Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Cornell Daily Sun
Submit a Tip
Tuesday, July 29, 2025

DSC09734.JPG

‘Put Yourself Out There:’ Members of the Class of 2025 Reflect on Cornell Experience

Reading time: about 8 minutes

With Senior Convocation and Commencement Weekend under their belts, six members of Cornell’s graduating Class of 2025 spoke with The Sun, sharing thoughts about their time in Ithaca and future plans.

Isabella Suffredini ’25, Nolan School of Hotel Administration

Suffredini, graduating from the Nolan School of Hotel Administration, hopes to pursue a career focused on improving the senior housing industry. After graduation, Suffredini plans to work for Wells Fargo in senior housing commercial real estate. 

When she was 12, Suffredini volunteered at a nursing home. Both this experience, and being very close with her own nana, sparked her passion. 

“I enjoyed the feeling of having a direct impact on someone’s life, and I wanted to improve how elderly people were treated in society,” Suffrendini told The Sun.

Accordingly, she was drawn to Cornell’s Nolan School and shared how she valued the culture of giving back, captured in the school’s motto “Life is Service.” She explained how the hotel school community practiced this, including alumni and faculty. 

Suffredini said she chose to come to Cornell because she thought that the Hotel School was “the best in the world” — but the highlight of her time on campus ended up being her contributions to making it better. In December 2022, she was asked to restart the Hotel Student Mentorship Program, which pairs newer students with upperclassmen mentors who hold similar interests.

The program has grown to accommodate over 250 hotel undergraduates since Suffredini relaunched the program in the fall of 2023. She said that she takes pride in contributing to fostering student connections, helping students discover their interests and strengthening the Cornell community. 

“It was amazing. I could see all these connections being formed, first-years and transfers, finding commonality across over 200 people,” Suffredini said. “It has been a highlight for me to both help people find their communities and their paths.” 

Brady Weyble ’25, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Weyble studied plant sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. After graduation, he would like to travel before potentially returning to his alma mater to work at Cornell’s Plant Harvest Biology center. He hopes to pursue work in controlled environment agriculture before heading to graduate school.

Weyble was enrolled into Cornell as a biological studies major, but pivoted into plant sciences. 

“I was thinking about genetics, but after a conversation with an upperclassman, I decided I wanted to try plant science,” Weyble said. “I enjoyed plant evolution and diversity, and started taking more classes.”

Weyble served as a captain of Shake Ultimate —  one of four ultimate frisbee teams at Cornell. It is the second men’s team and emphasizes inviting and training people who have never played ultimate before. 

The seniors on the team helped Weyble integrate into college, he said. They made his time on campus special.

“I wanted to give back to people seeking an introduction to college, like myself at first,” he said. “Finding a group like Shake my freshman year was very important and I hope that for some people I was able to open up college to them through the team.” 

Chris Ho Kim ’25, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Kim studied biology and society in CALS. After transferring to Cornell from the University of Virginia, Kim concentrated in biomedical ethics on a pre-med track.

After graduating, Kim intends to take two years to study for the MCAT and work in a hospital in Boston before applying to medical school and becoming a doctor. 

During his time at Cornell, Kim found that medicine was an intersection of his passion for science and his desire to help others heal through spirituality. e. 

Medicine and religion are not mutually exclusive things. … Healing is not separate from faith," he said. “I think bioethics is where my interests in spirituality and medicine crossed, because fundamentally, medicine is a human-centered profession.”

Kim helped start Ignite, a semesterly event that brings Christians together for music and prayer. 

“In just attending the event myself, I felt blessed by it,” he said. “So it was a full-circle moment, where I thought it would be helpful for other people, but in the end, I benefited from it as well.” 

Mattie Nguyen ’25, College of Human Ecology

Nguyen studied fashion management with a minor in applied economics at the College of Human Ecology. He hopes to work in the luxury business. 

After graduating, he will work as a business development associate at Sotheby’s, an auction house dealing with fine art and luxury objects in New York City.

Cornell helped Nguyen realize his interests extended beyond the scope of just the fashion industry.

“At Cornell, I kind of pivoted from focusing on fashion business to the broader luxury and fine arts market, and while I love fashion, Cornell helped me realize there were many other things I could also be interested in,” Nguyen said. 

Nguyen was a co-president of the Cornell Fashion Collective, a member of the Cornell Fashion Industry Network and Hotel Ezra Cornell.  His favorite memory at Cornell was walking on the runway at the Cornell Fashion Collective Show this year after designing for it in years prior. 

“It was an inspiring moment to walk onto that stage and get to see how many people were getting to appreciate and experience what my team and I had put together,” he said.

Ethan Ordower ’25, College of Architecture, Art and Planning

Ordower studied in urban and regional studies in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning. Ordower is interested in transportation and infrastructure planning — however, at Cornell, he also discovered a passion for theater. In the future, he will likely pursue either a career in urban planning or theater.

“I always had a passion for both, … but I had the opportunity to really explore theater in depth [at Cornell], especially around lighting design, so I am interested in exploring that further,” he said.

Ordower was president of the Melodramatic Theater Company, but never performed on stage. He enjoyed the design process of theater, “taking a creative vision and turning it into something real, step-by-step,” he said. 

Ordower shared that his favorite memories at Cornell were the simple ones. 

“The late nights with friends, panicking over an essay due the next day or finishing prepping for a show the next day — spending time with the people I love was really precious to me,” Ordower said. 

Alex Herazy ’25, College of Industrial Labor Relations

Herazy studied industrial labor relations in the College of Industrial and Labor Relations. Herazy plans to become a lawyer. He is pursuing work in New York City as an appellate paralegal at the Bronx District Attorney’s Office before attending law school. 

Herazy started in the College of Arts and Sciences before transferring to ILR in his sophomore year. He spent some of his time at Cornell as editor-in-chief of the Cornell Undergraduate Law and Society Review, a researcher for Prof. Margulies, government, and an ILR fellow.

“The ILR school does a great job marketing extracurricular opportunities, and in addition to that, I also had many mentors and people in my life that were encouraging me to do these programs,” he said. “I really loved my time at Cornell and in the ILR school.”

One thing Herazy said he’ll miss is the closeness of all the people around him on campus. 

“Right now, I think distance is a minor factor in our calculations of relationships because people are only a five-minute walk away, but after graduating, … it will become more difficult to maintain relationships due to proximity or busyness,” he said.

Words of Advice

As a parting gift, these six seniors left advice for other Cornellians to make the most of their time here. 

They said to explore — don't be afraid to go and seek new clubs, find new groups and communities and try new things. 

“Jump at every opportunity you see,” Nguyen said. “Never feel like there is a reason you should not be in that space.” 

The unexpected classes, the undiscovered characters, the curious clubs and newfound communities are what make one’s time on campus worthwhile, the graduates said. 

“Put yourself out there,” Ordower said. “It will be worth it.”


Read More