Year in Review

Throughout high school while going through the IB Diploma Programme, we were taught several things that would prepare us for college and what ever else is ahead. With this came skills that affected how I could adapt to different situations and the ability to interchange ideas. Now my first year in the STEM Exploration and Engagement Scholars group has improved upon these skills, helped adapt to the college life, and has progressed my maturity.

Coming from a small high school, I didn’t know many people when I was going into Ohio State. The STEM EE Scholars group has helped me develop a group of friends that I can rely on and come to whenever I have problems and if I need help. When autumn semester first began, I was really home sick and honestly contemplating on transferring to a school in Cincinnati so I could be closer to home and be with friends from home. After a couple weeks I found my group of friends that I feel I can be close with for years because of the scholars program.

Besides helping me find a group of friends, the STEM EE Scholars group has helped me improve upon group and leadership skills. Through working together with other STEM students and through the service projects like experimental design and CPA, STEM has allowed me to gain skills that allow me to work in groups and take leadership roles. Before coming into Ohio State, I wasn’t too keen on taking leadership positions or working in groups without my friends, which is still mostly true, but now after my involvement in this program I am content with working with others I don’t really know in order to make a better end product and learn new skills with others.

Coming into the university and the STEM EE scholars program, I feel that I wasn’t the most mature person. Now after a year in the university and through engagements with other students and professionals, I feel that I have matured enough to where I feel comfortable with having engagement with professionals and go into interviews or other meetings without feeling incredibly nervous. I also feel that I take some situations more seriously than I previously would have when I was in high school and when I was first entering college. However, in some places I haven’t completely matured, but those are areas I will be able to touch up on in the coming year.

The STEM EE Scholars program has been an eye opening experience that has allowed me to gain many skills and build upon others. This has also allowed me to mature at a professional level. Along with these new skills and maturity progression, I have also built several connections with many people who now make up my ring of good friends. Most of my friends now I have met through this scholars program, and that’s the main reason why I can’t be thankful enough for the opportunity of being able to meet these people, learn from them, and build relationships with them. In general, this last year has been a fruitful experience because of how I’ve matured, the skills I’ve gained, and the friends I have made.

G.O.A.L.S. Essay

G.O.A.L.S. are the main facets that all Scholars program students should incorporate into their college careers and personal life. Of these five facets, there are two that I feel are more applicable to me than the rest. These two are Original Inquiry and Academic Enrichment.

Original Inquiry is gaining knowledge and skills through situations and experiences (i.e. research opportunities).  I feel that Original Inquiry is more applicable to me because I am a person who likes to learn from my own experiences. I have always been one to enjoy labs and other kinds of experiments to have hands on experience that will allow myself to understand something more or to learn new information. The opportunity to do research is something that especially intriguing because I’d like the opportunity to work with others who have had experiences that can pass on their own knowledge. Wanting to be an environmental engineer, I will be conduction a large amount of research in my professional career, and conducting research in college with highly regarded researchers is an opportunity that a price tag cannot be placed on. This is almost required to ensure success in a personal career because you can’t jump into the engineering field without the experience of an internship or research with professors of a university. Study abroad is something that I also feel very passionate about. Over the next year, I hope to have applied for study abroad and internship opportunities and hopefully receive one of those. By the end of my college career, I will have studied abroad (hopefully Antarctica) and preferably done some research and internships. Over the next ten years, I hope to have had several opportunities for research in a professional environment. Original Inquiry is something I plan on applying into most of my professional career. It is almost expected in the engineering fields and I plan to do any opportunity I may have.

Academic Enrichment is the second facet that I feel is most applicable to myself. Academic Enrichment is taking courses or opportunities to further or progress yourself as a student and learner. In my college career, I plan to take intellectually stimulating courses that I find to be interesting. I’d also like to add many skills that may put me above contenders for jobs, internships, scholarships, etc. I always did like to learn new things and college is a great place to do this because there are classes for several areas and you’re bound to find something that you like. Over the next year, I plan to take courses that pique my interests that will give me new knowledge and skills. Over the next fours years, I plan to have taken several courses that will have helped found out what I am passionate about and what minors I’d like to try to receive. In the next ten years, I hope to have applied all knowledge I know into a professional environment in the hopes to learn even more from the real world.

These facets in particular are the ones that I feel that are more applicable to myself and my future professional career. However, that doesn’t mean the others won’t apply. I will try to apply the other three as much as I can because the facets are good things to add into your personal interests. But Original Inquiry and Academic Enrichment are more applicable to my situation and my future professional career in order to ensure success.

Artifact 1: NBA Preseason Game New Orleans Pelicans vs Sacramento Kings at Rupp Arena

Growing up, I was brought up into a family that cared very much for sports of all kinds. Football and baseball were the biggest ones in our home, as we were expected to play every year. I played baseball from the age of four up to the age of seventeen. But even during that time as a kid playing baseball and football, I decided to pick up basketball because my grandfather was a huge fan of the game and I was quite fond of it. I began to play basketball in the fourth grade with friends from elementary school and continued to play recreational basketball up until about sophomore year of high school. I never really wanted to try out for the school team, because then I knew I wasn’t good enough to make the team. However, during those years I played on teams and what not, I got my younger brothers Cage and Luke into playing it. Now Cage is one the best players I have seen play. In our free time, we are almost always at the local park playing basketball with other friends from high school or with locals. My brothers and I don’t always meet eye to eye with everything, but basketball is one of those things that makes us all get along completely. You’ve never seen team chemistry like three brothers playing together at once.

My passion for basketball is beyond words, I feel at home when watching or playing the game. I strive to learn more about the game and discuss aspects of the game. It’s one of those things that I’m always willing to talk about. It’s one of the first things that comes up when I visit my grandfather or come home for the weekend. A part of me wants to be a basketball coach later in life. Eventually I’d like to settle down in some town where I’ll work as an engineer for a firm and in my free time coach the local high school basketball team. Basketball is just one of those things that makes me feel at home.

On October 17th, 2015, I went to my first even NBA game. I’ve been to several college basketball games but growing up in Cincinnati means no professional basketball team besides the Cleveland Cavaliers, which reside three hours away. College basketball was much bigger in Cincinnati and in my life. I grew a Kentucky Wildcats fan and I still am to this date. The John Calipari era for the Kentucky Wildcats has been incredible and I have found some of my favorite basketball players during this time. This NBA game was played at Rupp Arena, home of the Kentucky Wildcats. The game was between the New Orleans Pelicans and the Sacramento Kings. Now this was only a preseason game, but this was a very special game. This game dubbed the nickname “The Reunion” because several former Wildcats now play for these teams, including Rajon Rondo and DeMarcus Cousins. When this game was announced, I knew immediately I wanted to go. So a friend of mine, whom now goes to the University of Kentucky, decided he wanted to go also and we bought our tickets.

Being at this game was amazing because I was able to see these former college basketball players that I had come to appreciate play in a professional game. The crowd gave standing ovations every time a former Kentucky star stepped onto the court. Willie Cauley-Stein, DeMarcus Cousins, Rajon Rondo, and Anthony Davis all were clapped for when they did anything in the game, the arena was in uproar when an explosive dunk or a contested three pointer were made. Also, former Cincinnati Bearcat and one of my favorite basketball players Sean Kilpatrick was also in the game, playing for New Orleans. This was very special because he has scored the second most points for the University of Cincinnati in a college career, behind Hall of Fame player Oscar Robertson. Kilpatrick also was named an AP All-American in his senior year of college and still was not drafted by an team in the NBA draft, but the Pelicans decided to give him a chance in the preseason.

The game was emotional and a very intriguing to someone who enjoys the game and likes to learn more about it. The game was close up until the end where the Kings started to pull away and came out with the victory. After the game, many of the old Kentucky players stayed on the court and gave their jerseys, towels, etc to fans wearing Kentucky gear. These men knew where they came from and what these fans have done for them, and it was incredible to see the reactions and emotions that went into that night. This experience was also a great way for me to catch up with a friend from high school who I didn’t see for two or three months.

This night was one of my most memorable nights that happened in my freshman year. It helped me remember what my passions truly is and what my dreams are.

Standing here as number 00 is former Kentucky Wildcat WIllie Cauley-Stein. Cauley-Stein played at the University of Kentucky for three years before getting drafted by the Sacramento Kings as the sixth overall pick. Cauley-Stein received many awards and honors in his college career.

Standing here as number 00 is former Kentucky Wildcat Willie Cauley-Stein. Cauley-Stein played at the University of Kentucky for three years before getting drafted by the Sacramento Kings as the sixth overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. Cauley-Stein received many awards and honors in his college career, including being named AP All-American in his final season at Kentucky.

 

Resume

The STEM EE Scholars program has not necessarily added skills, but has reinforced and improved upon skills that I’ve already had. The STEM EE Scholars experience has improved upon the skills that are needed to work coherently with others and more comprehensibly understand what others are trying to voice. Most skills I contain have been taught by mentors and teachers I’ve had growing up, allowing me to go about some problems in different ways than others. This program has allowed me to build upon what leadership and group skills I had already possessed and better these skills to the point where I feel comfortable enough to rely on these skills in a professional endeavor. Also, the ability to interact with others who are just as intelligent or more so than myself has been provided, thus allowing me to learn and work with these people to perform far better than what could have been done alone. In retrospect, I don’t feel that this scholars program has added skills, but more so improved upon skills I have already acquired and making them more impressive than I could have hoped for.

2016 Resume

Top 5 Strengths

My top five strengths are Relator, Significance, Self-Assurance, Deliberative and Adaptability in that order. Most of these strengths are related to working well with others and having a strong work ethic towards the task regardless of the difficulty of the task. I see these strengths playing and having already played a strong role in my life because I prefer to work with others and working hard towards a goal while putting in my best effort. However, I am also somewhat independent and choose carefully whom I share personal information with, which was also described in my strengths insight report. I also prefer to have strong relationships with a small amount of people rather than having a not as strong relationship with a large group of people. I feel that these strengths described my personal life very well, because I have noticed these themes in my own life several times and apply them often.

I feel that these strengths will help myself in my academics because a good amount of work will be done in groups or while communicating with others, which, according to my themes, I do very well at. I feel that building strong relationships and being able to communicate with a group of people will help myself academically, as well as help the others who I will be communicating with.

I feel that knowing my strengths now will not greatly alter or change my career goals that I had planned because i always did enjoy working in groups with others or at least communicating with others to get something done, so I had planned to work in a friendly and close-knit environment from the beginning, so knowing my strengths will not change it very much. These strengths will support my career plans, because now knowing that I communicate well and work well in groups, I will try to utilize these strengths to work even better in groups than I would have had done before.

I plan to utilize these strengths in the future to help later in my academic career and in my actual career to work well in a friendly environment while making close friends. These strengths will help myself be acquainted with more people as I try to make new friendships that will last the rest of my life. I feel these strengths will be great assets for my future personal and professional life.

Welcome to my Honors & Scholars e-Portfolio

Hello, my name is Nicolas Calhoun, but I go by Nic. I am from Amelia, Ohio which is about 20 minutes east of Cincinnati, where I graduated from Amelia High School. I am majoring in Electrical Engineering and undecided in my minor, but I am thinking about choosing Astronomy and Astrophysics. I’ve decided to change my major to Electrical Engineering because I’ve always enjoyed working with circuits and breadboards in high school engineering and physics classes. I have no idea what I want to do with Electrical Engineering yet, but I have some ideas.

This year I am hoping to get involved into different clubs and groups and make some new friends on my floor, in the STEM EE Scholars group, and in my classes. During high school I was in the National Honors Society my junior and senior year and also in our school’s Key Club in my senior year. I was also in our schools Science Olympiad/Science Challenge teams in my junior and senior year and also on our school’s Academic Team. So I am hoping to get involved in different groups like these, which I think STEM EE will provide a lot of opportunities for. In retrospect, I am excited to be involved with STEM EE and can’t wait to start having different experiences.

About Me

 

senior pic

Hello, I’m Nicolas Calhoun, but I go by Nic. I am from Amelia, Ohio, which is a suburb about 20 minutes east of Cincinnati. I plan to major in Data Analytics and I am undecided in my minor.

Throughout high school, I was involved in many STEM related activities. For example, I was in our school’s Science Challenge and Science Olympiad teams my junior and senior year. I was also a part of our school’s academic team during my senior year. I enjoyed these events very much because it allowed for me to work in a team with some friends and created a closer bond through subjects we love. STEM related courses had always been my strong suit throughout junior-high and high school, I always became closer to my Math and Science teachers more than I did with History and English. I’ve always found it easier to learn STEM courses compared to language, arts, or history courses because I could visually see and learn, whereas I couldn’t grasp the course work form the language, arts, and history classes as easily. I chose the STEM EE scholars mostly because of this but I also felt that the STEM EE Scholar’s group would make more sense with my major and most likely my minor as well. I am also intrigued to volunteer at COSI because I have only been there once during the fifth grade and I would love to go there once again.

Also, we will have plenty of chances to do community service with our scholar’s group, which I enjoy because I did quite a bit of service projects through National Honor’s Society and Key Club. For one community service project we worked with a group called People Working Cooperatively where we went and helped do yard work in the fall/winter for people who were unable to due to age, injury and or disabilities/inconveniences. We spent about 8 hours of that day helping three families maintain their yard and prepare it for winter and it was a great learning experience and we also met some interesting people with wonderful stories. I look forward to doing more community work in the STEM EE Scholar’s because I enjoy meeting new people and hearing their stories while making the community better as a whole.

From the STEM EE Scholars group, I am hoping to grow more as a person in maturity and seeing the reality in life. I am also hoping to grow by meeting new people and taking different themes or aspects of their life and incorporate that into my own life. I also hope to pass on my own knowledge to younger people so that they can incorporate my own experiences into their lives.