As if the holidays weren't stressful enough, MetaEzra ran a contest in November and December asking Cornell alumni to brainstorm a bucket list suitable for any alumna or alumni: The 161 Things That Every Cornell Alumnus/a Must Do. Alumni across the globe racked their brain for weeks trying to come up with the five most intriguing, compelling, humorous, or tear-jerking activities that every proud Cornellian must do after they proudly march across Schoellkopf Field. We asked for each submitter to provide us with a list of five things to do, and in total we received over 75 entries for the contest. I then collected a Each judge was then asked to rate each submission on their own independent scale from 1 to 10. Results were then normalized to each judge and averaged across the judge's scores; the alumna with the highest aggregate score for all of her entries would win. And that alumna is Rita Doyle Pederson '98, a consummate Cornellian, who also happens to be the President of her class. Among Rita's entries were these two favorites of mine: Come back to campus as a recruiter for your company. Stay at the Statler. Interview the current students and marvel at how bright they arerag tag enthusiastic panel of judges to blindly review the submissions -- while I abstained due to my knowledge of who submitted which entries -- so special thanks to Elie, Julia, Shane, and Munier for their awesome rating skills! Tell your five year old it's ok to use a swear word as long as it's part of a hockey cheer and being used toward Harvard.
Rita is the proud winner of a hard cover copy of Carl Becker's The Founders and the Founding. Congratulations, Rita!
Elsewhere, Alan Flaherty '62 and Scott Pesner '87 each submitted well over the 5 required entries. So they each deserve an honorable mention for gumption.
But what about the least highly rated submission? With just 26 percent of the score of the highest rated entry, it was actually my favorite for humor and distinct ties to Cornell:
With the new-found culinary skills of post-college life, try to recreate a sui at home.
Because who doesn't dream of a WGC or a PMP a on those cold winter nights?
We'll be busy finalizing our full list in the coming weeks (and late entries are always encouraged, just email editor@metaezra.com). Enjoy the full results of the contest below!