Serving in Naval ROTC enriched my Cornell experience and helped me throughout life in learning to work with, and listen to, people from different perspectives. I am thankful for the opportunities during my years in NROTC, which took me out of my comfort zone and challenged me academically.
The Navy required classes I would never have taken, ranging from naval architecture and engineering, celestial navigation, calculus, and business management to something brand-new called “computer science.”
In September 1968, I signed up for NROTC in Barton Hall in a new class of 77 midshipmen out of about 300 total in the unit.
Ryan Young/Cornell University
Campus Community Leadership Award winner Netra Shetty ’25 (center-left) poses with (from left) Marla Love, the Robert W. and Elizabeth C. Staley Dean of Students; Alec Brown, program manager of the Hunter R. Rawlings III Cornell Presidential Research Scholars Program; Monica Yant Kinney, interim vice president for university relations; Sarah Bartlett, volunteer and outreach manager at the Ithaca Free Clinic; and Taili Mugambee, lead program coordinator of Ultimate Reentry Opportunity, outside of Day Hall