Cheers to Everyone We Will Ever Meet
A Cornell Daily Sun Swan Song
In just 10 days, 6,000 robed Cornellians — myself included — will make a long-anticipated walk from the Arts Quad to Schoellkopf Field to bid a ceremonious goodbye to the last four years of class and chaos on the Hill. Right now, I’m sitting at a wooden table in Goldwin Smith 232, a room I’ve had class in nearly every semester at Cornell, and, until a few minutes ago, I was scrolling TikTok, procrastinating both studying for my last final (HADM 4300, Wines) and writing this article.
Luckily, I built my TikTok For You Page brick by brick and my algorithm knew exactly what I needed to see: A PBS photo deck full of advice for graduating seniors via quotes from their stars, backed by Lorde’s ever-nostalgic Ribs. A few scrolls into the post was a quote from Bill Nye, who I am partial to because of our shared alma mater and because he reminds me of 6th-grade science class, which I loved.
The quote was this: “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” Thank you, TikTok, PBS and Bill Nye; now I can start writing.
Like my classmates, I arrived in Ithaca in the fall of 2021, excited, scared, off the tail end of the pandemic, feeling like I simultaneously knew everything and nothing. I was fresh out of the pond-sized echo chamber that is small-town Indiana, nervous to see if I would sink or swim in the ocean that is Cornell.
I’m not sure how or when it happened, but at some point I realized that the best way to swim was to become a sponge: to absorb as much knowledge, wisdom and experience as possible, to understand that everyone around me has something unique to offer and to embrace the opportunity to find out what that is. For me, this radical curiosity is what defines the Cornell experience.
Today, when friends and professors ask me if I’m “ready to graduate,” the little voice in my head screams, “absolutely not!” Everyone around me seems ready, but I’m feeling scared and emotional; certainly not “ready.”
In some strange way, reading that Bill Nye quote under the light of a classroom that has cradled me from my first ever class all the way through procrastinating in preparation for my last undergraduate exam made it click: I actually am ready to graduate, because the Cornell experience I’m mourning isn’t ending.
Like many, what I have loved most about college is feeling like I can learn from everyone and everything around me, but I mistook that feeling as something only possible in Ithaca. That phenomenon won’t end when we leave Cornell, it will expand. As a now well-practiced sponge, I will be free to absorb knowledge, wisdom and experiences from the whole world, not just the world on our slope. The last four years have simply been a preview for the rest of my life and, if you’re committed to being a lifelong learner, they’ve been a preview for yours, too.
It’s okay for us to feel sad about graduating from frat parties, Slope Days, club meetings and formals, but remember, we’re also graduating from prelims, DuoMobile, homework and pre-enrollment. What we aren’t graduating from is the Cornell experience: an understanding that “everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t,” and the innate Cornellian desire to forever pursue that knowledge.
Turns out, there was a nine-word sentence capable of both summarizing the type of person Cornell has taught me to be and shifting my feelings about graduation from scared and emotional to scared and excited. Ironically, those are the exact feelings I had moving into Cornell four years ago. That chapter was amazing, so I’m confident the next will be the same.
Despite my days-away English degree, I couldn’t form a sentence that powerful, but Bill Nye was able to (see, I learned something from someone else). For that, and for my fond memories of 6th-grade science, I owe him a thank you.
Some housekeeping: (1) Every student feeling melancholy about graduating and/or leaving Ithaca should listen to the song Ithaca by Beatenberg. It might make you feel sadder, but it is beautiful, and I always find myself coming back to it. (2) Stay tuned for a Let’s Talk About Sex swan song; this won’t be the last you hear from me.