Senior Tom Bradbeer is on track to graduate with an American Studies major and Business minor, however, he didn’t always envision himself going down this route.
After consulting with Cornell’s Career Services Office, Bradbeer was fascinated by the idea of entering the business field with a liberal arts degree, which he parallels to “pulling the trigger” in his declaration of the major.
One of his favorite classes has been Consumer Culture, which focuses on U.S. consumerism, taught by his current major advisor Professor Adrienne Batar.
Outside the classroom, Bradbeer is part of a fraternity, which he says expanded his social network. He is also the manager of a Division 1 Squash Team, describing it as a “different circle” than what he is used to on campus.
Bradbeer also worked at a logistics trucking company during the summer of 2022, which he thought his AMST major would not supplement as much as it had. However, by the end of the experience, he realized that he had applied certain skills that he never imagined using through the major.
“Some of the drivers I interacted with were from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds so taking different American Studies classes, like Social Problems in the U.S., gave me a different view as opposed to other employees,” he states.
In his final year of undergraduate studies, Bradbeer hopes to start a job right after college and thinks the AMST major will give him a leg up.
“I think some of the biggest takeaways I’ll have from the major are core ideas about people and cultures and how different groups function and how we can use data from past experiences…to improve in the future,” he emphasizes.
He believes that the historical and contemporary context this major provides is both unique and valuable. Although it gears itself towards one industry over another, Bradbeer believes that the plethora of knowledge related to America is a valuable skill to learn in an American society.
