Global Awareness

As a major in Geography on the Environment and Society track pursuing minors in both Spanish and French (as well as Earth Science), almost all coursework I take relates to global awareness in some way. I have taken several courses for my major and minors that relate to the world’s cultures and systems, such as Geography 5700, Geography of Development; Spanish 4561H, Introduction to the Culture of Spain; French 3401, Introduction to the Culture of France; and French 5401, French History and Culture from Louis XVI to WWI. Furthermore, many of the General Education courses I have taken have been higher international, such as History 3375: Mongol World Empire, which was one of my favorite courses I’ve taken so far because it taught me so much about the cultures and religions of Central Asia, an area I knew very little about beforehand. Also, History of Art 2001: Western Art to 1400, which I am taking as a GE this semester has turned out to be one of my favorite courses especially because of the international aspect. While the course focuses on western art, the definition of “western” has not strictly defined as “that which gets emphasized or commonly perceived as the cultural heritage of the modern west”; rather, we have been studying the art of the whole Mediterranean region, which has been in dialogue throughout history and which is necessary for understanding modern American and European culture, even if some parts are less commonly acknowledged. So far, in addition to studying Greek, Roman, and Byzantine art we have studied Ancient Egyptian, ancient Mesopotamian, and early Islamic art.

I plan to continue taking coursework in geography, Spanish, and French that helps me explore international history, culture, and politics for my major and minors, and this summer I have the incredible opportunity to complete my Spanish minor by travelling abroad to Valencia, Spain for a month while taking courses at the University of Valencia. This linguistic and cultural immersion experience will deepen my understanding of Spanish daily life and worldviews and thus facilitate critical thinking through intensive cultural contact.

Original Inquiry

I have had many experiences of original inquiry while at Ohio State. I have written numerous extensive papers at Ohio State on topics as diverse as Spanish colonialism in Morocco, the Jevons Paradox with relation to energy efficiency, religion in the Mongol Empire, and the poetry of Cesar Vallejo. I regularly attend the humanities working group Dialectics East and West, through which I have been reading diverse philosophical texts.  Furthermore, I have been involved with undergraduate research since my freshman year. I spent two semesters transcribing 18^th century French newspapers for a digital history project with Dr. Elizabeth Bond. Over the summer, I worked on a project on the history of Canyonlands National Park at Ohio University with Dr. Geoffrey Buckley. This year I got involved with geography research at OSU. Currently, I am enrolled in Geography 4998H with Dr. Becky Mansfield and I have been researching the environment-society relation in various ways, including through EPA phosphate policy and human prehistory and evolution. I also work at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center and am involved with ice-core paleoclimatology research with Dr. Ellen Mosley-Thompson and Dr. Stacy Porter. I am honored to have the opportunity to work in these two groups, and I hope to stay involved with both as long as possible. I plan to pursue an honors thesis.

Academic Enrichment

I have always striven to take the courses that would allow me to learn as much as possible, and I strive to complete difficult coursework that furthers my understanding both of the sciences and of the humanities. I have currently taken 45 hours of upper division courses, and almost all coursework I will be taking from here on will be upper division. My major (Geography: Environment and Society) is split between the humanities and the sciences, and by pursuing minors in both Earth Science and languages, I am doing the best I can to gain a deep and complex understanding of both side of academia. My major requires more upper level coursework in the humanities or social sciences than the hard sciences; most of the hard science courses involved are at the 2000 or 3000 level, but I am pursuing a minor in Earth Sciences, and I will try to get as many 4000 and 5000 level courses from that as possible. For example, next semester I am taking Earth Sciences 5206: Advanced Oceanography. Furthermore, I love literature and culture, and had the opportunity to learn both Spanish and French in high school, and since my major is so internationally focused I am seizing the opportunity to pursue minors in both while at Ohio State, and this year I have taken 4 or 5000 level courses in each. My commitment to both the sciences and the humanities is exemplified by my participation in research both in the side of geography studying the environment-society relation and the more climatological side, in the ice-core paleoclimatology lab. Because I hope to pursue an academic career in geography, breadth as well as depth in understanding of the world at large are integral, and I am doing my best to obtain them.

Leadership Development

This year, I am employed as an Honors Community Advocate in Bradley Hall. This entails planning events around every two weeks for the Honors Living Community in Bradley Hall. These events range from informational sessions on education abroad or course scheduling to more social events such as ice-cream mixers. Through this role I serve as support and guidance for first year students. Furthermore, I am the vice president of the Ethical Endeavor, an undergraduate journal that explores current ethical issues in science and technology. These leadership experiences in my community and in an academic setting are valuable, but very specific to my studies is my leadership position within the Sierra Student Coalition. I have been elected to serve as the secretary and environmental historian of the Ohio State Sierra Student Coalition for next year (2019-2020). I ran for this position specifically so that I could gain experience in synthesizing and communicating environmental activism. The position of environmental historian is new to the Sierra Club for next year, because our advisor, Professor Bart Elmore, himself an environmental historian, encouraged us to start a position that would help us keep a wider perspective on what our student org has done and is doing. As the first person with this role I have the opportunity to shape the role, and I am planning on keeping detailed secretarial records and compiling those from years past in order to create some document about the history of the organization at Ohio State.

Service Engagement

I have been participating in service activities since Community Commitment Day my freshman year, when I was sent to sort clothing at Goodwill. However, since then most of my service engagement has been in longer term commitments. The primary ways I have been engaging in service at Ohio State have been through the Ohio State Student Farm and the Ohio State Sierra Student Coalition. Since August, whenever possible I have been planting, harvesting, weeding, and participating in general farm assistance at the Student Farm, where we do experimental and organic agriculture and work with bulk buy groups to get our food to OSU students. I also have been participating in the Sierra Student Coalition, the Ohio State branch of the Sierra Club, through which I have been doing environmental activism and various environmental volunteering activities, such as honeysuckle removal. I plan to continue in these two organizations as well as participating in shorter-term service engagements when possible.

Global Awareness: While I am in the University Exploration Program, I have filled out my Academic Plan as though I were going to double major in history and psychology and minor in Spanish. This is a combination that fosters global awareness, since the history major requires courses from all over the globe, and of course a Spanish minor will help me understand the Spanish speaking world, as well as facilitating studying abroad, which I would love to do at some point during my time at Ohio State.

Original Inquiry: I wasn’t planning to get involved in undergraduate research as a freshman, but when I saw on the History Department webpage that one of the research positions open to undergraduates involved transcribing letters to the editor in 1770’s-1790’s France, I knew I had to try to be a part of that. Amazingly, Professor Bond accepted me into the project, and I’ll get to start working on this next semester! Enlightenment era French has a lot of different grammatical structures from the French I’m used to. I think it should be interesting work both from a historical perspective but also a linguistic one. I’m looking forward to this, and I hope that in the future the skills I learn from this will help me to develop my own research projects.

Academic Enrichment: I hope I continue taking honors classes throughout my time at Ohio State. I’ve enjoyed the small classroom size that my honors Spanish and biology classes have afforded me this semester, and the research project on fungal endophytes in my biology class has taught me a lot about the scientific process. I also hope to expand my academic horizons through undergraduate research, including that which I will be involved with next semester.

Leadership: I am involved in a student organization that publishes a journal about ethical issues in science, the Ethical Endeavor. I hope that I can eventually obtain a leadership opposition in this club.

Service: In high school there was a program I wanted to participate in that entailed travelling to an elementary school classroom one day a week and teaching students introductory foreign language classes. I would love to find a program like this at Ohio State through which I could teach young students introductory Spanish or French and help them to experience all that foreign languages mean to me. On a similar note, if there is a way to volunteer as a conversation partner to international students, I would love that opportunity to help them learn English while myself learning about other cultures. Though I have been looking into opportunities like this and haven’t found any, I will continue to look.