G.O.A.L.S.

The University Honors & Scholars Center at The Ohio State University serves high-ability, motivated undergraduate students. While embracing diversity in both ideas and people, the Center fosters purposeful learning communities that enhance students’ academic and social experiences. The Center facilitates impactful, rigorous, and unique opportunities that further student success and involvement in our G.O.A.L.S.: Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement.

G.O.A.L.S.

Global Awareness: The public school district that I attended until I graduated high school was very limited in its diversity.  A large majority of the student body was Caucasian, grew up in a middle class family, and were from the area near Akron, Ohio where the school was located.  I have greatly enjoyed therefore meeting and interacting with the very diverse students and faculty at Ohio State.  I have met people of all races, cultures, economic situations, gender and sexual identities, and upbringings.  This has really helped me to look at problems and situations from multiple points of view and not from just my own.

Original Inquiry: In the future, hopefully beginning next summer, I plan to participate in several engineering internships.

Academic Enrichment: The very challenging course work that I experienced during my first year as a member of the Honors and FEH programs pushed me to work harder than ever before academically and improve my time management and study skills.  The group projects that I participated in through these programs made me a better team player, helped me to deal with overcoming adversity, and made me more confident in my ability to be a successful engineering student at Ohio State.  For the rest of my time at OSU, I plan on continuing to pursue challenging courses and projects and I will keep my academic success and hard work as my first priority while at college.

Leadership Development: Throughout my first year at OSU, my leadership skill improved both in and out of the classroom.  As a student, I strived to help others with subjects that I understood well and other students frequently came to me for help.  At the end of the year, I applied and was hired to be a UTA in the FEH program.  I am very excited to have the opportunity to help freshman students to do their best in the classes that I took last year.  Additionally this coming year, my leadership skills will continue to develop as a sophomore mentor for the learning community that I participated in during my first year, helping new students to adjust to college life.  During my first year at OSU, I also became very involved in TPEG, the Theme Park Engineering Group.  I was elected to be the group’s Treasurer for this coming year and I am excited to become even more involved in the activities of the group and to have input into what it will do in the future.

Service Engagement: Throughout this past year, I became involved in a middle school STEM outreach program through SWE (the Society of Women Engineers).  I also participated in various community events through OSU, including a soup packing event for a local food bank and a garden clean up.  During the summer after my first year at OSU, I participated in the Autism Society of Greater Akron’s I Can Bike Camp for the third year in a row.  During the rest of my time at OSU, I plan on continuing to participate in SWE’s Discover Engineering program as well as various community service opportunities on campus.