Who I Am
August 18th, 2015
My name is Courtney Campbell. I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, a place where I had many of my family and friends close by. With all the support from my amazing parents, I was a good student throughout grade school and high school. I attended a private Christian school, which I believe has given me a solid knowledge of who I am as a person and student. I was exposed to the STEM fields early, but I never got the chance to fully engage myself in them until almost high school. It was helpful to have a dad who was an engineer that was willing to talk about his experiences in the field. I was good in math and science and I thoroughly enjoyed them, but I did not know the numerous things outside of my basic math and science courses.
My first meaningful experience with STEM had to be when I competed in the Ohio State Science Fair in the eighth grade. I remember getting to St. John’s Arena and being taken back by the amount of kids in the room. I had never seen so many serious looking kids! Even though I was very nervous the entire duration of the fair, I had such a great experience just learning how science fairs work at the state level. I even received a Superior rating of my project, a slightly shocking result, being my first year of competing. I even had the chance to go back to the Ohio State Fair in the ninth grade, which further confirmed my interest in STEM. I knew from that point on that I belonged in a STEM field.
In high school, I was blessed with my favorite teacher, Mrs. Folkerts. I had other teachers that helped me with my journey to engineering, but she was a large part. Despite meeting her my junior year, she still had a great impact on my decision in choosing STEM, specifically engineering. For years, I thought I was not smart enough to be able to do engineering, especially computer science engineering, my current major. In all my meetings, talks, and classes with Mrs. Folkerts, I shed my fear of being an engineer, along with being a minority and a female. Whatever question I had, she was more than willing to answer it in detail and also offer advice on how to do better in math and/or science if I had a problem.
Other than my decision to be an engineer, I was involved in many extracurriculars in high school and worked as hard as possible in my classes. Some of my extracurriculars included National Honor Society, Mathletes, Science Fair, and Teacher in my church’s Sunday school. My school did not have many STEM clubs, but I did my best and joined the ones I could. Also, I was in the top 10% of my class and received Academic Distinction at the end of my senior year. I worked very hard to not only do well in school, but make myself a more well rounded person by doing activities not related to school.
Knowing that I wanted to be an engineer, I searched for a college who was good at that, but I also wanted to stay in the state of Ohio. The Ohio State University was the obvious choice. Not only is it a school that does engineering very well, but has the STEM EE Scholars program. After researching STEM EE, I knew that I had to be a part of it. I chose it because out of all the advice and guidance I had received from people in STEM, I wanted to give back into younger people and give them the chance to explore the fields just like I did. I am excited to start mentoring the younger generation, especially girls, in what STEM is all about. I cannot wait to see where The Ohio State University takes me.
My Top 5 Strengths
April 18th, 2016
My top five strengths are restorative, harmony, input, achieve, and intellection. I definitely love solving problems, so I see my restorative strength in myself. It could be a Calculus problem or a problem between two of my friends. No matter the problem, I will want to help solve the problem if it is something I feel is important. In my life, whatever problem I have been faced with, I must resolve it in some way. I am not fully satisfied until I come to a complete solution to a problem, especially when it is related to my personal life.
Academically, because I like solving problems, that influenced me to pick my current major, computer science engineering. It is heavily based in computer programming, which, in essence, is writing code in order to solve a specific problem. However, in some ways, I think my strengths of restoration and harmony work coherently. For example, in order to reach a state of harmony for myself or for the situation, I must solve the problem. If there is a conflict between two of my friends, helping them find a common ground is solving the problem. My harmony strength typically appears when I am dealing with people I have some sort of relationship with, whether it is family or one of my peers. I do not like conflict or friction, so my way of gaining harmony in situations is being honest whenever possible, allowing others to have their own opinions, and understanding others when they believe in what they believe. Finding things in common with others helps me and I believe helps everyone around me.
I enjoy learning new things and collecting new knowledge, so it was obvious why I had the input strength. I love gaining new perspectives and ideas from experiences and the people I meet. They benefit my life in a way that helps me learn about the world around me. Whether the knowledge I am collecting is useful at the time, I believe I may need it at some point in time. Since I am always searching for knowledge, it goes into my need to do well and constant need to accomplish goals, which shows my achiever strength. I am not satisfied until I get something accomplished every single day. It definitely keeps me going. I really enjoy being by myself and just thinking about things in my life or things in the world demonstrates that my intellection strength is at work. Being able to reflect on things gives me a break from my stress in my life, therefore making it easier for me to not stress as much. Seeing all of my strengths in my current life has given me a good view of what there is for me in the future.
Therefore, my strengths have solidified my future goals. My main goal is to graduate college with my bachelor’s degree and find a great job that I love. With my five top strengths, I know I can accomplish these goals because they support them. My achiever attitude along with my input strength will help me to keep moving forward, keep me diligent, and willing to try and learn new things. My restoration and harmony strengths will help me to keep my relationships with others in check and also help me solve problems when they arise. My restoration strength definitely helps me solve problems at work, which hopefully will be in the computer science field. It is filled with problems waiting to be solved.
Because of all this, I plan to use my strengths even more than I have previously to achieve my personal and professional goals. As I mentioned, my achiever strength keeps me going and focused on my goals. It also will be used with my restoration strength in order to accurately solve problems in my life, whether personal or professional. Because I like working in a space without drama or conflict, I will utilize my harmony strength as much as possible to keep that in check. Telling others to listen to each other and respect their opinions keeps a healthy work space for everyone. Also, finding common ideas or interests can keep everyone happy. When given new ideas to think about, intellection will be very helpful. I enjoy thinking about different ways of doing things, making me adaptable in many situations. Lastly, my strength of always wanting to gain more knowledge can be very helpful when working or building relationships with friends, colleagues, or peers. My input strength will make my life interesting and filled with new and exciting things. All my strengths will ultimately be used more and more as I get further into my life, making me a better person.