and constructing different aspects of the car, and everything is combined at the end in order to complete the car. The car is then raced against other schools at our three annual competitions in the spring!
My name is Andrew and I am a Junior chemical engineering major at Cornell. I am a part of many student activities, including club sports and Greek life, but I wanted to share my experience on Cornell Racing, the school’s oldest Engineering Project Team. Cornell Racing, or more affectionately known as “Car Team,” designs, builds, and races a formula-style race car every year. We have members from many different majors both in and out of the engineering school, so with a strong interest in race cars, engineering, or working on a project, we’re sure you’d be able to find a home within the team. Though we primarily recruit from prospective Mechanical and Electrical Engineers now that we run a 420V powertrain, we’re committed to finding the best new members from any discipline.
instrumental in helping to strengthen this tie between our curriculum and our role in revolutionizing the future. We are an undergraduate project team working to design and construct a single-occupant, solar-powered vessel that will carry the Cornell spirit to the intercollegiate Solar Splash Competition. While our objective is speed, what we learn along the way is vastly more important — we are gathering the skills and the experience needed to bring alternative energy into the mainstream and fuel a more sustainable future. As the youngest and smallest project team on campus, CUSB is unique in that every member can remain incredibly involved in each aspect of the production process. Our team is composed of five engineering sub-teams — drivetrain and steering, hull, solar, system controls, and business — that each specialize in actualizing one facet of our boat’s design. More seasoned teammates serve as guides for younger members as they acquire technical expertise that surpasses what is learned in a lecture hall. From working with CAD software to soldering solar cells or machining anti-ventilation plates, the emphasis on hands-on discovery is an essential component of the project team advantage.
Coming to Cornell four years ago, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I was thrilled to be an engineer, excited about all the people I would meet, and looking forward to moving to New York, but beyond that I had no idea what it would be like. I could have never imagined this, finishing off my senior year in the midst of a pandemic with half of my classes on Zoom. I could never have imagined the powerful depth of the friendships I have made at Cornell, which have prevailed no matter the circumstances. And I could have never imagined the current career trajectory on which I have found myself, a trajectory which was completely off the table when I first stepped foot onto North Campus.
In my first semester at Cornell, I decided to sign up for WICC’s (Women in Computing at Cornell’s) Lunch Bunch Program, which allowed female undergraduate students to converse with professors over a meal. In one session, there were around 7 other female undergraduates interested in computing majors getting to know Madeleine Udell, a professor in the Operations Research and Information Engineering department at Cornell. After hearing her impressive list of achievements, I needed to know: How had her experience as a woman in a predominantly male field been? She chuckled when I asked this and told me that she actually pushes against the status quo; she hasn’t had many terrible memories in which she was pushed against because of her gender. I almost did not believe her, until I realized that it was her resilient mindset that allowed her to not just come out of university and the workplace unscathed, but also stronger.
