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Writer's pictureSage Korfine

Two Rich Worlds in One Small City

I grew up in Ithaca. Ithaca, the small, quaint, charming city that >25,000 students travel to and call home for at least part of the year. This makes the question of what "lens" I see the city through quite an interesting one. For the purposes of this story I will focus mostly (but not entirely on Cornell’s campus) because this is what most Cornellians come to know during their time in Ithaca. I grew up catching frogs in the arboretum, running up and then rolling down the slope, and studying in mann library where as a 12 year old I received many confused looks. I am also a student I still go to the arboretum when I can find the time, I still walk up but rarely roll down the slope, and I dare say I do a bit more studying in Mann library but I see these as two different worlds. I used to wake up in my bed at home, look out my window, and see the Cornell campus in the sun. Now I wake up look down from the hill and see my neighborhood which really drives home the point of two different worlds in one small city.

It is interesting to me to play both roles and live in both worlds. One world is the Cornell and the Ithaca that I know in the summer where I roam the campus alone on hot summer days and see not a student in sight. The other is the busy work-filled world where I am just another one of the ants working on the ant hill and where (regrettably) I barely make it off the hill and down into my hometown. For me I have to keep these worlds separate. The memories made in each belong just that way, separate. The second world is still relatively new and it remains to be seen what kind of memories I make in it and if I do indeed keep them separate from the Ithaca and Cornell I grew up in.



View from top of Gun hill looking past the facotry down to my neighborhood


There is, however, one thing I struggle with. A large portion of the Cornell student body comes from large urban areas. Ithaca is certainly not this. Many students from these large urban areas struggle with living in a place as remote and centrally isolated as Ithaca. They often complain and resort to saying very negative things about Ithaca and it’s lack of shopping and public transportation. While these are valid complaint’s I find myself in a situation much like an older sibling when someone says something negative about their younger sibling. I find myself thinking, “hey I can say that about Ithaca, but you can't.” 

I feel simultaneously as though I want to share and advertise everything Ithaca has to offer as a local but also a certain duty to that other world to keep some things secret and only in that other world. People always ask me if I dislike staying in my hometown or if I feel like I'm just living my high school life and my answer is always the same. No. I love it because it’s like I'm living in a whole new world. In some ways I am actually living in another world, I am living in the dorms on North campus, going to classes, and having experiences with new people as a Cornell student and not simply as a local using the beautiful campus. Yes, I already know my way around the campus and don’t have to search for where my classes are but I am truly seeing the campus through my Cornell Student lens and that is how it should be.


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