Dreaming of Ireland
Amy Harrison ՚18 walks comfortably anywhere in the world and contributes her confidence to the preparation she received at Cornell College as a history major.
After graduating, Harrison moved to Ireland for graduate school, where she expects to graduate in September with first class honors from University College Cork (UCC) with a master’s of museum studies.
“I miss the comfortable feeling of walking through campus on the ped mall, but I’m so grateful that Cornell prepared me to feel comfortable wherever I am walking, anywhere in the world,” says Harrison. For her, attending UCC in Ireland was a dream come true.
After completing her postgraduate degree, Harrison will not only have taken 25 credits of coursework, but she will have worked at museums and produced a museum exhibition in addition to a research dissertation.
“One Course At A Time uniquely prepared me for graduate school,” Harrison says. “Thanks to the schedule and intensity of the block plan, I am always prepared, collected, and calm when it comes to big papers and projects that I have faced thus far in graduate school. The semester plan is a piece of cake compared to the block plan.”
Harrison wants to thank two of her former Cornell professors for all they taught her.
“Professor Catherine Stewart and Professor Misha Quill—I wouldn’t be where I am without them! Professor Stewart helped me to recognize that my true passion was history,” Harrison says. “She constantly pushed me to be better in all of my work and suggested that I challenge myself through a Fellowship in Museum Studies at the African American Museum of Iowa, at which point I knew museums were my future.”
“Professor Quill broadened my understanding of the world—past, present, and future through anthropology,” Harrison says. “Without her, I would not have known just how valuable the teachings of museums can be to society if done properly. And without her class trip to Ireland in October of 2018, I would have never dreamed of applying to school here.”
Harrison urges students considering Cornell to just “Do it. Cornell changed my life for good. It’s amazing to look back at who I was before Cornell to who I am now. I grew so much academically, socially, and personally and I am a much better person for it.”
