Leadership Development

Unfortunately, I tend to be a fairly shy person when offered positions of leadership; I tend to be self-effacing and avoidant of positions that would make me “the center of attention,” in a sense. I want to find a way to change this and to become more comfortable with leadership positions, as I don’t want to limit myself within my future academics or career. Within the next couple years of college, I intend to run for an executive board position for a service-based student organization, so I will both have to speak personally to my own skills and their value within that position, and I will have to acclimate myself to be “the center of attention.” Even if I would fail to achieve the position I run for, I would still be demonstrating comfort — or at least beginning a process of becoming comfortable — with a leadership position.

A regret I am leaving ACES with is that I did not run for the Leadership Committee, simply because I was unsure of myself. That regret should not follow me, and it has taught me that I should pursue goals that align with my imagination and ambition, even if I feel some slight element of self-doubt. This regret has taught me that self-doubt only leads to regret, and that I should not indulge it.

Academic Enrichment

After my first semester at Ohio State, I unfortunately found myself with some unfortunately bad grades and needing to reassess my efforts as a student. Over the past few semesters, I have spent most of my time working on classwork and fulfilling academic requirements to make up for that difficult first semester, but I also feel as though I missed some other enriching opportunities as a result of my hyper-focus on academics. Now that I am more adjusted to college and what college classwork is like, I hope to spend more of my time working on pursuing extracurricular academic opportunities.

Since I am looking into pursuing very competitive academic and career paths, I realize I need to boost the skills and knowledge I learn in my classes with knowledge gained outside of the classroom. Due to this, even beyond my participation in ACES and into my years as a junior and senior, I hope to pursue more service- and leadership-based activities, particularly those centered around the environment and solidarity with local communities, to both achieve beneficial change for those causes and to obtain the extracurricular skills needed to further those causes in the future.

In this photo, I am standing with several performers and audience members, after a benefit variety show for the Morgan Harper for Congress campaign. Of all my experiences in college and all the activities in which I have been involved, this was perhaps one of the most significant to me personally; in collaboration with the staff of a campaign that was getting significant national attention, I helped to organize and stage a show for someone who gave me a great amount of hope for the future of my community. In fact, the show may be most significant in that it made me hopeful for the future and made me feel as though I was personally helping to effect some change within the community. As a younger person who will graduate with heaps of student debt into a world that will almost certainly be racked with crises, I realized through this show that, for the benefit of people in a similar position to me and in less privileged positions than my own, I have some duty to participate in change. I cannot wait for more people like Morgan Harper to appear and forward solutions; instead, I should participate in forwarding those solutions myself.

This is a photo from about four years ago, in which I am sitting with my mother, sister, and grandfather. Unfortunately, before the beginning of my Sophomore year, my grandfather passed away due to a recurrent illness. Though my grandfather and I sometimes disagreed on certain things, he was very supportive of me nonetheless, and was a very generous, kind person — though he would not necessarily admit that himself. Also, he was a very intellectually curious person, always seeking out new information about people, objects, and concepts; for example, he would always ask me questions about music and musical instruments and concepts, not because he was a musician himself but because he was simply curious about how music functioned. What I appreciate about my grandfather is, he always gave me something new to learn about or to research, when he found something we were both unsure of. He made me a more curious person, and that is something I intend to keep with me.

Original Inquiry

Before entering The Ohio State University, I never experienced going to an educational institution that was as large or had as many resources for learning. For this reason, I was fairly overwhelmed when looking at the class schedule and the sheer number of intellectual resources available to students. Due to this, I have the goal to engage in as many academic opportunities as possible.

For example, I am particularly interested in doing a project for the STEP program. Particularly, I am interested in doing a video project about climate change and the societal, political, and existential threats it poses toward the working class. I have two reasons for this: I have always enjoyed making videos, a skill I’m rarely able to use, and that subject is one that I find extraordinarily important. Even if not through a program like STEP, a project like that has interested me for awhile and I would like to work on it at some point.

Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Global Awareness

Coming from a fairly homogeneous hometown, I can say I wasn’t as educated about cultural differences as I would like to be. For this reason, after arriving at The Ohio State University, I have begun to engage with people I would not have been able to in my hometown and people with backgrounds that are different from my own. I also intend to study abroad, on another continent, by the end of my third year.

Sometimes I feel as though my lack of experience with diversity has, to an extent, deprived me of some intellectual breadth. Many times I feel unsure of the ways to be most respectful around others with different experiences – e.g., people who do not come from small, mostly-white townships in Ohio. Luckily there are resources on campus, like the Global Engagement Office, that can enable me to have some more experience with people of diverse backgrounds, before I graduate and enter the wider world.

Career

[“Career” is where you can collect information about your experiences and skills that will apply to your future career.  Like your resume, this is information that will evolve over time and should be continually updated.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Artifacts

This is a recent heat-map of Earth, as it currently stands. Climate change and global warming are, in my opinion as a young person and student, the most important issues that needs to be addressed by my generation. After hearing dismal report after dismal report of the decline of climate stability and the indifference of some leaders in addressing the issues, I feel as though working toward stability is something I can begin now and continue after college.

This is my family from when we were on a trip in North Carolina a couple of years ago. Though I am no longer living with them, I have grown more appreciative of them as I have gotten older and one of the reasons I am in college is to ensure a good future for myself, my family, and whomever I may consider family in the future. Also, this photo doesn’t do justice to seeing that waterfall in real life; it’s a beautiful patch of woods.

About Me

My name is Daniel Adamson and I am a first-year student at The Ohio State University, majoring in Psychology. My hometown is Goshen Township, Ohio, which is about 45 minutes from Cincinnati. The environment here at OSU is much different and, ultimately, a positive change from my high school, from which I graduated in a class of 183 people.

In Goshen, I lived with my father, Scott; my mother, Diane; and my sister, Taylor. I also have two dogs, a newfoundland and a mutt, respectively named Amber and Russell.

Here at OSU, I am a member of the ACES scholars group and Backburner Sketch Comedy. My goals while I am here are to gain more knowledge of others’ cultures, as well as my own; to become fluent in another language; to work toward getting into law school; and to develop more professionally and intellectually. My goal for a career is to work as an attorney, focusing either on civil rights issues or on the environment.

Furthermore, I am an avid consumer of cinema, literature, and music. My favorite film is Raging Bull, my favorite book is Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, and my favorite album is The Beatles’ self-titled album (better known as “The White Album”).