College of Arts and Sciences:describe your intellectual interests, their evolution, and what makes them exciting to you. Tell us how you will utilize the academic programs in the College of Arts and Sciences to further explore your interests, intended major, or field of study.
I grew up in a predominantly matriarchal family. As my father was always away for business, I lived with my great grandma, my grandma and my mother. Thus, I am familiar with the legendary experiences these female elders had in fighting against social constraints and pursuing better life and free will.
In the 1920s in China, women didn't have the right to attend schoool or choose their husbands. However, my great grandmother didn't succumb to these social rules. In her teenage years, she "attended school" by eavesdropping while standing outside the door of classroom. With the accumulation of knowledge, she became more brave to speak out her mind and to fight for her controlling right of life. She managed to continue her education in junior school, becoming the first female student in the countyl, and later married a man she loved.
It is difficult for people nowadays to imagine how hard it was to bear censures from society and family and to struggle for the basic rights for education and free marriage. While telling her own story to me, I recall my great grandma holding large teardrops back in her eyes. How many other stories like this one had happened? What a history of tears and blood there exists behind these women's lives? What brings us, the modern females, to this social and family state nowadays? These questions has evolved in my head, and my interests in women's studies has been accumulating. Addition to my later experience of tutoring an adopted Tibetan orphan girl Nimalamu for three years and conducting a series of researchs on the girl dropouts and maladjustment of minority females in metropolis, I realized that I aspire to take a more substantial educational path in women's studies.
In this aspect, Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences meets my academic and personal expectaions perfectly. Here I can participate in the program of Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, which is one of the largest interdisciplinary programs in the College of Arts and Sciences and "historically one of the first university women's studies programs" in America. In this program, students are provided with undergraduate majors and minors courses ranging from the "Gender and Technology" to "Women's Activism and Social Change in the Twentieth Century U.S." to "Female Labor Force Supply and Fertility" to"Sex, Gender, and Communication". While expanding my feminist perspective to include more gender studies in fields of social analyse, psychology, art and literature, I can fully utilize the affiliated on-campus resources such as the Women's Resources Center and the Human Sexuality, listen to the lectures or presentations by Cornell alumnae women, and actively participate in outreach programs like CURIE Academy and Healthy Start Partnership to help more female achieving their professional goals. I wish to enrich and deepen my interests in women's studies, and maybe one day set up my own interdepartmental study that blend gender studies with riligion, social sciences, and modern technology! It would be really great to see the embryo of my academic interests growing into serious scholarly actions and focuses; it's also great to imagine myself reaching that goal in Cornell University! I look forward to seeing the future me there!
I grew up in a predominantly matriarchal family. As my father was always away for business, I lived with my great grandma, my grandma and my mother. Thus, I am familiar with the legendary experiences these female elders had in fighting against social constraints and pursuing better life and free will.
In the 1920s in China, women didn't have the right to attend schoool or choose their husbands. However, my great grandmother didn't succumb to these social rules. In her teenage years, she "attended school" by eavesdropping while standing outside the door of classroom. With the accumulation of knowledge, she became more brave to speak out her mind and to fight for her controlling right of life. She managed to continue her education in junior school, becoming the first female student in the countyl, and later married a man she loved.
It is difficult for people nowadays to imagine how hard it was to bear censures from society and family and to struggle for the basic rights for education and free marriage. While telling her own story to me, I recall my great grandma holding large teardrops back in her eyes. How many other stories like this one had happened? What a history of tears and blood there exists behind these women's lives? What brings us, the modern females, to this social and family state nowadays? These questions has evolved in my head, and my interests in women's studies has been accumulating. Addition to my later experience of tutoring an adopted Tibetan orphan girl Nimalamu for three years and conducting a series of researchs on the girl dropouts and maladjustment of minority females in metropolis, I realized that I aspire to take a more substantial educational path in women's studies.
In this aspect, Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences meets my academic and personal expectaions perfectly. Here I can participate in the program of Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, which is one of the largest interdisciplinary programs in the College of Arts and Sciences and "historically one of the first university women's studies programs" in America. In this program, students are provided with undergraduate majors and minors courses ranging from the "Gender and Technology" to "Women's Activism and Social Change in the Twentieth Century U.S." to "Female Labor Force Supply and Fertility" to"Sex, Gender, and Communication". While expanding my feminist perspective to include more gender studies in fields of social analyse, psychology, art and literature, I can fully utilize the affiliated on-campus resources such as the Women's Resources Center and the Human Sexuality, listen to the lectures or presentations by Cornell alumnae women, and actively participate in outreach programs like CURIE Academy and Healthy Start Partnership to help more female achieving their professional goals. I wish to enrich and deepen my interests in women's studies, and maybe one day set up my own interdepartmental study that blend gender studies with riligion, social sciences, and modern technology! It would be really great to see the embryo of my academic interests growing into serious scholarly actions and focuses; it's also great to imagine myself reaching that goal in Cornell University! I look forward to seeing the future me there!
