By Blaine Friedlander for the Cornell Chronicle
Around 1,450 Cornell undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students completed their studies this month. They include students across Cornell’s colleges, from humanities scholars to scientists. The December Recognition Ceremony was canceled on Dec. 14 due to COVID-19 restrictions; those who hoped to attend are invited to return for Commencement in May 2022. In the meantime, with an eye on their futures, some of those anticipating graduation shared their Cornell experiences:
‘Uncomfortable … works for my growth zone’
With sweet tea in hand, Zain Khoja ’22 does not search for the easy path. “Cornell is a good fit for me,” Khoja said. “The university gave me several opportunities to encounter things that made me uncomfortable – which works for my growth zone – placing me perfectly, professionally and academically, where I can grow the most.”
On campus, he joined the Cornell App Development (AppDev) project team for developing difficult mobile and web applications. He’s helped create useful apps on campus and organized extracurricular classes that benefit other students to hone their own programming skills. In fact, he’s served as an AppDev course instructor for more than a year, training about 60 student colleagues. During the last spring semester, he was the group’s president.
Khoja, from Dallas, Texas, has seen the world. He’s strolled the streets of Florence and Milan, and he has visited Egypt’s pyramids. His favorite place is Sendai, Japan, which is not a tourist destination, but rather where people simply go about their lives.
“I’m inspired by people from different walks of life,” he said, “and from my own experiences exploring the unknown.”
After graduation with a bachelor’s degree in information science through the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, Khoja will start his postgraduate career as a product designer in New York City for Ramp, a finance automation platform.
Read more about graduates in this Cornell Chronicle story.