Dear Transfer,

Congratulations on your acceptance to Cornell.  Oh, there are so many ways to meet people.  First, be sure to attend all of the Transfer Orientation events.  In those first few days you will not only learn all the ins and outs of this large university, but will spend time with all of the other students who are entering mid college career.  That's a great place to start.

Joining a campus club of interest is also a great way to meet others like you.  The Cornell Student Activites listing is long and comprehensive, https://sao.cornell.edu/SO/.  Here you can find the contacts for each club and organization and you might even want to get in touch with them ahead of time to ask what they offer and what they do.

Coffee Hour is another great way to meet others on campus.  It is held in Willard Straight Hall every Thursday.  Check out this recent article in the Cornell Chronicle, http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March12/CoffeeHour.html.

Each Thursday at 4:30 p.m., free coffee, tea and hot chocolate are available in the Browsing Library at Willard Straight Hall. The refreshments are free, and some 70 people usually stop by. But this is more than just free coffee.  Coffee Hour, a new student organization is designed to promote new friendships and to connect social networks on campus.

Last but not least, your residence and classes are a great place to introduce yourself to others and begin friendships.  Welcome to Cornell.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Faith,

I would first check with the facilities manager of the building that you were in.  It is likely that a custodian removed the phone to ensure that it wouldn't be stolen.  If you can't find it there, go to the main Cornell Lost and Found in Barton Hall.  Here is a wonderful article from the Cornell Daily Sun covering the Lost and Found Department, http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2011/11/11/barton-employee-finds-joy-returning-lost-items.

And in answer to your question about what you can do to prevent theft; don't leave your phone in a public place.  Charge it in your room!

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Student,

You’re in luck! As long as you continue to live in campus life housing, your laundry account will remain active. Your laundry balance will be waiting for you when you return in fall 2012.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Earbud Wearing Niece,

Normally Your Uncle would toss questions like this into a file called Students with Too Much Time on Their Hands and Not Enough To Worry About.

Except that a few years ago Cornell Library issued an Ezra Cornell 200^th Birthday T-shirt, silk-screened with a Photoshopped picture of a groovy you-know-who wearing iPod-type earbuds and sunglasses.  That was in 2007, several years after a Cornell School of Electrical and Computer Engineering grad named Jonathan J. Rubenstein led Apple’s design and popularization of the iPod and its ubiquitous earbuds — earning an Outstanding Alumnus award from the University and the industry moniker, The Podfather.  For the record, Your 200-plus Year Old Uncle has not contracted ear-canal cancer and neither has Mr. Rubenstein.

So let’s pull your very perceptive question out of the shredder and check the list of warnings that come with another brand of earbuds (Shure Sound Isolating Earphones). Sure enough, down at the bottom at the very end of a long list of precautions (even below “If you connect these earphones to an airplane’s sound system, listen at low levels so that loud messages from the pilot do not cause discomfort”) is the following: “WARNING: THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS A CHEMICAL KNOWN TO THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO CAUSE CANCER AND BIRTH DEFECTS OR OTHER REPRODUCTIVE HARM.”

Thus, the answers to your helpfully numbered questions are 1) Too many environmental lawyer in California. 2) Maybe. 3) Enroll in the Cornell Law School, specialize in class action lawsuits, and make enough money to buy good medical insurance.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Graduating Senior,

Congratulations!  You have achieved a very worthy goal.  Now is the time to think about how to put that knowledge and expertise to work.  The first thing you should do is read the book, What color is Your Parachute, http://www.amazon.com/What-Color-Your-Parachute-2012/dp/1607740109. Every year this book is updated with the latest ideas and resources about finding a direction, a job or career.

At the same time make an appointment to meet with someone in your college's advising office and/or Cornell Career Services in Barnes Hall. They ahve a lot of knowledge and expertise in guiding new graduates. 

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Fan of the Amazing,

Checking with the faculty/staff/student/alumni directory at the Cornell homepage (www.cornell.edu) it states that Peter J. Katzenstein, the professor of International Studies, and Mary F Katzenstein, the professor of American Studies, share the same home address in the Ellis Hollow neighborhood of Ithaca (as well as adjacent offices in the third floor of White Hall).

Now Your Uncle has a personal question for you: Guessing that you are a Cornell alum, how long ago was that, that you still use the wonderful expression “bee’s knees?” And now that Cornell biologists are learning more and more amazing things about honeybees— how can we return that expression to much-deserved trendiness?

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Concerned Niece,

Thanks for your concern about the Tower Road icon that’s been called much worse than “sad and gloomy.” To cheer up all concerned, here’s Uncle Ezra’s List of Six Reasons to Love Bradfield Hall.

1)    Exterior bricks haven’t fallen off the building (requiring Bradfield to be roped off and all facade bricks to be replaced) in more than 30 years.

2)    Windows on the top floor allow Meteorology students to see the weather coming, even if they can’t predict it with their fancy instruments and computer models. 

3)    Panoramic windows on the north and south ends of each corridor afford great views of campus (and of Ithaca, partway up Cayuga Lake from the north facing windows) with comfortable seating, thriving big houseplants and sproiuting tomato seedlings someone has started there.

4)    Very little casual traffic through Bradfield Hall—because the only apparent entrance from Tower Road is a windowless steel door, leading to daunting stairway.

5)    Microbes growing in Bradfield’s Department of Crop and Soil Science’s soil lab are perfectly happy to be in the gloom.

6)    Students from the Midwest who are nostalgic for hulking grain elevators on the edge of town feel right at home with Bradfield up the road.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Concert Go-er,

Outside concerts are a wonderful thing and students thoroughly enjoy Slope Day every year.  That event actually takes a year of planning ahead and therefore there is no telling what the weather will be like. 

Regular concerts are planned months in advance also, making it impossible to predict the weather.  Collecting admission outside would be impossible without fences which are very costly and take time and advanced reservations.

There are many venues for outdoor concerts in Ithaca during the warm weather.  Stick around for the summer to enjoy open air concerts on The Commons downtown every Thursday evening, Cornell Arts Quad on Fridays, Taughannock Park on Saturdays, Myers Park in Lansing, as well as big festivals like the Ithaca Festival beginning of June and the Grassroots Festival end of July.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Loyal Senior,

You will be a product of both your undergraduate university and your graduate school! Both will be listed on your resume and either or both could be listed on your business card.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Scared,

Wow! Two questions in one week for the file called Students with Too Much Time on Their Hands and Not Enough To Worry About. Must be Spring Break!  Please refer to DUE’s recent answer about whether iPod earbuds cause cancer.

Then please be assured that the Cornell Store is built on impenetrably solid bedrock, and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  That bedrock is the reason the entire store is not buried farther underground— as it was supposed to be. 

The last campus building to be found dangerously unstable was the former Martha Van North—which was promptly evacuated several years ago, then torn down and replaced with a properly designed (one hopes) academic building and parking garage that opened last fall.  It is beautiful and has some amazing design features inside and out.  Take a stroll up to MVR to appreciate the wonderful new look.

As for the Cornell Store, the only thing to worry about (to borrow a line from another retailer) is falling prices.

Uncle Ezra