Through WCCUSD’s Ivy League Connection program, Hercules High School Students Justine Betschart, Stacy Chan, Ramiah Davis-Shephard, Louisa Man, Julia Maniquiz, and Yueming Wang will be attending Cornell University to either study Freedom and Justice or Hotel Operations Management during the summer of 2009.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

My First Words

First and foremost, thank you Stacy for setting up the blog for all of us. I also thank Mr. Don Gosney for his encouraging words. This past week has been incredibly hectic and there has been so much to do. I am sorry for not having any time earlier to blog, but I am glad I have finally found the time and I will continue to post regularly in the future.

I thank all of the sponsors and organizers a part of the Ivy League Connection for all they have done for us six students, including myself, to be able to attend this summer’s programs at Cornell University. I know that I am attending Cornell on a financial aid scholarship from the university, rather than the funds that were raised for the five other students going this summer, but I still thank the sponsors and organizers because without their efforts, this program would not be here and would not be to the level it is. There are not enough words to express how thankful I am for all the support given and about being able to attend Cornell University this summer. I hope everyone will keep watching my fellow summer college attendees and I and keep supporting us in all that we do at Cornell!

I am so incredibly eager to participate in the Hotel Operations Management course at Cornell. I never knew that hotel management was a subject in college. This is my first time hearing about it. I knew about freedom and justice, but I was more curious about hotel management and still am. I have been surrounded by business all my life, as my father is a business man himself, but I really do want to learn more than my father’s perspectives and aspects. My future is still pretty undecided, as I am still somewhat unsure of what to pursue after high school. I know Cornell with help me by allowing me to explore and study a field in which I had known of in a college. I hope my three-weeks away from home will provide immense assistance to deciding my future. Who knows, I might have even found my future career field just by deciding to take the Hotel Operations Management course.

I cannot wait to be able to experience school on a college level. Time is passing by so fast and before you know it, I will be a college student. I want to experience college life before becoming a college student, just to see what it is like. I want to undergo the transition from high school student to college scholar. I am eager to see life as an independent, young adult. My parents are worried about me going off to college, as they have heard about the stresses one may face in college and are apprehensive about whether or not I can endure it or not. With this opportunity at Cornell, I can reassure them that I am capable of handling anything. I explained to them I will one day be faced with challenges that are beyond what I will encounter at Cornell, and that I believe my three-weeks at Cornell is a step to being able to conquer any challenge.

Both my parents know about my deep desire to attend Cornell this summer and they are immensely proud of my acceptance and my opportunity to be able to study at such a prestigious college. I have always wanted to attend summer programs like this, but have been unable to either due to time or financial incapability. Now that I have such an opportunity, they are extremely proud and happy that my wish has been granted. This chance is incredibly meaningful to me and to showcase that, I will try my absolute best. I want to thank them for all the concern and support they have given me throughout the Ivy League process and I promise them, as well as the sponsors and organizers, that I will do well at Cornell and enjoy my college experience.

It is such an opportunity as well as an honor to embark on such an endeavor. I will definitely forever remember the experiences I will have this summer and treasure each second I am there at Cornell. I am now just counting the days that go by, until the day I get on that plane and land in Ithaca, New York. This is so exciting!

1 comment:

  1. Louisa,

    We're so very glad to hear from you. I'm glad that some of you are taking advantage of the blogs to keep us informed and to share with us your thoughts.

    Touching on one of your comments about hotel management being a course of study, think in terms of Las Vegas style hotels with 7,000 rooms or the cruise liners with 3,000 rooms. If you're part of an investment group that has put billions of dollars into these facilities, would you entrust it to your husband's second cousin or some other bozo off of the street? Not only do you need your hotel management staff to be first rate in what they're doing and you need them to ensure that your multi-billion dollar investment doesn't have to close it's doors next week but you also expect a reasonable profit or, in today's economic world of fantasyland, an unreasonable profit on your investment. And rather than just being in this for the short haul, you want to make sure that your hotel or hotel chain will be around forever as the benchmark of hotels. It helps to have someone who knows what they're doing running the show, don't you think?

    I'm pleased to read of your words of thanks for the sponsors and their assistance with this program. Even though you're going on a scholarship from Cornell, this door wouldn't even be opened for you without the ILC as a foundation to start from and it's the sponsors who have helped make this possible. It's never just one thing, Louisa, but usually an amalgam of things all meshing together to make a program work. The hard work of people like Mr. Ramsey, Ms. Kronenberg and Ms. Lilhanand are key and the financial support from the sponsors never hurts but without stellar participants like yourself, programs like this would fail even before they got started. We all owe a debt of gratitude to you and your cohorts for helping to make this program a success and to give it hope for the future.

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