Undergraduate Admissions

Genevieve Quist, B.S. with Honors 2005, was awarded a 2007 Rhodes Scholarship. Quist, who lived in Santa Monica, California, taught sixth-grade English and Social Studies for two years at Drew Middle School in South Central Los Angeles under the Teach For America (TFA) program. She has served as TFA’s recruitment coordinator at Cornell and as Summer Institute staff in Los Angeles, in addition to her work as a mentor for at-risk youth and a volunteer counselor for survivors of sexual abuse. She is now working on a doctorate in Social Policy at the University of Oxford, England. The title of Genevieve’s doctoral thesis is “Interagency collaboration, poverty reduction and family welfare in American urban housing policy”.

Genevieve’s Undergraduate Experience at ILR

I feel that the ILR school prepared me for the real world in that it held very high demands for me as a student. When I rose to meet the high demands my professors set for me, it instilled in me a work ethic that was very useful later on when I entered the professional world.

I had great professors. I developed close relationships with several of them and knew I could count on them to give me personal, academic and professional support when I needed it. My interests and opinions were shaped through my experiences in their classrooms. My favorite professors—I probably share them with a lot of other students because they seem to be the favorites at ILR—include Professors George Boyer [Labor Economics], Jeff Cowie [Labor History] , and Fran Blau [Labor Economics].

Professor George Boyer was my student advisor before I even started classes at Cornell. He’s just so friendly—he makes everybody feel like they can come to him. Professor Jeff Cowie taught the first class that I got extremely engaged in and very passionate about as a college student. I also worked with Professor Fran Blau. She was my thesis advisor for my senior honors thesis, which was about the feminization of poverty and welfare reform. Professor Blau’s background research in wage inequality and women in the workplace was very helpful, and it was such an opportunity to get her perspective on my own research.

Professor Boyer’s class on the social welfare state was absolutely in line with what I wanted to learn about and what I’ll continue to study in graduate school. The material was fundamental background for what I want to research in the future. Public policy has so much potential to improve how markets function, to increase opportunity and improve the quality of people’s lives.

Cornell Relationships

I’ve developed such close relationships with some of the people here that I don’t think that I could not stay in contact with them. They really saw me grow in so many ways when I was here at Cornell. I started as a nervous transfer student, then graduated and joined Teach For America and now going to Oxford University. My friends and the faculty and staff here have watched me develop intellectually and personally, I really value the relationships that I’ve formed with them.

My experience in ILR gave me a very sound understanding of the economy and of the labor market and how different groups of people are treated within the labor market. So, with that understanding, I was able to really focus on the group that I want to examine the most and help the most— which is that of low-income families in the United States. So, any future career that I’m pursuing in public policy will always be traced back to what I first learned at the ILR school.

I love Cornell. I was so happy to be a part of the ILR school—to be a part of that close supportive community, to make good friends and to connect with my professors.  I have such admiration for the work the faculty have done and the influence they have over their students, perhaps more so now that I’m a public school teacher through Teach For America.

At ILR, I was able to make of my education what I wanted to make of it.  The curriculum and supportive faculty allowed me to carve out my own path.

Genevieve’s Teach for America Experience in Los Angeles

Teach For America has really given me a sense of what is needed in our urban schools and our urban communities. It’s allowed me to grow tremendously as a person and as a professional and to take what I’ve learned and use it to help improve those communities through public policy.

I was surprised by just how much I became so personally invested in the job, and didn’t realize that I would grow that close to my students. They became everything to me. I have never before had a professional experience matter so much to me.

I think that Teach For America is good at recruiting people who might not typically work directly in low-income communities. Corps members are able to take that experience and related perspective, as well as the humility and credibility that come with it, and go onto law school or medical school or public policy. I think that if we had more public leaders with that kind of perspective, more meaningful reform could take place. Educational inequity is a civil rights issue and our country needs people from all backgrounds working to end it.

In many ways, Teach For America is the most formative experience I’ve had so far. I’m so proud of the students in my classroom and impressed with the other corps members I work with. I’m grateful to be a part of this movement and might not have gotten here without my experience at Cornell.

Genevieve’s Reaction to Receiving a Rhodes Scholarship

I was so surprised when I received the Rhodes Scholarship because I was competing against other extremely qualified applicants. I think what probably set me apart from them was my experience in the classroom as a Teach For America corps member, combined with my contrasting experience in the ILR school studying labor economics and labor history. I think it might have been the varied nature of my experiences that gave me a shot at winning the scholarship.

It’s a very long, tedious process. I went through the interview and endorsement process with Cornell and then put together my paper application, complete with eight recommendation letters. After that, there is another round of cuts and then fifteen finalists from each region go to the final interviews.  At the final interviews, two finalists are chosen out of the group to actually become Rhodes Scholars.

I think that I went back and forth between feeling confident and feeling completely intimidated around the other finalists. I think what helped my confidence in the end was my knowledge that I was set apart through my Teach For America experience.  While others may have researched and written about urban schools or urban communities, I was actually experiencing it first hand as a teacher in one of those schools. It made me realize that I had more creditability than I gave myself credit for.

I think that after leaving ILR I had a solid understanding of macro level theory and the research behind the policy topics that interested me. It was after teaching in the classroom that I realized the importance of policy implementation. So, hopefully at Oxford, I’ll be able to use my knowledge from both experiences to create the kind of policy that I envision for families and kids living in the communities I want to serve.

Plans for the Future

The Rhodes sponsors my graduate education at Oxford, and for that I am incredibly grateful.  I still think I would have gone into public policy regardless of whether or not I’d won the Rhodes.

I’d love to work for a non-profit or government agency to help run programs that might best serve low-income families and children and increase opportunities in urban communities.  I can also see myself working for a private firm involved with community development.  Politics are a possibility—I’d probably want to work behind the scenes for a progressive elected official to help implement effective policy. There are really a number of things that I could do with public policy. I’m excited to see where it can lead me.