What happened to "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study"? I believe the petition fully lists why this course is important to many of the other programs that Cornell prides itself on and brags about to alumni and incoming students. I doubt Cornell will respond, however, because I have never seen the administration the least bit interested in the actual concerns of students. Instead, I will just add this to the list of reasons why I will never donate any money to the school.
I support this petition. Metal fabrication was one of the few practical, "hands on", courses I had the opportunity to take as a BEE student. Removing them to make way for another theory course would be a loss to the university. It is something that has happened far too often at Cornell, especially in the Engineering school. Taking the theory into practice is what makes learning enjoyable.
Please do not cancel the BEE Wood and Metal Classes. Part of what makes Cornell so exciting and invigorating is having the chance to take courses like BEE Wood that break from the usual courses of study to teach valuable material in a hands-on way. Too much of the learning process takes place in a classroom or lecture hall without allowing students to get their hands dirty and learn practical information. I am not required to take BEE Wood for my major or minor, but I am taking it anyway because I know that it is a valuable class that I can really get excited about and look forward to going to. Cornell can not claim to be a school for any person and any study when it eliminates courses that have proved so helpful to students past and present and will continue to do so in the future. Do not cancel these classes.
I support this petition and believe that these classes should be utilized more by other majors in the ag school! As a business major one of the most useful classes i took was the welding class which has become essential to running my farm business.
This is one of the more useful classes I took at Cornell in my 6 years there. It would be a shame to do away with hands on construction teaching which is directly applicable to many fields including mine, physics.
I took the Metal Fabrication class. It was one of the most interesting, useful and fun classes I've ever taken. I wouldn't have had a chance to learn such life skills anywhere else. PLEASE keep it! There is no reason why it should be considered not required. And even if it isn't, anyone and everyone could benefit from taking it.
I support this petition. Mr. Cook teaches skills that can be used for the rest of the students life. These classes add a lot of diversity to the campus and benefit the campus greatly.
I took the wood working class. It was one of the most informative classes I took at Cornell. I know the university will be worse off without it. Do not tell me there are no resources for it. Bad decision Cornell. You disappoint me.
I support this petition.
It would be a shame if one of the best machine / wood shops on campus were to close. I used these facilities to conduct research during my master of engineering.
I support this petition.
I use the knowledge and hands on experiences gained in BEE 110 and 310 every day at work at Cornell supporting the crew program.
I support this petition. Both wood and metal shop were courses that made a difference in my life. Even now as I am applying to fellowships in plastic surgery, these courses come up in discussion. I feel the students at Cornell would suffer a great loss by losing this course and such a great instructor
I have a great job that I thoroughly enjoy at a rocket company (Space Exploration Technologies). I attribute this to hands-on learning experiences like T. Cooks classes and the FSAE team. If you make the mistake of cutting these classes and shunning students and instructors that favor real world knowledge and skills you will produce unless engineers that are unlikely to be hired at Spacex.
I took both the wood shop and metal shop courses, even though they did not fill any graduation requirements for me. They have been incredibly valuable both for the skills they taught me and for helping me gain self confidence to fix or make most anything I need. Please do not cancel these courses, they were two of my most valuable courses of my degree.
I support this petition. The hands-on skills I learned in Tom's class have helped me to be a better robotics researcher because I am effective in a shop and have a better understanding of the physical limitations imposed by the manufacturing process.
I support this petition. I graduated in the Class of 2001. I studied Animal Science. I'm a pilot now. Cornell is a place where anybody can study anything, and this is wonderful because as I will attest, you never know exactly what field you will work in after you graduate. I was fortunate enough to learn from Tom and have, to date, benefited much more from the practicality of this course than from my Animal Science courses. My wife and I recently bought a home. Could you imagine her response if I was unable to alter our bathroom doors to fit the new flooring? She would have said, "Cornell graduate, huh?"
I support this petition. These were two of the best classes that I took at cornell. They talk about wanting students to be well rounded, but not having these courses is doing just the opposite.
I support this petition. Tom Cook was one of the best and most influential teachers i came across at Cornell. Don't let his brilliant courses be replaced by another useless survey course
I support this petition. As an engineer it is invaluable to have some knowledge of the physical systems being designed and their constraints. This is not available simply by book-learning. The Mechanical Engineering department has Emerson and their required course where their students receive metal fabrication experience. These courses are not available to students outside of Mechanical engineering though the skills taught by such a course, like the one Mr. Cook teaches, are extremely relevant and useful to a wide range of diciplines. I even know a number of mechanical engineers who needed more advanced metal fabrication instruction who took Mr. Cook's classes. I would encourage you to keep the shop courses open. If enrollment is still as strong as when I took it, that is evidence of student interest and demand. It would be a specific disservice to the strong tradition of Cornell Engineering project teams to discontinue these courses, as there is little to no instruction elsewhere on campus where students can learn appropriate techniques, resoning, and safety for the design and building of all of the project teams' projects.
I fully support this petition.
The woodworking class was easily the most useful class I took at cornell. I am now in my 4th year of physics graduate school at UCLA and the hands on skills I learned have not only kept me safe during machine fabrication, but landed me a position as the lead engineer prototyping a million dollar helical plasma source at UCLA. My advanced understanding of fabrication and planning learned in this class put me ahead of my peers and afforded me the opportunity to lead the project. I could never be as successful as i am in an experimental physics PhD without taking this class.
I support this petition. The Intro to Metal Fabrication was one of the most informative courses I took at Cornell. Mr. Cook is an outstanding instructor who was always eager to share his indispensable knowledge with students.
I took both the woodworking and metalworking courses while I was an undergraduate. As a graduate student now at Princeton, working in experimental plasma physics, the skills I picked up in these two courses are invaluable. We just finished constructing our experiment (the Lithium Tokamak eXperiment), and I was able to make major contributions to the construction, due to my knowledge of welding, metal fab, and general shop skills. Most of my colleagues had to learn these skills from the beginning, wasting time and materials. In my opinion, it is the availability of practical courses such as these that set Cornell apart from its competing institutions. Please think carefully before you gut my alma mater of these assets.
I support this petition on the grounds that Mr. Cook and his vast range of practical and valuable knowledge deserve a place in a University’s curriculum that was founded on the ideal that "any person can find instruction in any study." It would be an inexcusable shame to let these courses fade away while there is still someone around willing to put in the time and effort to teach such subjects. There has to be some feasible solution - do not take the easy way out!
I support this petition. Having been a member of three different project teams in the engineering school AND starting the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenge Teams, we used this class not only to give our mechanical engineers practical skills in fabrication, but as a talent pool from which we extracted some of our most hands-on, can-do people. The cancellation of this class would be a step in the direction of creating Cornell graduates who do not know how to connect with or operate in the real world.
I support this petition. Tom was a great teacher and mentor. I learned extremely valuable tools and knowledge in my wood construction class. To eliminate this class would be a shame!
I support this petition.
I am now a teacher and these courses were the most useful i ever took at cornell. You need more work shops not storage! rent a couple trailer bes and store stuff there.
I support this petition wholeheartedly! Intro to Metal Fabrication class and lab was an indispensable part of my education at Cornell. It perfectly complemented the commensurately rigorous theoretical classes which all engineers were required to pass. I have been constantly reminded over my career as a practicing field leader, environmental engineer, and Fulbright Scholar how much I value the many happy hours of study I undertook in Mr. Cooks class.
"Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance." This class, and Professor Thomas Cook, are two of the greatest assets Cornell has to offer, and it would be an outright shame to let them go. I am a surgeon in training, who, to this day, uses the practical skills principles of proper planning I learned in Mr. Cook's class. And I still have and use the end-table that was the fruit of my semesters efforts. Great class, Great Professor, and a GREAT loss for the university!
I loved the shop class that I took and it would be a shame for that to end. It's an important part of the breadth that students are offered at Cornell, and part of what makes Cornell such a great place to go to school. I would be incredibly disappointed if Cornell lost sight of that and deprived their students of this incredible experience.
I support this petition. I am an alum and work in the Dept. of Nat. Res. I did not take this course as an undergrad, but have always wished that I had! These skills are extremely rare in today's students, but extremely important.
