North Market Trip

During the fall semester, I went to North Market with other members of IA. I found North Market to be an intriguing place due to all the small businesses there and how diverse they were. Because of this, I knew I had to make a trip to North Market during my time here at Ohio State. When IA presented the opportunity to visit North Market, I was excited to take part. When I got to North Market, I loved and enjoyed every part of the place. There were so many world flavors represented from Indian, Moroccan, Mexican, and beyond. It took me a minute to figure out what I wanted to eat. I decided to go with the Somali food from Hooyo’s kitchen. As someone who grew up in a West African household, it resembled some of the food my mom would make at home the most. It was also a bit ironic, because hooyo means mom in Somali. I had an amazing meal from there that consisted of spicy rice, chicken suqaar, and beef sambusas. Overall, I had a great experience at North Market with other IA’ers. I also took a lot in from a cultural perspective. 

Resilience & Failure Event

The Resilience and Failure event was one that was both refreshing and inspiring. There are many different reasons why I say refreshing. Attending a huge university like Ohio State, you are surrounded by students who excelled in high school. Students who did almost everything right. Students who had no trouble adapting to their academics now that they are here. However, for some of us, this is not the case. Adapting to college was not the easiest and we may have endured a lot of failures. In the midst of failure, it is hard not to compare yourself to others. At times, it seems like everyone has it figured out while you are constantly failing. You experience things like imposter syndrome. The panelists for this event helped reassure their participants that they are not alone. For example, they shared specific memories that they have had of failure throughout their time at Ohio State. 

The event was also inspiring because every panelist talked about the lessons they learned by failing and how much growth they have had. Something that stood out to me was the idea of utilizing the energy you would have used up to be sad, angry, etc, and shifting it to something much greater. One of the panelists spoke about how they utilized a setback to reevaluate and introduce themselves to something new. I will take that advice with me as continue my journey throughout college and life in general. Learning to reframe the things that do not end up working out for me is one of my goals. I will learn to view setbacks as experiences that will prepare me and get me closer to the right thing. 

OSU Votes Event

Recently I was able to watch a recording of an OSU Votes event. OSU Votes is located in the office of student life and its overall goal is to encourage members of our Ohio State community to participate in voting. At the beginning of this event, there was an icebreaker, where statements pertaining to voting were read out loud and participants were allowed to react to them. For example, one of the statements was “eighteen is an appropriate age at which people should be allowed to vote.” Participants were given the freedom to agree or disagree with such statements. I thought this was a great icebreaker to start the event off with because it allowed participants to reflect on some of the stances they hold as well as how active they have been in voting in the past. 

In addition, one of my favorite parts of the event was the video about young people and their civic engagement. One of the speakers in the video spoke about why the younger generation does not vote as much. I found this interesting because the 2020 presidential election was my first time being able to vote as well as many of my peers. Some of my peers did not participate and I always wanted to understand why. The speaker in the video explained how younger people were much less likely to own property or have children. Therefore, this lessens their want to vote on specific candidates because most policy issues do not pertain to them. When it was time to vote in the 2020 elections, some of my peers felt like no changes were going to affect them and thought it was useless to vote. 

Lastly, the speaker in the video spoke about voter suppression. Before the 2020 elections, I began an internship with a non-partisan group called Students for Justice (SFJ) as a team leader and political organizer. Alongside many of my co-workers, we worked hard to fight voter suppression and engage young people in the voting process. We did so by reaching out to de-registered voters notifying them of their status and working with marketing professionals to get out the vote. The speaker in the video reiterated many of the issues I learned to tackle during my time with SFJ. 

In the future, I hope to see more work being done to engage young people in the voting process and help fight voter suppression.

IA Month of October Reflection: “I’m Your Man” Movie

This month, I saw the movie “I’m Your Man” as an event. This was a romance/comedy directed by Maria Schrader. The main character Alma was convinced into participating in a study to receive funds for her research. The study entailed her living with Tom, who is a robot for three weeks. Tom the robot is designed to be the perfect life partner for her. I found it interesting how the movie tries to bridge the gap between explaining what it is to be human and how it feels to be human. I also like how the movie is in German and teaches us a bit about German culture. During a particular scene, Tom has rose petals laid out, candles lit, and a bubble bath for Alma. He says to her, “93% of German women dream of this.” It is interesting because Tom is designed to satisfy a German woman. 

Another interesting aspect of the movie is technology. The movie becomes even more captivating when it starts to examine the role of technology in humanity. The movie was trying to put out the message that maybe technology is not the best thing. 

My favorite part of the movie was Tom unpacking Alma’s emotional baggage. Alma would downplay her pain and refer to it as “pathetic.” Tom helps clarify her imperfections for her. He says, “It is pathetic. Your pain is pathetic because it is relative. But it is also not pathetic, because it is a part of you, and that is why I love it.” Even though Tom is a robot, that part of the movie makes things so “humanlike.” An important part of being in a relationship as human beings is learning to love each other’s “pathetic” pain. And most importantly, we have to love our own. 

Restoring Faith in American Democracy

I attended the Restoring Faith in American Democracy event, which was very enlightening. It was interesting to hear different perspectives on what the American democracy is. I resonated with one of the speakers when she expressed our country not being a democracy. She stated there being two Americas, “those who are easily given privilege” and “those who always had to fight for it.” I believe it is safe to say our country was more divided than ever in the last few years. In the past year alone, we have seen the disproportionate mortality rate among covid-19 deaths among people of color. People of color have had to grieve the tragic deaths of quite a few African-American brothers and sisters from police brutality. These are examples of a few things that have happened that have negatively impacted one side of America. 

It is true that democracy benefits the privileged and the wealthy. The other side of America supports this democracy because it is feeding their pockets. It is also not killing them at a fast rate it is killing the other side of America. 

Our democracy is broken. My hope for future America is for our democracy to become one. I hope everyone can look past their differences. I hope we can merge our dual realities and come up with solutions as a whole rather than separately. 

Buckeye Food Alliance

One of the events I attended this past month was the service spotlight on Buckeye Food Alliance. Buckeye Food Alliance is a student organization I had never heard of prior to the event. Throughout the presentation, Nick Fowler did a great job of educating listeners on the difference between the Student Wellness Center and the Student Health Center. The Student Wellness Center offers many services that could be beneficial to many on our campus. They offer services like, nutrition coaching, financial coaching, student civility program, etc. The Buckeye Food Alliance is one of the services offered by the Student Wellness Center. 

I was extremely surprised by one of the statistics he mentioned. He stated 9000 students here at OSU are being affected by food insecurity. This is something that is not spoken about a lot. I believe more people should be aware of this. As he mentions, there definitely is a stigma around collegiate food insecurity. 

Prior to his presentation, I believed food insecurity was simply having food and not having food. I now understand that food insecurity is much more than that. For collegiate students, food insecurity has a lot to do with disruptions in eating patterns when it comes to day to day meals. Oftentimes, we lack nutritious meals, because we are too busy. I believe The Buckeye Food Alliance is a great resource that every Buckeye should know about. 

IA Alumni Panel

Another event I attended this month was the IA Alumni Panel where former students of our university shared their experience since they graduated from college. Some of the students featured in this event were Sam Harris, a 2019 graduate, who now attends Harvard Law; Alex Northrop, a 2018 graduate, who goes to Columbia Medical School; Brandon Hofacker, a 2017 graduate who works for the Elizabeth Dole Foundation in DC; and Courtney Johnson, a 2019 graduate who works as a communications specialist at the Department of Homeland Security in DC. 

The alumni were involved in a wide range of extracurriculars throughout their time at Ohio State. From being RA’s to joining honoree societies. It was interesting to listen to a lot of the different things they have done before getting into the workfield and how that transitioned into their current positions. For example, one of the alumni spoke about studying abroad in India through a scholarship that required them to spend a year working in federal service. This led to her current position in the Department of Homeland Security, where does a lot with foreign interference and election processes.  

It was alarming to hear from someone that was a former IA’er who is now in medical school, which is where I would like to end up. Before attending medical school, he did non-profit work. One of my future goals is to combine the knowledge I gain from medical school with non-profit work. It was good to hear some of the things he’s been able to do based on his non-profit experience and now being in medical school.

 

“Live,Love, Languages”

An event I attended this month was “Live, Love, Languages” with IA third and fourth years. They spoke about language learning experiences for less common languages that are taught in the United States. The languages they spoke about were Arabic, Russian, Korean, and Chinese. I was really drawn to what made them choose the languages they are currently studying. For example, one of the students had an interest in the Korean language through music and now she is a Korean major. I resonated with them when they mentioned enjoying the nature of an engaging language classroom. I believe what makes a language learning classroom much more interesting is “being spoken with, not spoken at” as one of the students mentioned. In addition to the engaging aspects of a language learning classroom, learning about the culture is just as important as obtaining fluency in the language. Language is only one aspect of a specific culture. 

The speakers recommended a few resources based on their experiences learning a language here at Ohio State. One of the recommendations was building relationships with professors and sharing what your goals are as far as language learning with them. This is important, because at times some of our goals are outside what you can gain in a classroom setting. Another recommendation was reading books you are familiar with in your target language, since you already have an idea of what the plot is. One of the students spoke about journaling about his day in another language to increase his fluency. Finally, finding funding for language study is also helpful. This is important to keep in mind, because there are a lot of ways to utilize the language you are learning outside the classroom. Overall, I enjoyed listening to everyone’s experiences during the event. 

 

Pan African Voices

I attended the event, Pan African Voices in the Era of BLM: Intergenerational Diasporans Speak on their Experiences in America. This conversation was led by professors Lupenga Mphande, Randy Quaye, Teresa Temu, as well as students, Emmanuel Latio and Keji Latio. African Diaspora was the main topic of the conversation. This is a term that not a lot of people are familiar with. African Diaspora refers to the many communities of people of African descent dispersed throughout the world as a result of historical movements. Something that I took away from the conversation is that African-Americans just as much as native Africans who know where they are from in the continent of Africa are a part of the African-Diaspora. I also learned alike African-Americans, other Africans in the diaspora face challenges in their countries, and share a common history. 

I am the child of two immigrant parents from Mauritania and I resonated with some of the points made by Keji Latio and Emmanual Latio. As a child that was raised in both West Africa and the United States, I always assumed I was Africa-American and not because of what I was culturally but what I looked like and the box I checked on applications. I was raised speaking three West-African languages and eating jollof rice frequently.  I was only expected to be African-American because I was Black. I learned about the African-American culture outside of my household. In high school, I also witnessed the divide between African-Americans and native Africans like myself. Unfortunately, that uprooted an identity struggle for myself. Am I African? Am I American? Am I African-American? One thing that was pointed out by Keji and Emmanuel is that we are all one. I feel like acknowledging that is the first step in understanding who we are as one and individually.

 

Critical Language Scholarship Information Session

An event that I attended this month was the Critical Language Scholarship information session. I learned a lot about the program. I learned how to apply, what the program entails, and its benefits. The Critical Language Scholarship is a language immersion program that allows college students to learn languages that are deemed essential. The languages offered through the Critical Language Scholarship are Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu. The program covers one year of academic study during an eight to ten week span. Some of the  languages require prior years of study while others do not. Some of the program benefits include the costs of participating in the overseas institutions, exposure to conversational practice and culture in host countries. 

Something that drew me to apply for the Critical Language Scholarship is for the chance at a once in a lifetime opportunity. I would love to dedicate a chunk of my time to learning a new language that will be beneficial. Living in a country that I have never been to will also open my eyes to new perspectives in a way that simply visiting somewhere for a week will not. I know that some of my values will definitely shift if I am introduced to new perspectives and the ones that really mattered will be solidified. Ultimately, these new perspectives will create a strong foundation to achieve my potential.