Thej Khanna
English
Atlanta, Ga.
Why did you choose Cornell?
I was drawn to the strength of its English program and the chance to study at a school embedded in nature. (Every time I pass the gorges now, I can’t help but be amazed that I go to school in the middle of so many waterfalls). Over the past 3½ years, I have come to know that I made the right choice. The classes I’ve taken, not just in the English department, and the people I’ve met along the way have consistently pushed me to keep exploring what’s possible.
What is your main extracurricular activity and why is it important to you?
My main extracurricular activity at Cornell was acting as co-president of Cornell University American Civil Liberties Union (CUACLU). Through CUACLU, I had the chance to rebuild an organization from the ground up, working with my peers to create a club that enables students to engage in advocacy regardless of their academic, professional or personal background.
Building connections on and off campus – from Ithaca to Albany to the national level – to support this mission fundamentally reshaped my understanding of what it means to be an advocate, and I am so proud to see all the ways that CUACLU has continued and will continue to grow. Beyond that, CUACLU introduced me to some of my best friends on campus, giving me the opportunity to build something meaningful with the people closest to me.
Beyond CUACLU, I also served as co-president of Cornell’s South Asian Council, where I helped plan and execute a fake South Asian wedding, a bucket list item I didn’t know I had.
What are the most valuable skills you gained from your Arts & Sciences education?
The most valuable skill I gained was agility. Arts & Science’s structure gave me the flexibility to jump from a computer science lecture to a close-knit English seminar on representations of the aquatic in Caribbean literature, to a discussion on practical policy responses to cybercrime, instilling in me a deep appreciation for the mission of “any person, any study.”
Having the ability to switch gears between distinct subject areas has not only given me a diverse range of academic experiences, but also fundamentally shaped how I approach problems today, pushing me to approach questions from angles that might not seem obvious at first.
What have you accomplished as a Cornell student that you are most proud of?
I’m most proud of my honors thesis supervised by Professor Rebeca Hey-Colón, which examines Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago through critical studies on encryption privacy, drawing on Earl Lovelace’s novels “Is Just A Movie” and “Dragon Can’t Dance.”
I see this project as a culmination of my years of study at Cornell, bridging the courses I’ve taken in departments ranging from information science to science and technology studies to English literature. The ability to design my own independent study on topics I'm deeply passionate about has been an extraordinary opportunity, and it has taught me invaluable self-discipline and confidence in my ability to hold myself accountable and produce work I'm genuinely proud of.
Having the support of so many professors and librarians and the research resources Cornell offers was fundamental to this experience, and I feel so grateful to have contributed something genuinely new to the field.
Who or what influenced your Cornell education the most?
Against all odds, the friends I made in the first few days of orientation have been among the greatest influences of my time at Cornell. It's easy, in retrospect, to credit the professors and the coursework, and they deserve enormous credit, but the late-night conversations with people I met during those first few weeks on campus have shaped who I became here just as much. Having lived with them since freshman year, they have consistently pushed me toward classes I wouldn't have taken and opportunities I would have talked myself out of and represented a constant grounding presence during my time at Cornell.
Every year, our faculty nominate graduating Arts & Sciences students to be featured as part of our Extraordinary Journeys series. Read more about the Class of 2026.
