{"id":12473,"date":"2024-05-09T15:41:26","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T15:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2024\/05\/09\/clark-made-me-who-i-am\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T13:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T17:40:12","slug":"clark-made-me-who-i-am","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2024\/05\/09\/clark-made-me-who-i-am\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Clark made me who I am\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n            \n            <p class=\"intro news-subhead\">Ronnie Cushnie \u201924 engineers his future<\/p>\n            <p><html><body><\/p>\n Ronnie Cushnie &rsquo;24 presents his research at ClarkFEST.\n<p>&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Erron &ldquo;Ronnie&rdquo; Cushnie &rsquo;24 wasn&rsquo;t familiar with Clark University when he was a senior in high school. But his uncle was. And that uncle convinced his nephew he would thrive at a smaller university where he could pursue the STEM studies he desired in an intimate setting that would allow him to wring all he could from a world-class education.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">He has. Cushnie was recently accepted into Columbia University, where he will pursue a bachelor of science degree in engineering as part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/departments\/3-2-engineering\/\">3-2 Program in Engineering<\/a> that Clark offers in conjunction with the New York City school. Through the program, an undergraduate earns their bachelor&rsquo;s degree at Clark and, if they earn acceptance, can move on to study for a B.S. at Columbia&rsquo;s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">&ldquo;I was flying back from a Young Men of Color Conference at Clemson University in April, and I was in a Detroit airport when I found out I&rsquo;d been accepted,&rdquo; Cushnie recalls. &ldquo;I was speechless.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/departments\/physics\/\">physics<\/a> major says he was initially unsure about applying to Columbia. &ldquo;My mother said, &lsquo;If you don&rsquo;t take the chance now, you&rsquo;ll regret it one day.&rsquo; &rdquo;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cushnie has maximized his time at Clark, working on renewable energy projects with Physics Professor Chuck Agosta, and being active in a series of student organizations like the Men of Color Alliance, Black Student Union, and Caribbean African Student Association. Cushnie also played on the Clark men&rsquo;s basketball team his first year and was a team manager his sophomore year, but he eventually stepped away to focus on his studies. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I came to Clark to do,&rdquo; he says.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">He&rsquo;s a familiar presence at ClarkFEST, the biannual showcase of Clark student research and creative work, where he deftly explains complicated physics principles for non-scientists. &ldquo;I always want people to come to my poster and have a conversation,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re here to learn, and I&rsquo;m here to learn.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">The son of a mechanical engineer and the grandson of a civil engineer, Cushnie plans to study mechanical engineering at Columbia, but is looking forward to diving into other areas, including finance. He&rsquo;ll take advantage of his post-commencement time off to visit family in Florida and San Francisco before heading to Columbia in August.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Asked to summarize his time at Clark, Cushnie doesn&rsquo;t equivocate.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">&ldquo;Clark made me who I am; it allowed me to grow up,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t have developed the way I have if I&rsquo;d gone to a larger school.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ronnie Cushnie \u201924 engineers his future<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12474,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"#525250","story_headerImg":12474,"section_label":"Senior Spotlight","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[223,227],"displayed_author":[235],"featured":[],"topic":[278,317,125,127,267,121],"class_list":["post-12473","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clark-community","category-science-technology","displayed_author-jim-keogh","topic-class-of-2024","topic-engineering","topic-physics","topic-undergraduate-research","topic-undergraduate-scholars","topic-undergraduate-students"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u2018Clark made me who I am\u2019 | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2024\/05\/09\/clark-made-me-who-i-am\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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