Ms. Lee’s thesis aptly titled “Life is not fair and square” is being lauded as one of the 21st century’s greatest philosophical accomplishments. The thesis took about four years to complete. As part of her research, Ms.Lee toured inner city neighborhoods throughout America where she encountered poverty in various forms. Ms Lee stated that “upon  realizing children in this country did not have enough to eat, and insufficient shelter, it struck me that life isn’t fair”.  Ms. Lee went on to state “Most of the kids only had 2nd generation iphones, such conditions in this fine country are deplorable”.

 For those of us taught that all things are “fair and square”, now must cope with a reality in which our lives are not judged by universal maxims, but rather subjective gauges of fairness. Student Will Green stated “After getting a subpar grade on a paper that I though was excellent, I knew there was something up about the fairness of my TA’s grading policy”.   Will Green later stated that he thought that having to sleep with his professor in order to get a higher grade was “not really fair”. Another student stated “On my Accounting prelim I realized that one of the questions on the test was never taught to us and wasn’t in the reading, it just wasn’t fair”. The same student was later quoted stating “Without Jenn’s work I would have never put one and one together,  and realized  life is just not fair”. 

With students emerging from Cornell into a rough economy, Ms. Lee’s thesis offers them support and guidance. Andre Smith graduated last year with a degree in economics. We contacted him to ask him what he thought about Ms. Lee’s monumental thesis, “At first I thought I wasn’t getting hired at the top consulting firms because I was black, but luckily I realized that life just isn’t fair. I must say Jennifer’s work allowed me to breath a sigh of relief”.  Ms. Lee, who hopes to receive her PHD within the following weeks, is also working on other articles for various Philosophical and Academic Journals.  Jessica is currently working on an article with a Grad student in the Economics department  titled “Cornell is Hard”. Â