Stephanie McGovern's Scholarship Report

Following a year in industry placement at Black & Decker training as a design engineer I, Stephanie McGovern, went on to study for a degree in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London which was sponsored by the company. However with the career aspiration to be a science journalist and thanks to my work experience at BBC Radio 4 I decided to change degree courses and have just finished my first year BSci in Science Communication and Policy at University College London which was again sponsored. Since the age of 16 I have worked every summer but finally this year, thanks to the Cornell Club of London Scholarship, I have been able to take a break from industry and travel for the first time in my life to United States and to an Ivy League University to study at summer school.

Waking up on Monday morning for an 8:30am start is not normally something to look forward to, especially when contemplating the routine journey which I face en route to university. However today on 23rd June 2003 my journey was somewhat different, the path I took was not along the congested street I was used to. Today my feet were not treading across pavements but were following a trail over grass. The current of commuters pushing against me did not exist and instead trees were the only obstacles I had to negotiate. Today I was walking past waterfalls not office blocks. Today I was studying at Cornell University and not University College London.

All good journals tend to start with the writer's strongest memory and walking around the Cornell campus is one I will never forget. Admittedly I am a girl who loves life in a busy city but getting away from the "hustle and bustle" for a summer in Ithaca was literally a breath of fresh air. My daily walk to class would take me past natural splendour and in the afternoons I could walk through lush plantations to reach deserted waterfalls to swim in; it was just astounding. The plantations in particular were of great interest to me as a science student knowing the place they held in history for genetic research. As a Nobel Prize winner, the late Barbara McClintock's work on genetics at these very plantations made her one of history's few successful women scientists; a woman who was an inspiration to me. Spending time every day taking in the atmosphere of the grand Cornell campus provided a lot of inspiration and enjoyment for me. One of my fondest memories was passing the clock tower each day at 12 noon trying to guess the song which was being rung out on the bells. Coldplay's 'Yellow' was one of my favourites although it took me two hours to figure out that that's what it actually was.

My friends at Cornell were puzzled by my enjoyment of walking around campus. In fact one of the common greetings I was faced with when arriving at College Town Bagels was "You walked all the way from North Campus to College Town?! Are you insane? Why didn't you just call me and I'd have picked you up?" To me the fact that they would travel a few hundred yards to pick me up was insanity. I did however learn to love my friends with cars, especially when faced with the Buffalo Street mission down to Ithaca Commons. Talk about hiking. I'm still haunted by my first experience of it, which was wearing heels!! As you can imagine my friend and fellow Cornell Club Scholarship winner Anita, who was wearing flat shoes, spent the whole time laughing while I struggled down practically on my knees. Anita and I had lots of laughs together and also some more painful times, for instance when we decided to join the gym after flirting with the idea for over a week. Our aim was to get fit which unfortunately involved getting up at 6AM EVERY morning to go down to Helen Newman Hall and 'work-out'. After five mornings of step aerobics, spinning and kick-about classes enough was enough- we hung up our kit bag and never made it to another 6am class. Although the gym never saw much of us after that it didn't stop us exploring the other sports facilities available. Although Anita and I developed a great friendship we knew that it would be too easy for us to just spend all our time together so we made a conscious effort to spend the majority of our time out exploring Cornell for ourselves. In hindsight this was the best decision we made unlike the other decision we made when we arrived which was to use the subway in New York whilst lugging around three huge suitcases, one of which lost it's wheels on the way.

I have to say the facilities at Cornell were phenomenal. What impressed me most were the libraries. The fact that I could hire a laptop, sit in a big leather chair in Olin Library caf», surf the net AND eat chocolate brownies all at the same time meant that study time was a joy! In fact I was quite shocked by how much of my time was spent in the library. The library facilities however cannot take full credit for motivating my study for it was the course topics themselves that really spurred my academic pursuits.

In terms of course choices it was a simple case of interest and relevance. Before arriving at Cornell I was well aware that they had a successful science communication and policy department. I knew straight away when I won the scholarship that it would provide me with the perfect opportunity to develop my learning in communication and get the US perspective on science policy making. As you can imagine it was quite a shock when I went to my first class, Politics of Environmental Protection, and was met by the course instructor who introduced himself as Professor Steven Yearley from York University, England!! I think my mouth hit the floor, not only was he British and from a city near my home town but he was also an academic whose books I had studied in my previous year at UCL. Professor Yearley was an academic I greatly admired and that coupled with his vast international knowledge in science communication along with his informal teaching style led for a stimulating course. Although a 4th year course I knew it would challenge me and with a class consisting of only 5 people it was definitely intensive. All of the topics we covered were current science problems in the public domain and it was great to thrash out the views in class. From the politics behind sustainable development to the feasibility of putting a price on nature, it amazed me to see how different the British and US perspectives were. The Cornell students I studied with were an inspiration to me and I was able to learn so much from them about American politics, which I embarrassingly knew so little about. My final essay on the GM food debate between the US and Europe was given an A grade and has also provided me with a fantastic dissertation topic to get my teeth into at UCL.

The second course, PR and Advertising, was equally rewarding. Taught by a lecturer with many years of business experience the course was very relevant to the real world and involved a lot of practical work and excursions. This class, with over 30 students, taught me a lot about the international business world as well as allowing me to meet a lot of different people. As a second year course it was not as intense as my environmental politics course but it fulfilled my requirement to learn the US approach to communication and advertising which was in many ways different to what I had learnt in the past in the British education system. I found all of the academics within the communications department a pleasure to meet and I've made firm friends with some of the post graduate students there.

All of the people I met at Cornell University were so welcoming and the diversity of my friendship group meant that there was never a dull moment. The international students were the first people I met when arriving with my suitcases at Jameson Hall. Many of the students were studying courses to improve their English and it was during my time with them that I realised that perhaps my English was not that good either especially when trying to explain the difference between the words 'could' and 'would'. Equally the fact that by the end of the six weeks they had picked up a Northern English accent (i.e. mine) was quite amusing.Then there were the Cornell students themselves from all over the US. I spent many a night in my friends' busy flat in College Town having dinner with the house mates, gossiping about the days events and watching movies. There were also the occasional parties to attend and I was finally introduced to the Frat party life I had heard so much about. I managed to attend my first and probably only 'dive-in-movie' and also spent time visiting different parts of Ithaca and even different parts of the state such as Niagara Falls, Albany, and of course New York city itself. As a self confessed shop-a-holic New York city was heaven. Along with the sight seeing I managed to spend enough money to warrant buying another suitcase for my journey home.

I have a lot to thank Cornell for, particularly the professors who were an inspiration to me and also the Cornell Abroad office who made me feel so welcome. And of course I'd like to thank everyone who sent me there --.so thank you. The scholarship scheme is so worthwhile because of the chance it gives a person to develop both academically and personally. My time there allowed me to learn a lot about myself and also just as importantly, about another culture. I've met some amazing people and made some firm friends. My problem now however is where I'm going to put them all when they come over to visit me in London which many of them have promised to do!

Stephanie McGovern

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