161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do

So that everyone’s on the same page, the 161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do is a list of activities and tasks that Cornell sends to its students to complete before they graduate.  The number of items, 161, comes from the number of steps to the top of McGraw Tower (the clock tower).  The list is occasionally updated, but from what I can tell most of the items stay the same from year to year.

At this point in time, I have no plans to seriously try and complete all 161 things on the list.  Some may be completed in a modified version, such as #1, Make the library into your bedroom and have sex in the stacks.  Not going to happen, so I may find some other activity to substitute for this one (and others).

Even though I’m not planning to do all 161 things, I’ll probably end up blogging about a good number of them, because many of them are what you could call “uniquely Cornellian,” like the clock tower.  One good thing about being the in the middle of nowhere is that we have space.  Lots of it.  Because admit it, having a clock tower in the middle of Boston would be weird, for one thing, and for another, it wouldn't really look like a tower next to the John Hancock Tower.

Since I've been at Cornell longer than I've been blogging, I’ll probably go back and give at least a brief overview of the things I've already completed.  It’ll be like a slice of life at Cornell, but with a slightly different take than my usual news from the engineering quad/band room.