Saplings Mentor Meeting

I met with my saplings mentor, Tom Collins, last Friday. He is a sophomore in the College of Engineering. The first question I asked him was, “How did you choose you major?”. He explained that his father had worked with civil infrastructure, so he had been exposed to the field early on. He apparently enjoyed it and has now become a civil engineering major. It was cool to think about how he had chosen his major. It showed me that there was no real reason to overthink what major you choose. I am currently in exploration so finding a major that fits me is one of my highest priorities. I’m sure this advice will help when it comes time for me to decide what I’d like to study. The next question I asked was, “How have you chosen to get involved on campus?”. He mentioned AROUSE, Ohio State’s student run internet radio channel. I had shown interest in the club earlier, but never really got around to following up. From what Tom told me, it seems like a great way to get connected to a large audience and a great creative outlet. One of things I looked forward to the most before coming to college was getting involved on campus. So far I’ve stuck to things that I did in high school, but  I’d like to try and branch out while I’m here. Maybe listening to AROUSE will give me some ideas as to how to spend my time, like one show that was apparently just two guys talking about how messed up some kid got at a party. I then asked, “What ENR Scholars opportunities are you glad you participated in?”. He told me about his time on some of the backpacking trips that ENR held and how much he enjoyed them. We talked about how much he enjoyed backpacking and his experiences with it in the past. I, personally, very much enjoy being in the outdoors. Unfortunately, I can’t go on the Fall backpacking trip, but hopefully I’ll be able to make the next one. I can’t wait to experience nature with the ENR crew. I’d also like to try my hand at many other ENR activities, I’m just not sure where to start. My fourth question was, “What is your dream job and why?”. He told me that he would love to do something that would put him in nature, like a park ranger. We both agreed that we would like to work with the natural world when we leave college. My dream job would be being Wiz Khalifa’s bassist. Unfortunately, I doubt this would ever happen. My back up dream job is helping to restore and protect wild places all around the world. I really don’t know how I’ll go about achieving that goal, but hopefully I figure out a path to get there before I leave college. Since I’ve been in ENR and have been around people who share similar passions with me, narrowing down what I’d really like to do has become both harder and easier. I now know that I definitely want to work with wildlife but now, I know about so many more cool ways to do that and the many majors that can get me there. My final question to Tom was, “What advice do you wish someone gave you your freshman year?”. He simply stated something along the lines of, don’t take anything too seriously. This was welcome advice after hearing “stay on top of your work”, “don’t fall behind” and “don’t lose focus” so much my summer before entering college. I’ve found, thus far, that finding a good balance between academics and leisure makes my time here much more enjoyable. Obviously, academics have been my focus since I have got here, and I realize that falling behind could lead to big trouble down the road, but Tom’s advice has really helped me to put just as much importance on trying new things and taking full advantage of the opportunities around me. In fact, he was the one that informed me that the OAC has a free rock climbing gym which is an activity that, I’ve found, is a great stress reliever. After my discussion with Tom, it seemed that his general thought on college was that it is a great time to explore and learn a lot about things you enjoy, whether it be in or outside of the classroom.