Ahem. Clink your spoons against your glasses! A toast. Not to the triumphant politician or the house president. To the pre-frosh.

Congratulations, you little devils, you! You nailed the SATs. You’re in the top 10 percent of your class. You did all your homework or at least copied it. You got into the 12th ranked school in the whole wide world … of U.S. News and World Report! When that letter came in the mail, it was a pretty shiny platter: a red seal, Provost Davis’ signature, and, of course, a socioeconomic future.

Alright, toast done. I’m not a talker. And anyway, if I just showered you with praise for a whole 900 hundred words, that would get boring.

Let’s get down to it: you’re a pre-frosh, and you’re here for Cornell Days, and you’d like to know what it’s really like inside this place. If we ask that question the way overzealous parents do on your first fall break, then the answers are easy. Yes, the food is good. Yes, it is cold. Yes, class size isn’t an issue. Unless you’re looking for an excuse to sleep in. And yes, of course, the beer Olympics were highly competitive, and yes, I won. Just kidding. But not really. We’d be kidding ourselves, though, if we explained Cornell away in terms of green grass and statues. Not to overstep my bounds or insult anyone here, but hold on — there is food, grass and beer everywhere in the world! And the grass is greener at Brown, anyway.

If you’re wondering what it’s like to be a Cornell student, my humble suggestion is to do yourself this favor: forget you got in. Forget U.S. News. Hang up the letter, but … in the basement. It will still help you get a job, but that’s four years away.

You’re crying inside. I’ve diminished your personal achievement. You just got in 10 days ago, and can’t I give you a break? You are the bomb dot com in your whole high school! True — but today you’re here: and here is an odd oasis in this country, an oasis where people think way too hard. Beyond practicalities, and sometimes even beyond personal achievement.

Thinking beyond yourself — your achievements and views — is, I believe, the coolest thing that happens at Cornell. It’s a very simple idea, with a ton of different forms. It starts with considering this premise: your thoughts about yourself and the world have been shaped by the circumstances you grew up in. The way you think might not be right. It can change. Other people think completely differently, whether they come from across the world or down the street. Maybe they’re right.

If you get on board with this, you can feel everything being challenged on a deeper level than usual. You think you’re going to get critiques of Bush; but you get critiques of the whole political system. Or you think an author might challenge America; but he challenges the very notion of national sovereignty — or simply reminds you this country was built on a long genocide of its natives. Or you think the multi-colored Target lamp you buy for your dorm room is the apex of expressive style, until you see about 30 of the same on your floor.

The critique begins to spread. Your new friends are of different religions and they begin to seem not so heretical after all. Maybe you won’t burn them at the stake; maybe you’ll marry them and not tell mom and dad. You might take that political view you’ve ignored a thousand times — war for oil?! Something bad about my ethnic group!? — and give it a listen. You might form a new political view — but realize that views aren’t holy — and change it again.

A restless German in the 1830s called this “a ruthless criticism of everything existing.” He was on to something.

You might look at these people different from you, absorb these alien ideas, and be humbled a bit. This is not a criticism to make you sure, but a criticism to make you radically unsure, at least temporarily. Eventually you’ll know. But knowledge is not just affirmation — knowledge is by its nature new, and if you want more knowledge, you must get beyond what you already know. And what do you know better than yourself?

So, ahem — pre-frosh — hope you’re still with me. Hey! Wake up! Give this a try! You can try just thinking it — this critical philosophy — but it might be hard without a diverse dorm and a multi-million-volume library.

But you don’t have to wait. There is something that anyone in the world can do, and you ought to try when you put this paper down. Look up, look around,and check somebody out. But you have no game? That’s alright, silly, I don’t mean that. I mean check out somebody, or something, different. Seek out the difference in an idea or in a friend. Hate it if you must. Even better, love it. Think it, draw it or get mad. You don’t have to be friends — but you can learn from someone you hate just as well.

This difference will open your mind. Then you’ll know what being a student here, or a critical human being anywhere in the world, can be like. Get ready for this. If it happens, there will be no letters in the mail or 20 percent acceptance rates; you might not even realize it. But it might be your new greatest accomplishment.

Anyway, that’s just what I think of Cornell right now. But you might disagree when you get here in a few months, and so might I.

Jeremy Siegman is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at jas367@cornell.edu. Cosmology on the Rocks appears alternate Fridays.