Meet CALS Ambassadors
CALS Ambassadors are dedicated student leaders who represent our diverse undergraduate student community. The group spotlighted here, along with their 60+ fellow Ambassadors, come from variety of backgrounds and study across CALS academic disciplines. Their goal is to share genuine perspective on their Cornell CALS student experiences.

I love CALS, period. CALS allows students to partake and be themselves when it comes to academics. Students are allowed to decide what they want to be, and CALS, with the advisors' help, directs students on that path. CALS provides students with tutoring, flexibility, and hands-on learning approaches such as research, community service opportunities, etc. I love CALS!

I am a motivated first generation student who is driven towards gaining an education in the field of biology. I am someone who is always determined to create a difference in any setting, whether that be in lecture or in a study session with friends. I always try to lighten up the mood and not always take everything so seriously.

Volunteering as a CALS Ambassador and Diversity Admissions Ambassador gives me the experience to understand young peoples' struggles and find ways to connect them to resources that will promote their success through social and economic mobility.

There's no other college in Cornell like CALS. The faculty become your family and backbone throughout the hardships of your stay at Cornell. There is support here that I've never found elsewhere. I'm able to openly be myself and explore all my interests, being swamped with opportunities presented by CALS.

CALS is amazing because we are a large College with many different majors, but I still am able to find close connections within my major and classes.

I am a great fit for CALS due to my interest in many subjects including archaeology and economics, my thirst for knowledge, my love for the natural world, and on top of all that, my environmental awareness aligns with the eco-friendly mission of Cornell's energy plan.

The partnerships made between MASS (Minority Animal Science Students) and the Cornell Vet School has given me meaningful insights into how to prepare for vet school and what that experience would look like.

CALS is both a welcoming and tight-knit community of students with various interests but share a common goal of loving to learn. The hands-on learning that is encouraged in CALS fuels my growth and the ability to explore interests outside of my major complements my passion for learning.

CALS is a great fit for me because it offers me a smaller program for environmental engineering that will help me to make stronger relationships with my professors and other students.

I am a great fit for CALS because I am passionate about the connection between food systems, sustainability, and nutritional health. In any other school, I would not be able to combine my wide range of interests into a single major and minor.

I've found my closest friends at Cornell by simply wearing a smile around my dorm (shoutout Donlon)! I love talking to new people, so I quickly found a group of really interesting individuals to hang out with, rely on, and be inspired by.

CALS is, in all honesty, a family. Walking onto the Ag Quad, I feel a sense of home, an area of peace amidst the chaos all around campus. In addition, I really love how entering with an intended major allows you to hit the ground running on day one and learn about your passions right away. Finally, through the academic requirements in CALS, I am encouraged to take classes in all different disciplines, all grounded in the contribution to the Life Sciences and humanity.

A huge academic highlight for me was becoming a TA for CHEM 2070. This was a class that was challenging for me when I took it, and I find that it's very rewarding to help students that get hung up on the same issues I had when I learned the content for the first time. I'm a big proponent of "see one, do one, teach one" and I find that teaching the content of this course has allowed me to understand it on a much deeper level.

I care deeply about the state of our food system and constantly ask myself, “What can I do to make things better?” Through CALS, I am able to unleash my curiosity while seeking answers as I learn in class, chat with professors, or engage in dialogue with peers.

The community that I have found through the Biology Scholars Program has impacted my Cornell experience immensely. It is so heart-warming to see familiar faces everywhere on campus.