Where Andy Bernard reminisces aloud of his Here Comes Treble a cappella superstardom at Cornell, Natalie is the type who’s more likely to remember nights spent tirelessly studying for her upper-level Johnson School classes, which she took on top of her AEM courses just to show her classmates that the Ag School Biz program is not a joke.

For those that didn’t see the movie, here’s a little recap of the relevant points: George Clooney plays the main role of Ryan Bingam, a “career transition counselor” who goes to companies and fires people for the bosses who would rather not do it themeselves. Natalie is an upstart new hire at Clooney’s company, and she suggests a new way of firing people: via videoconference.

This would save the company a ton of cheddar on travel expenses, but presents the movie’s plot-propelling conflict: Clooney only feels at home when he’s up in the air on a plane and doesn’t want to part with the comforts and of his aviation routine. So it’s only natural that Natalie should have to accompany him around the nation and learn the virtues of firing people in the flesh before her new video-firing protocols can be established.

Natalie is, until the middle of the movie, a terribly unlikable character. She carries all of the know-it-all-ness and need-to-be-right-ness of Question Girl in CHEM 207, but she never needs to ask questions (especially not in front of the whole class) because she already knows she’s right. She has the drive (and audacity) to institute change at her workplace right when she starts. She knows that she belongs in upper management and everything else is a mere beeline to that end. Until her martini-fueled breakdown, she’s a complete robot. But then we learn that Natalie followed a boy to Omaha, where the company’s physical offices are. And then the boy leaves her — via text message! just like poor Kelly — and she’s suddenly a human, emotional creature.

Is it good to have a character like Natalie projected, in some form, into the psychic understanding of Cornell? She’s actually a perfect complement to Andy Bernard: female, capable, and business-savvy, she proves that Cornell grads do go real places in the workplace and not all go onto become regional sales managers. Sadly, Natalie’s going to be much, much less known that Andy Bernard because nobody sees Oscar films.

Still, she’s not the best we could ask for; the America’s pop culture mind needs a better Cornell figure to absorb than the real life ones we have right now. (I’m talking to you, Ann Coulter and Keith Olbermann.) Harvard has that symbolologist Richard Langdon who solves big murder mysteries in the nick of time. And Yale has plenty of real life people who are famous and do good stuff. Like Secret Society-affiliated presidents and stuff. When’s Cornell’s big break?

Andy mentions his Cornell (ever heard of it?) days:

Andy on his drinking habits at Cornell:

Anna Kendrick talks about Up in the Air: