I had originally planned to devote my second blog entry of the year to trumpeting how wonderful it is to take classes at different schools all over Cornell's campus. And it certainly is a uniquely advantageous attribute of this largest of Ivy League universities to be founded on the premise that any student should be able to study any subject of his or her choosing. But it's also tough to make that entry when I ended up dropping the very course I had planned to tout so vocally.
A little background: this summer, I took up stone sculpting (think hammer and chisel -- about as old-school as you can get) and thought it would be fun -- not to mention a nice release from the business school world -- to continue my artistic education at Cornell. In retrospect, the decision to sign up for an extra 3-credit, six hour per week class does seem a bit ambitious. I guess I supposed I'd fit it in somewhere between team meetings, job hunting, and running the business school's newspaper.
Let's just say that a story like mine, brief though it was, could probably only happen at Cornell. During the add-drop period, I enrolled in Introductory Sculpture in the art school (most don't even know Cornell has an art school). But there I was -- just me and a class of about 25 first-years. Now, I'm not talking first-year grad students; I'm talking about college freshmen -- 18 years old and about 3 weeks removed from living in their parents' house, eating home-cooked meals and daydreaming about mind expansion and no curfew. I admit I revelled for a class or two in my honorary status as class "old guy." But alas! In the end, spending 8-11 A.M. on Tuesday and Thursday constructing a full-sized human head out of clay proved too much for me.
Despite the fact that I am now an honorary art school dropout, I'm still eager to promote the ability of students at the Johnson School to immerse themselves in any subject of their choosing; I'm proud of the simple fact that I was able to have the experience I did. Though most of my classmates prefer to take classes in subjects like Hotel Management, Human Resources, and Energy Economics, I hope that my own brief sojourn into the undergrad art school will somehow make me a better -- or at least more well-rounded -- manager.
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