This school year has drastically influenced my life, the changes that I’ve made for myself and for others have impacted my mindset and daily life in many ways. So far this year, I have chosen to differentiate my life by reducing my carbon footprint, going outside more, and having fun whenever possible. To reduce my carbon footprint, I started recycling and reusing more, using less, and walking more. Then in April, as a part of the action plan, I reduced my electricity and transportation usage, increased my 3R’s, and tried to help clean things up around campus. I plan to continue implementing this plan but I also want to try to start to eat better, and support more local businesses/farms. Honestly, this class had a lot of impact on my decisions to change my life but also my father recently transformed his way of life and it really inspired me and prompted me to try to implement a similar way of living.
Academically this year I struggled a bit at first, leading to higher stress levels during the second semester since I knew I needed to make up for the low GPA of first semester. But I was able to change my study habits and improve on my productivity while lessening my procrastination tendencies. These major changes in my life really helped me get back on track in my courses and I know that they are going to help in the years to come, I am very excited for my future here at OSU and I hope that I can continue on the path that I’ve started this year.
Adjusting to dorm life was a challenge for me, I am the type of person that values their quiet/alone time so getting thrown into a small environment with 11 other girls was an experience. But this year I made some of the best friends that I’ve ever known. It is amazing that we all became so close over a short period of time. Living with these girls made me feel like I had a family, we all bonded over random shared interests. So at first I was overwhelmed by the prospect of living in the dorm but I’d have to say that it was all worth it, the friends and memories I made will stay with me for a long time.
The outdoors has provided me with some much needed peace and happiness over the course of this year, so I’ve been taking in a lot of the beauty of my surroundings. I haven’t done nearly enough to give back to the world around me but I hope that next school year I can get more involved with the community and environmental through different volunteering efforts and different organizations that OSU has to offer. I want to give as much of my time as possible to try to have a beneficial impact on the world that I live in, and I think that doing this would give me a greater sense of purpose that I’ve been lacking this school year, and will overall increase my happiness.