As an honors student at Ohio State, I have spent the past two years making progress with the Honors & Scholars G.O.A.L.S.: Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement. Since last year, I have come a long way towards these objectives and I will reflect further on each one below.
Global Awareness: As I mentioned in my first-year G.O.A.L.S., it is pretty easy for me to accomplish global awareness as an International Studies major. This year, not only have I taken a number of classes about the rest of the world (Food Security and Globalization, Urban China and Politics of the Developing World, to name a few), but I have also had the opportunity to travel to new places. This past summer I interned at an NGO in Amazonian Peru, and traveled to Iceland and Amsterdam with my mom. This coming summer, I am planning to go abroad again with a study abroad program to Cyprus on the Geography of the European Union. I also hope to spend a semester abroad in Ecuador next spring.
Original Inquiry: I still plan on writing an honors thesis as a capstone to my degree, and this year I have begun thinking about it more. I haven’t settled on a solid topic yet, but I have talked with various faculty members to brainstorm ideas and methods. My plan for the moment is do develop a research project to complete during my semester abroad in Ecuador next spring. I hope to do original research while I am there and then develop it into a thesis over the summer before and during the beginning of my senior year.
Academic Enrichment: Academic enrichment means different things to different people, but to me it means always striving to be challenged in my classes. Over the past year, I have worked hard to push myself by taking 4000 and 5000 level classes, and upping my course load to 18 credit hours. I also added my second major in Geography this year, which has allowed me to explore new and exciting topics.
Leadership Development: I have been developing my leadership in various student organizations this year. I am on the executive board for Nourish International, a club I’m in that volunteers with and raises money for a local community garden. Additionally, as one of the founding members of The Right Click, a technology access and sustainability organization, I have had the chance to develop my leadership by working with others to make goals and figure out the logistics for our organization. My summer trip to Peru also had a major impact on my leadership skills as I often found myself acting as a leader by mediating between conflicting personalities among our team.
Service Engagement: For service engagement, in addition to the student organizations I mentioned above, I have also had the opportunity to go on two Buck-I-SERV alternative break trips. Last year over spring break, I went to the school system of Vinton County, OH, to promote college access and help students better understand the college search and application process. After this great experience, I decided to go on another trip, for which I was a trip leader, to Atlanta, GA, to work for Partners for Care, a Kenya-based NGO with headquarters in Atlanta. I hope to go on more Buck-I-SERV trips in the coming years and continue volunteering with my student organizations.