Current Events Conversation

The academic even that I attended was Sam Stelnicki’s current events convo on March 28th. We met in one of the glass classrooms that can be found on the Smith side of the Smith-Steeb residence hall. The primary idea of this conversation was based around business news, and business is inherently internationally linked in this day and age. For most of the specific topics we talked about, they also took place outside of the U.S. These specific topics that we were to talk about based on Sam’s prepared presentation were European copyright laws, Uber, Huawei, and Boeing.

European Copyright Laws 

This has been a highly contentious point of discussion in Europe for many months now as this has a massive effect on not only big corporations, but individual internet user alike. While in theory it sounds like a good idea to prevent theft of intellectual property, I believe it will be abused and create a form of censorship. It gives the ability for content creators to claim anything that is created by them, but used by others, even if it would have once fallen under the guise of fair use. The big issue would be for social media sites as a lot of material and jokes spread throughout Youtube or twitter are spread around with a sense of freedom, but this would allow for the take-down of almost everything if any aspect of it is not fully original even if it was not posted for monetary gain. While going through the European parliament when it this Article 13 was introduced, a lot of people had an early fear for their memes as many would be subject to being taken down. This also makes business extremely difficult as this would only apply to European Union countries, so corporations would have to decide to roll out a complete overhaul of automatic filters specific to geographic location or save money on an already costly project by making it site wide. Without a doubt there is going to be a lot of fighting over this policy when countries begin to implement it into their legislature as many people see this as the beginning of the end for freedom of speech.

Huawei

Another big political debacle that relates to the business world is Huawei, and the arrest of their CFO, Meng Wanzhou. She was detained while in Vancouver for a layover per request of U.S. officials. She was detained as it is believed Huawei used a shell corporation from Hong Kong to sell U.S. containing goods to Iran in contravention of sanctions. Obviously it is a big issue to arrest a foreigner under any circumstances, but it is a more intense situation when you arrest the CFO of an enormous company that works closely with the Chinese government. Not to mention her release has been refused despite the Chinese government demanding for it. This is a huge issue as America and China have been having a tough relationship, and this only adds to the struggles of finding a way to come to better terms.

Meals on Wheels

The service event I partook in was being a driver for a Meals on Wheels route on Saturday February 9th. My route took my group around the Downtown Columbus area with the exception of a couple homes that were about ten minutes outside of the downtown area. This relates to International Affairs in a couple different ways, some of the meals we delivered were to elderly immigrants, but on a larger scale, I volunteered my time to help a cause that fights one of the worlds biggest issues. Poverty.

What exactly is Meals on Wheels? 

LifeCare Alliance is a local nonprofit health care agency that merged with Meals on Wheels of Madison, Marion, Logan, and Champaign counties(Ohio). This merger allowed for Meals on Wheels to have a greater and more organized outreach to the population they support. The goal of Meals on Wheels is to improve or maintain the health of impaired elderly by providing nutritious meals, a daily check and reporting system, and a social contact. Its often said that this program is “More than just a meal”. This entire program runs off of individual donations, government grants, and the help of volunteers. There are employees that help to secure funding, make and package the food, and organize the volunteers. Essentially, how they operate is by giving volunteers specific routes to follow with a checklist of items and special directions for each delivery there is.

What exactly did I do? 

First, through one of my classes, I had a group assigned and was with two other guys. We arrived at 10 am and signed a release form and I also had my ID scan as proof of validity. After that, our group along with five-six others were taken to another room where we were given instructions as to what exactly we were doing as well as route selection. After this little training session, we proceeded to go outside and pick-up the food that corresponded to our route number and loaded it into my car. We had to make eight stops, and our group decided since there were only three of us we would all go into the houses for safety reasons, but also so we could all experience what this program was about and who it served. One of the houses we delivered a meal to, the woman actually had us trying to fix her T.V. and seemed liked she really wanted us to stay longer as she kept bringing up new topics of discussion and we happily obliged. Part of the reason for Meals on Wheels is to provide social contact, so that is what we happily offered.

Takeaways 

I had a lot of preconceived notions due to what I have heard others say about their experiences, but most of them were broken. Every single person we visited  was extremely sweet and grateful towards us, but before delivering, I was led to believe that many people would be grumpy and non-thankful, but that was far from true. A belief I had established myself was that all these homes would be in ghetto unsafe areas, but it turned out to not be necessarily true. While some homes weren’t in amazing locations, they were still somewhat nicer than what I would have expected. This is a service program that I could see myself doing again in the future as it was a truly enriching experience.

 

KSA’s Korean Culture Show

On Saturday February 2, I attended the Korean Culture Show that was being hosted by the Korean Student Association (KSA). This event took place in the Performance Hall in the Ohio Union. This event relates really well to International Affairs since this event was showcasing Korean culture, which is something I do not considered myself well versed with.  For the four performances I saw, it was a really interesting way for me to really be exposed to Korean culture for the first time.

The first performance that I saw was “Taekwondo”, which has been rooted in Korean culture for more than 2000 years now. This was actually one aspect of Korean culture I was somewhat familiar with. When I was younger I had taken Taekwondo lessons for many years, and my teacher was an immigrant from Korea. It was cool to see some of the kicks and punches and general movement they were using to break wooden boards because it reminded me of my childhood.

The second performance I saw was “HAY”, otherwise known as “Hungry Asian Youngtaz”. They are a group who had come together for their passion of break-dancing. What I found interesting about this group was that, despite the group being mostly comprised of Koreans, there was also people of different ethnicities. It was really cool to see a group of people from different backgrounds coming together for one common goal. Not to mention their moves were also really cool, they got the crowd–of around 600 I believe was said–all pumped up and cheering them on.

The third performance I saw was from a group called “Avengers”. They were a rap group that was formed specifically for this event and their catch is that their identity was supposed to remain anonymous, but funnily enough, one of their masks had fallen off. While I could not understand what they were saying, and they didn’t have the best voices, it was a really cool performance that got the Koreans in the crowd especially pumped up probably because they could understand the lyrics. This performance also shows the impact of globalization across cultures, something created in the US has become a part of Korean culture.

The last performance I saw was by a group of two called “Hypebeats”. I actually knew the main performer in this act, Alex Ikezawa. The way the performance started up was really dramatic with dark red lights and only being able to see his silhouette before he begins absolutely killing it on his Violin. He and his pianist partner where playing improvised versions of famous K-Pop songs.

One of the more comedic things taken place during this show was their intermission Ads/skits. One part in particular stood out to me because they were acknowledging a pretty common racial stereotype. In an advertisement for the Bibibop dining establishment, they were showcasing how good a particular noodle dish was. A Korean girls eyes appeared closed even though she claimed they were open, but after eating the noodles the made her eyes appear extremely open through paper cut outs of open eyes. I just found it interesting how they were all laughing at racial stereotypes that they may face on a regular basis.

While I learned a lot about Korean performing arts, I also found that, in a sense, it was weird to see how Korean jokes and pop culture can be so different from what we normally see in America. While All of the Koreans in the audience were dying of laughter or getting hyped up by some things, I was left a little confused. Ultimately, I am glad I got to see most of this Korean Culture Show because I really enjoyed what I saw.

Very Sharey and Fisher Impact Day

On November 4, 2018, I participated in my fraternities big philanthropy of the semester called ‘Very Sharey’. For this event we collect canned foods or non-perishable items from neighborhoods in Upper Arlington in order to donate them to the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. Normally, we put up flyers around the selected neighborhoods beforehand so residents can set the items out on their porch the day of collection, but due to a miscommunication this year, we had to go door-to-door asking residents for any extra items they would be able to donate. During the time going from door-to-door, I had a couple notable interactions with some residents. One family I talked with joked around about how fraternities are only considered “philanthropic” so they can stay on campus while not really doing much to give back. So, he was very happy to see that a fraternity was actually out doing something to give back to the community and essentially have their running joke not be applied to us. A second cool interaction I encountered was with a judge who graduated from Ohio State in 1966 and was a part of Greek life. He was pleased to see that we were out shining a good light on the importance of fraternities. He also told me a few stories about his time while at Ohio State and some of the philanthropic events that his fraternity took part in. A final interaction was with a father of three young boys. He was hesitant to open the door at first, but when I told him what I was out doing, he was excited to talk at me and gave me the most non-perishable items of anyone that Sunday. Similar to the last resident, except more ecstatic, this father was praising what we were doing as a fraternity. He went to Cincinnati and was in a fraternity there, and he was so glad that we were out in person proving to others that fraternities do more than what they are stereotyped to do. While we had not collected as many goods as previous years, it seemed like the residents preferred that face-to-face interaction more than just leaving flyers up on their doors.

On November 12, 2018, I also took part in The Fisher College of Businesses big day of community service called ‘Fisher Impact Day’. It is an event that cover multiple different aspects of the community and over 1000 Fisher students were a part of it. For the first half of the event, I was coincidentally enough, assigned to a food packaging project were we mixed together rice and other nutrients before sealing the meals in order to donate them to the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. We were stationed in a big room in the Blackwell and everyone had a specific job they had to do in an assembly line fashion so we could be at a maximum production level. I spent my time sealing the bags with a heat presser before handing them to the boxers who packed all the finished meals away. In just an hour and a half, as a group, we were able to package over 50,000 meals for the foodbank before we transitioned to another event. For this second part of the day, I spent my time making paracord bracelets for the military. This was a surprisingly difficult thing to do that required some concentration and multiple steps to make knots and tighten them correctly. This is an event that Fisher does every year now, and I plan to make it a habit of something I attend every year while attending Ohio State. It always feels good to give back to those who could use a little more in their time of need.

IA Mini Involvement Fair

On Thursday October 25th I attended International Affairs Mini Involvement Fair which took place in between Smith-Steeb and Park-Stradley. There were several different student organizations present with representatives that knew a lot about their respective clubs/organizations. It was good exposure to many small and big clubs that have a more International focus to them.

The group I talked to first were the members of Global Health Initiative. They are “Driven to increase awareness and provide students with educational opportunities related to global health issues.” One of the coolest things about Global Health Initiative is their collaboration with the organization called Peacework. Through this collaboration members of Ohio State’s Global Health Initiative were able to travel to place such as, Haiti, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Malawi, and India. I love traveling and getting to visit exotic places since opportunities like this can be once in a lifetime. It is also really cool being able to help better the living situations of poorer families in these locations.

The organization that intrigued me the most was hands down The Alexander Hamilton Society. They are “An independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit, membership organization dedicated to promoting constructive debate on basic principles and contemporary issues in foreign, economic, and national security policy.” I have always had an interest in politics from a young age, but have never been a part of any club or group and instead was limited to talking to my family and close friends since politics can be a pretty taboo subject in most situations. One thing that has been noticeable in any class where politics comes up is that anyone that portrays themselves with conservative values or support tend to be met with heavy criticism that is far from constructive. I feel a club like The Alexander Hamilton Society is important for making sure healthy dialogue can still be kept despite differing viewpoints. I also think it is important to hear multiple sides to events going on in the world, and a good way to figure these different sides out is through discussion, which is a forum that is covered by The Alexander Hamilton Society. Ultimately, this organization may be something I visit to see what the discussions/debates are like and potentially join depending on how accepting people are of other viewpoints.

One thing that I’ve noticed in my time in International Affairs is that all of our events and and speakers tend to be much more applicable to liberal arts majors, which makes sense since those have a heavy impact internationally, but at the same time it also excludes business majors like myself who also may interact on a global scale in the future. While it was cool seeing these clubs, a lot of them are not necessarily applicable to my future aspirations and I think we need to occasionally get organizations and speakers that can be more inclusive for students who don’t necessarily fit in well with the average International Affairs student. Not to take away from the fact that I enjoyed discussing with the members of the organizations present at this event, I think it would be cool to see some Fisher clubs that also share International goals.

 

Education Abroad Expo

The academic event I chose to attend was the Education Abroad Expo that took place on September 4th in the Ohio Union. As one could gather from the name of the event, the Education Abroad Expo is directly associated with International Affairs. This event helps inform students of special international opportunities that are only made available to Ohio State students. Personally, I have been abroad once during my time at Ohio State. I visited the Czech Republic over Spring Break through International Affairs Scholar program and absolutely loved my time there. However, I am interested in finding a global internship that will last longer than nine days. The Education Abroad Expo helped me to search for different types of programs available to students.

While there were around 100 different programs being showcased, the ones that had me most interested were being offered by the Fisher College of Business. As a business –finance– major, it made the most sense to look more for a business related international experience and not ones offered by different colleges within Ohio State. Fisher College of Business offers six different study abroad experiences. The six different programs offered are: Global Labs, Global Projects, Global Internships, Ohio Export Internship Program, Student Exchange, and Go Business. Of the six aforementioned programs, the one that caught my attention the most was the Global Internships.

The Fisher Global Internship program is an 8-week program that places students in meaningful, unfortunately unpaid, internships with a goal to help increase or begin an international network as well as help enhance global awareness to give an advantage in futures places of work. This program offers seven different locations, Australia (Sydney), England (London), Hong Kong, Ireland (Dublin), Portugal (Lisbon), Singapore, and Spain (Madrid). The locations that interest me the most are Australia, Hong Kong, and Portugal. I have already heard from fellow students how amazing both the Hong Kong and Portugal internships can be, which in a way makes me want to do something new and go to Australia, seeing as no one I know has done that specific place before. It would also make working a bit easier as well since there would be no language barrier that may be present in other countries.

The Fisher Global Internship program would aid my future in a multitude of ways. One of the biggest ways it would help me out is by highlighting what I am good at and what I need to improve. It will also force me to be much more self-reliant and for one of the first times in my life actually use what I have learned in school and apply it to real life situations. A third way this experience would benefit me is by increasing my global experiences. One of my goals in life is to work for a multinational corporation, and by partaking in a global internship like this would only help me to set myself up for a business that works across many nations. One little fun goal that I would like to get out of my time of an adventure like this is to meet locals and actually keep contact with them after leaving the country to increase my global network alongside making new friends.