As I prepare for my upcoming third year of undergrad at Ohio State, looking back at my second year makes me realize a lot about how I have grown as a both a student and a person. The classes I have taken have shown me that the original path I planned to take may not be the one I choose. I have interests in pursuing both medical school and a career and public health, and I have many choices to make as I decide what to do with my future in the next few years. However, my second year taught me a lot about myself, and I am proud of my resiliency and ability to adapt to the rapid change to online classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I had many new experiences through volunteering and found myself picking up many skills that will be helpful in the future. I hope to continue my growth in the next few years, meet the goals I set for myself, and pave a road to success.
Posts
Vision Statement & Statement of Action
Vision Statement:
As I move onto my third year of undergraduate, I still have some decisions to make. I have to decide whether I want to pursue a career in Public Health, or if I want to try to get into medical school. I also need to pursue research positions and find leadership opportunities so that I can make myself a competitive applicant to medical schools as I decide whether I want to take the MCAT. Although I have some big choices ahead of me, I am looking forward to embracing the challenges I face, and I hope that by preparing myself for success, I will be able to achieve my goals.
Statements of Action:
- Improve cumulative GPA
- Pursue relevant research positions
- Find leadership opportunities in clubs I am currently involved in
- Continue preparations for graduate/medical school
Abstract
My e-portfolio documents many of the meaningful experiences I have had while enrolled at Ohio State and in the Biological Scholars program. From volunteering to group activities, much of my learning has come from not only the classes I have taken, but also from the involvement I have had. I also have many of my goals for the future laid out, and while some of them have yet to be tackled, they are often changing as much as I complete them. I hope that my e-portfolio gives a good idea of who I am as not just as a student, but also as a complete person as I continue at Ohio State.
Semester in Review
With my first semester of college winding down and finals coming up soon, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the classes I’ve taken and my experience during this semester as a whole. I’m enrolled in Math 1151 (aka CALC 1), Chem 1210, Sociology 1101, and survey classes for Bio Sci scholars and for my major. So far, my classes are going pretty well. I tend to struggle with new concepts in Calculus, but I think I’ve been pretty good at catching on quickly this year. In Chemistry, its all interesting information but sometimes I just don’t understand how some topics connect and build off of eachother which sometimes catches up to me, but I can usually figure out the topics with time. Sociology has been pretty easy and actually very interesting because it concerns a lot of issues that I didn’t consider myself a part of until learning about them. The two survey classes, while not the most interesting sometimes, have actually taught me a lot over the course of the semester, including ways to get involved in various activities like research and learning about all the resources that are available on campus. I’ve been able to balance work and play pretty effectively, and I’m involved with the Health Points club and a couple of flag football intramural teams. Overall, this semester has treated me well and I look forward to the future at Ohio State.
Year in Review
My first semester in college has been very eye opening to me, because of how different my college experience is from my high school experience. In high school my classes came easy to me and I didn’t have to study very much, and I also didn’t have much free time between my job, sports, and school. I was also taking classes like Anatomy, AP Biology, and AP Psychology because I knew that I wanted to do something with science and I was exploring my options. College is a whole different beast though, and I have way more free time to manage, along with much harder classes that require a lot of studying. However, I’m still enjoying the freedom that comes along with college, and even though my classes are much more difficult than I’m used to, I’m getting more comfortable in them and even starting to even enjoy them. All in all, I think I’ve prepared well for my first year and I’m looking forward to the coming years.
G.O.A.L.S.
The Honors and Scholars GOALS are really useful because they provide a guideline for involvement at OSU. The first GOAL that resonates with me is Global Awareness, I’ve always wanted to travel around the world, specifically around Europe, and there are tons of opportunities to study abroad at OSU, which I will likely take advantage of. There’s also a few clubs that I’m interested in, such as Humanism in Medicine, that focus on providing medicine to those who are underprivileged or live in low income areas to get equal opportunity for healthcare. For my other GOAL I chose Service Engagement, because there are tons of volunteer opportunities at OSU. I’m in the club Health Points, which does a ton of volunteer events, and I’ve been to a couple of volunteer events outside of the club. I’m also trying to get a volunteer position at one of the hospitals near campus, because I think volunteering and trying to give back to the community is really important.
After my second year at OSU, I have explored more of the GOALS that Honors and Scholars sets for us. The goal of original inquiry was one that I had hoped to achieve during the summer, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, my plans for research positions were interrupted. I hope to find a research position in the near future as I think it will be very beneficial for me to make final decisions on what I want to do in the future. For my academic enrichment goals, I have taken a good amount of tough classes that have really tested my abilities as a learner, and I have picked up a lot of new strategies through working with others and evaluating myself as a student. Introduction to Global Public Health, one of the GE’s that I took last semester, really struck a chord with me. I had never really considered public health as a profession, mostly because I didn’t completely understand what all in encompassed in public health, which was much more than I originally thought. The class was really interesting to me, and made me reevaluate what exactly I wanted to do in the future. As for the leadership development goal, I am involved in a few clubs, so I hope to try and get a leadership position in the near future that will help me get some experience.
Career
I’m currently majoring in Health Sciences, and I hope to go to medical school and become an orthopedic surgeon with some sort of specialty. The only job I’ve had before is being a private tutor for a local family, where I helped their 6 kids ranging from 4th-8th grade with their homework, studying for tests and quizzes, and staying organized in school. This job taught me a lot of patience because I realized not everyone learns the same or as fast as anyone else. It also forced me to learn organization in order to keep the kids organized, which is very helpful now that I’m in college. Other skills that it taught me is how to work around problems, since sometimes the kids wouldn’t understand how I explained some concepts, so I would have to work around that and find creative ways to explain the concepts. Other skills I have in general are working well in groups, as that has always been a big part of my schooling. I think these skills will help me in my future career because they all can be applied to orthopedic surgery, or really any career, in any way.
In my second year at Ohio State, I was lucky enough to be granted a volunteering position at the Wexner Medical Center during both semesters. For the first semester, I was a front desk attendant for the Surgical Intensive Care Unit. While my responsibilities were relatively simple, including redirecting calls to different sections of the SICU and swiping in visiting friends and family, I think the most valuable experience I got was talking to the visitors. In doing so, I saw a lot of different emotions being expressed, and learning how to be understanding and welcoming to those who are often in tough situations was definitely the most meaningful skill I learned.
For my second semester, I was able to choose my position, and as a result I got a more hands-on hospital experience on the general medicine floor of Doan Hall (9E). My responsibilities were much different than at the SICU front desk, and instead of dealing with visitors, I was able to interact directly with patients. My other responsibilities included stocking and removing sharps containers, maintaining a hazard free environment on the floor, and sometimes assisting with patient discharges. The thing I enjoyed the most was being able to visit with the patients, learning about their life and experiences, and developing connections with some of them by talking. I would say this experience taught me to be more personable, which I think is an important skill for any profession in the medical field.
Artifacts
Cadaver Lab:
One of the artifacts I chose is a human muscle diagram, to represent the Cadaver Lab event that took place in September. This experience was a really amazing opportunity because I had never been to a cadaver lab before, so I was able to see all of the muscles and organs that I had learned about in Anatomy and Physiology from HS. The only other experience that I had like this was at Beacon Orthopedics where they dissected an actual leg and went through all of the muscles in the leg. Both of these experiences were very eye opening because they confirmed my interest in orthopedic surgery and helped me to better understand the human body.
Biological Sciences Flag Football:
One of my artifacts is our mascot for the Biological Sciences Flag Football team, which represents my overall experience with the team. All of the players on the team are in the Biological Science scholars, and there are many different years, so you get to meet different people with similar interests that are further ahead than I am in college. Its a great experience to just play casual games of flag football with people in the same classes and with the same college experience that I have.
Wexner Medical Center Volunteering:
I chose my volunteer badge from my time at the Wexner Medical Center Surgical ICU and General Medicine floor because I feel that these experiences have made a huge impact on my decisions for my future and have also helped me greatly grow as a person. I have learned how to talk to someone who’s going through a rough time that I may not normally relate to and how to put myself in someone else’s situation to get a better idea of what they are experiencing. I think that these lessons are integral for a person who wants to go into any kind of medicine, and are plainly good things to have learned as a person.
Integrated Biology Dengue Fever Awareness Poster:
My last artifact is a poster from a group project in Biology 3401, Integrated Biology. The poster itself was meant to inform people who aren’t necessarily familiar with the more complex topics in biology about the general symptoms, spread, prevention, and treatment of Dengue fever. Although this was done for a biology class, I think it represents many of the disciplines within biology and how they work together, and also ties in other ideas like public health. The key reason I included this artifact is because I think it conveys the importance of being able to communicate effectively with people who may not be versed in the topics being discussed. This is an important part of medicine, as it represents communicating with patients, and also of public health, as it shows how crucial is that your audience is able to understand what you are trying to express. The process of making the poster and realizing those ideas gave me insight into what I want to do in the future.
About Me
Hey! I’m Tanner Brady, an Ohio State undergraduate student in the Biological Sciences Scholars program. I went to Mason High School in Mason, Ohio, near Cincinnati, and I’m majoring in Health Sciences, hoping to go onto medical school and become an orthopedic surgeon of some specialty. My passion for science and to better people’s lives around me led me to want to pursue medical school and orthopedic surgery.