A lost puppy goes to school

I’m sure campus will be full of disappointed students and faculty today. Democrats didn’t want him to win. The Cornell Republicans didn’t want him to win. International students didn’t want him to win - some would like to stay in America. I know there’s a small slice of the student population who supported Trump, but I never imagined it actually happening. 

This whole election cycle is a big reminder of how the electoral college system is not representative of America. Yes, looking at the electoral map, there seems to be a majority Red, but looking at the popular vote (as of writing this at 97% reporting) Hillary is winning by over 100,000 votes. 

As a woman of color, I am not happy with the results. I was not happy with the primaries on either side. I am not excited about the federal government in the next four years. I am not looking forward to seeing the guy in my major who owns a menninist t-shirt, because that’s not funny. I am not excited about how this will affect my daily life. 

I definitely don’t know what my or America’s future holds. It’s hard to say anything at this point. I just know my life has been changed. Women are the majority. Non-hispanic whites are losing their majority. But yet, we continue to vote old white men into positions of political power. 

It’s really hard to come to terms with both the president-elect and vice president-elect. They are soon to be the faces of America. Their stances on LGBTQ+ rights, their stances on global warming, their stances on immigration, their stances on foreign affairs, their stances on healthcare, their stances on tax reform, their stances on Citizens United, their stances on almost everything hurt my gut. 

I’m scared of all those overwhelmingly Trump-supporting areas. Looking at the electoral map and seeing how big of a margin over Hillary some states were, I know exactly where I don’t want to end up later in my life. Even looking at my home state. There are so many counties (with a large majority white population) in which Trump won with over 70% of the vote, but the more densely and diversely populated areas were the opposite, with McMullin pulling over 5% of the vote in some. 

what i did today: nothing

how i feel: guilty

I saw your ask on cornelldiary, so I’ll try to say some different things as well. If you find it difficult to pull up your grades this far into the school year, work on developing good relationships with your teachers. If you’re having difficulty with a certain class, working with your teacher and making a good impression with regards to hard work; actively seeking help and displaying visible improvement could result in a stellar teacher rec. My test scores weren’t the best (I had two friends who scored got 2400 on the SAT the first time they took it, but I was far from that fortunate); I didn’t even make the commended cutoff for the PSAT (which I think was around 203). The last time I took the SAT was fall of my senior year (either september or october) and that score was definitely an improvement for me. I would honestly just get a practice book for both the SAT and ACT, take a couple practice tests, see which one you feel better about, and focus on practicing how to take that specific test. 

Besides grades and test scores, which are not the only factors for admission, maybe focus on unique extracurricular experiences. Make sure you’re doing something your passionate about and be able to write about how it impacts your life and how it applies to what you want to study in college. Make sure you show interest in Cornell (or any other school you’re interested in). This could mean visiting campus (which I didn’t do because of distance from home) or going to local information sessions (make sure you register so they know you went).