Kate Sullivan
History
Nokesville, Va.
What are the most valuable skills you gained from your Arts & Sciences education?
As a student in the College of Arts & Sciences, I have cultivated my ability to research and work in multiple disciplines. In completing a history honors thesis on Virginia's Confederate cemeteries and independent research on World War I-era art and archival objects for the Johnson Museum of Art's education department, I developed historical arguments using primary sources found in archives at Cornell and throughout the eastern United States and synthesized them with secondary scholarship. It is exciting to see how my research capabilities have expanded each semester throughout my time at Cornell.
Cornell A&S's distribution system facilitated interdisciplinary thinking through my time at Cornell by offering courses on math and politics or choices and consequences in computing.
What is your main extracurricular activity and why is it important to you?
Throughout my time at Cornell, running was a key avenue for finding perspective and engaging with my fellow Cornellians during stressful semesters. Running provided a reason each day to spend time outside and escape the busy environment of campus by exploring Ithaca and the country roads outside Cornell. Whenever I have had a particularly stressful day, I run along Forest Home Road, passing North Campus and following Fall Creek. Listening to the water and spending peaceful time away from campus allows me to work through my thoughts and feelings and return to campus feeling reset.
Running also served as a way of finding community with peers and the broader Ithaca community. As a member of Cornell Running Club, I participated in races like Seneca 7, a 77.7 mile relay race around Seneca Lake, and the Ithaca 5 & 10. These races are some of my fondest memories and greatest adventures from college, and they allowed me to engage with the broader Finger Lakes community while I was at Cornell.
What Cornell memory do you treasure the most?
In March of this semester, my friends and I traveled to Lake Placid, N.Y. to watch Cornell men's hockey compete for their second straight ECAC championship. We had seen Cornell's ECAC championship victory last spring and decided to make the trip up to support the team again. Being a member of the "Lynah Faithful" and supporting Cornell hockey, both men's and women's, is when I have felt most connected to the Cornell community over the past four years, so traveling to see the team repeat their ECAC championship victory in Coach Schafer's last year was a perfect ending to four years of watching hockey at Lynah.
If you were to offer advice to an incoming first year student, what would you say?
As a first semester student, don't worry if you don't feel like you have found your community yet. Keep seeking out friendships and new opportunities through everything Cornell has to offer, and you will find Cornellians who are willing to invest their time in friendships and enjoy clubs or activities with you.
Every year, our faculty nominate graduating Arts & Sciences students to be featured as part of our Extraordinary Journeys series.Read more about the Class of 2025.
