Freshman Adarsh Jayakumar, ranked No. 2 among 18-year-old U.S. chess players, talks about his love of chess and his life at Cornell. Jayakumar is an environmental science major in the College of Arts and Sciences.

In this 2.5 minute video (click the image above) a young man explains a remarkable decision: to forgo the professional opportunity he seems clearly well suited for in favor of another path which, as yet, he knows little about. As much as we appreciate chess, which he has mastered better than most players his own age, we appreciate his sense of adventure, and his decision to pursue mastery of environmental science instead of pursuing the more obvious path.