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- Hi, everyone, my name's Justine Kim,
and I am a freshmen here at Cornell University.
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I'm a freshmen in my second semester,
and I hope to double major in Music and PMA,
which is Performing in Media Arts.
I'm in three clubs, three main clubs
outside of my academics.
The first is the Glorus, which is a combination
of the Glee club and the female chorus.
And also, in the traditional Korean dance group, HanChum.
And also, in the Ultimate Frisbee team, Thorny Roses.
So today happens to be the last day of classes,
but that's okay, there's still a lot of things to do.
So you'll be learning more about what a typical day
is like for a student at Cornell, and today also happens
to be The Hangovers concert,
which is the best acapella group here at Cornell.
(upbeat music)
A typical day in my life at Cornell,
I wake up at around seven or 7:30, get ready
for my first class, which is a nine a.m. at Malott Hall.
I take Calculus I, and then, I have my next class
at 11:15, which is Modern Philosophy with Derk Pereboom.
I heard that people from all over the world come here,
come to Cornell just to hear him talk
about transcendental freedom, it's amazing.
And then, I have lunch with my friends,
either at the main dining hall called Okenshields
or down at West, and then, I have my last class of the day,
which is Intermediate Korean.
Afterwards, I have my P.E. class that goes until five,
which is Yoga (laughs).
And then, immediately after that, at 5:15 to 7:15,
I go to choral rehearsal, and then, afterwards,
we head to the Robert Purcell Center to have dinner,
and then, if time and energy allows it,
I go to Chariot, which is an after party
that the chorus always does after rehearsals.
And I stay there until 12 a.m. because I don't have
a morning class the next day.
(laughs) So. (smooth jazz music)
- [Interviewer] So you are currently considering
a double major, right? - Yes.
- Okay, so tell me about that. - So I plan to double major
in Music and PMA, which stands for Performing in Media Arts,
and the reason why I'm doing Music and PMA
is that my dream is to work at Opera Australia,
whether on the scene or behind the scenes.
- Ooh. - Yes, because
before I came here, I was at the Sydney Conservatorium
planning to pursue a bachelor in vocal performance,
Opera school, yeah (laughs). - Gotcha.
Wait, so for people who don't know,
what is the Sydney Conservatorium?
- [Justine] So the Sydney Conservatorium
is one of the most prestigious music academies
in Australia. - Mhm, so why'd you make
that transition? - Australia doesn't offer
many Liberal Arts colleges, no, there aren't
any Liberal Arts colleges in Australia.
So as soon as you graduate high school,
you decide on your major.
If you wanna get into medicine, you go into medicine.
Law, business, I had two paths.
Either Speech Pathology Medicine at the Sydney Uni,
or Opera School, but I was still very curious.
I didn't wanna stay confined to just one subject.
- Mhm. - Of course, I could've
like read outside, but I wanted to learn.
And I'm more about different subjects,
such as English Literature.
That's the reason why I came here.
Also, in terms of music, when I was at the Con,
it was very individualized.
So if you fail, not fail, but like not pass an audition,
well, it's like, it's all about the individual.
- Right. - As the singer.
As the solo.
There were like many, many soloists who were trained there,
but here at Cornell, it's more of a community,
a family, or like,
and becoming part of a choir, you become part of a group.
And you learn about teamwork,
and you learn about communicating with different people
and being part of a group, so that's why I came here.
- So okay, but then focusing in on music,
what's been your favorite musical class you've taken
at Cornell? - So my favorite musical class
that I've taken at Cornell is Choral.
That counts as a class.
- Okay. - Yeah, the choral rehearsals
because it's more practical
and hands-on approach to learning.
I loved that this semester, we took on a huge project
called the St. Matthew Passions.
- Mhm. - And we learned
about the history behind Bach, and you know,
the crucifixion of Christ
and how the musical subtleties work
in portraying the story.
- Mhm. - In terms of musicology,
music theory, the best class that I've taken here
is Theories and Techniques I.
I loved my T.A., here name was Jihun,
and we learned about music from the 1600's
to the late 1800's.
I made my first galant style composition, yeah.
Classical style piano composition.
- So you're doing composing, you're doing theory,
practical singing. - Mhm.
- How neat, I like jazz. - Mhm.
- Do you play jazz? - Yeah, I play jazz
a little bit, improv. - Ooh.
- Do you wanna learn how to improv instead of Chopsticks?
- Let's do that. - Okay.
(bright piano jazz music)
(Justine laughs) - Hey, that wasn't terrible.
- It wasn't. - That's my favorite thing
that's ever happened in an interview.
(Justine laughs) (smooth jazz music)
(smooth, upbeat music)
So right now, I am in
the Cornell Memorial Room where this is Ezra Cornell's
final resting place, as well as his, I believe, family.
And so, this is Ezra Cornell, as you can tell
by his iconic beard, there is a bit of a curse in this room
that if, probably because Ezra didn't like tourists,
but if you take videos
or just any sort of technical things,
the mic will go off or there will be technical difficulties.
(static buzzes)
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- What would you say has surprised you the most
about Cornell? - What surprised me
most about Cornell is the diversity around here
and the number of people.
When I came to America and Cornell,
I was just overwhelmed by just how many people were here.
Like there's 10 times more people here than in Australia,
and I have friends from all over the country.
Not country, the world actually.
- How was the transition overall from Australia
to the U.S. to Cornell? - The transition
was pretty smooth, I would say, because my family,
well, like objectively it was smooth.
Subjectively, it was tumultuous,
but the reason why was I had my entire family
come with me here to Cornell, and we came here
three weeks earlier than the actual
that when school started.
And we stayed a week in New York,
and then, we stayed another week for the Prepare Program,
which is a pre-orientation program
for international students.
- Oh. - Yeah.
- Was that helpful, the pre-orientation program?
- Oh yeah, I met a lot of my close friends there,
and they taught us, they have like events
throughout the week on like this day, we go shopping
for our beddings, and the next day,
this is where we get our Cornell card.
And the next day, this is a tour of campus and all of that.
It was wonderful, also, one more thing about new students.
It gets a little bit lonely during the first semester,
just a heads up, because you're still trying
to find your place around here.
And you get overwhelmed because you see all your friends
signing up for all these extracurricular activities,
like the Business Society and things
that you don't really care about.
But then, once you find your niche,
once you find the one community, don't go around
like so many different places and signing up
for 10 different clubs, choose one club.
- Sort of find your family. - Find your family,
and you're set. - What advice would you give
to students who are thinking about applying to Cornell?
- I would say that,
number one, since it's part of Crimson,
find a good mentor at a good mentor at Crimson.
I had Chase Marren, and he was amazing.
I don't think I would've got into Cornell
if it wasn't for him (laughs)
because he told me about like, you know,
the different deadlines and how I can improve my interviews
or what elements that they are looking for in my essays.
I actually had so much fun writing my college essay
because of Chase. - You sort of had somebody
who could help you sort of organize the process.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- So what was great about Crimson was that they
connected me to students from my prospective schools,
and I met my Cornell mentor during a writing seminar.
And we just freaked out, we just--
- Oh my gosh, so you were actually like,
"Oh my god, I've seen you before."
- We met serendipitously. - Wow!
Small school. - I know!
And so, as soon as we saw each other, we were like,
you're from Australia, you're from Australia?
Did we meet, I think I said, and then,
we were on like roll chairs and we like rolled
to the far edges of the corners
'cause we're just so shocked.
- Wow. - Yeah.
I love how Crimson really showed me the different resources.
For example, like sample essays and in-depth information of,
like, it's like hack information
about the different prospective schools.
And that was really useful
when I was writing my supplementals, so yeah.
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♪ You do ♪