Global Awareness:
My time at Ohio State has greatly expanded my understanding of the world and my place in it. I plan to study abroad in Quebec this summer to improve my French skills and become acquainted with another culture. OSU is a diverse community, and I have learned much just from meeting and speaking to students who come from other countries. And I have especially enjoyed interacting with graduate students and faculty in the language departments that were raised in other places. I understand and appreciate the different cultural values that arise in various areas, and my experience at Ohio State is strongly marked by these.
Original Inquiry:
One of my favorite instances of learning outside of the traditional classroom setting happened when my class visited the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum. We saw centuries-old political cartoons satirizing kings and ministers, which were fascinating to view up close and tangibly. This experience increased my interest in undertaking research of my own in which I can help to make advances. Many of my professors have animated interest in their research areas that spreads to me and causes new areas of interest to grow in myself.
Academic Enrichment:
I am very pleased by the way that the diverse and complicated study of the world is captured in my diverse and complex major. International studies combines political science, history, geography, current events, economics, and other areas into a comprehensive understanding of the world, and I have enjoyed seeing my worldview become more coherent. My language studies provide me with concrete skills as my competence at communicating improves. I think that my major and minors together are furnishing me with the tools to be a citizen of the world and in this way an ideal citizen of my country.
Leadership Development:
My time on the Honors Community Council has strongly affected the development of my leadership style. I have been helped by the graduate assistants who run the program and who open new doors for undergraduates all the time. Putting on events, programming, hosting, developing an organization that can be passed to succeeding classes, these are all skills which I have learned by my involvement in HCC. Leadership is a personal choice, but I have been able to define my own practice of leading by being in an environment that gives examples and provides experience.
Service Engagement:
The motto of the Undergraduate Student Government is students serving students. I believe that opportunities at Ohio State all tend toward this goal, a very noble aspiration that teaches students the value of assisting those around us. Students serving students, professionals serving professionals, friends serving friends, these are the templates of building a new and better society of our own devising. A man’s happiness depends on the happiness of other men, a tenet that keeps us engaged and interested in improving our communities.