So far, everyone enrolled in Hotel Operations Management talks about how rigorous and demanding the class is. After reading the course outline and schedule, I know for sure that this will be a rigorous and demanding class. All of the research, discussions, and readings have prepared me so I am ready for the first official day of class. I am looking forward to tomorrow.
Not only do I expect to learn all aspects of the hotel (as well as the hospitality) industry, but I also plan on learning more life skills during my stay in Ithaca. This is the first time that I am away from home by myself so the experience living independently will definitely benefit me in the long run. Also, I am sincerely interested in the business/finance field and I consider majoring in that area, engineering, or medicine. Additionally, mingling with hundreds of national as well as international students is something I never had a chance to do before. I am excited about learning more about their different cultures and diverse backgrounds. In all, my experience at Cornell is a win-win situation for me and I hope to take away as much as I possibly can.
The crash course study skill workshop was also a very helpful session for everyone in the summer college program. We learned about how to improve reading/listening/writing skills, number of hours of sleep each individual should have, ways to manage time, etc. I found the various stages of the sleeping cycle to be particularly intriguing. Firstly, I never knew there were actual cycles to sleeping. I thought of sleep as more of a period of time when the body is allowed to rest physically and mentally. Secondly, I had no clue that taking one-hour naps is a bad way to refresh oneself from sleep deprivation. The sleeping cycle occurs every 90 minutes so waking up after 60 minutes of sleep is usually during the third or fourth stage. Waking up during the third or fourth stage is the period when the body is completely relaxed and the individual is sound asleep. Therefore disrupting slumber during that time can only make the nap-taker feel more fatigued and sleep-craving. Now I know that I shouldn’t take one-hour naps. Also the presenter of the crash course suggested students to stay awake the four hours prior to any major tests. Due to chemicals released in the brain that suppresses all thoughts (including the study reviews done right before bed), the mind needs enough time to refresh the material. I will be sure to do that throughout this course and for the SATs!
Meeting my roommate was a whole new experience that I enjoyed very much. Although I made several trips to my dorm room to drop off and pick up items, my timing was off which made me miss my roommate the entire day until our floor meeting. When I finally got a chance to introduce myself in our dorms, I learned a lot about my roommate Rachel. She was very polite and engaging throughout our first conversation. She told me that she is from New Jersey and came here for the Freedom and Justice program. As I was telling her about the Ivy League Connections program, her eyes immediately brightened up out of surprise. Her first impression was that I was like her and my parents paid for my entire summer college experience. She really enjoyed learning how much the school district cared about the students and how much the sponsors were willing to contribute to make this possible. She and I both agree on almost everything so I can see that this rooming accommodation will work out perfectly! We have already connected via Facebook so we know that our friendship will remain intact even after this summer. Knowing that I have a great roommate, I can concentrate 100% on my first day of Hotel Operations Management. I can hardly wait! Until next time!
~Yueming W.
Yueming,
ReplyDeleteI'd love to learn more about this sleep cycle thing you mentioned. At the very least, maybe I can teach some it to my cat--the one that can tell when I'm just entering the most productive sleep phase before he wakes me to feed him or let him out.
I'm also interested in learning more about your roommate like where she's from and what her background might be like. The more you talk to your fellow students I'm betting that you'll find that most are like her rather than like yourself. I mean, the ILC is somewhat unique and I'm betting that with most of the students they have parents who have had to whip out the checkbook to get them there as opposed to the way that our ILC cohorts have joined the program.