Leadership Development

My first year mentee was Cora Hardern. Cora is from Dayton, Ohio and is a Speech and Hearing Sciences major. She said she chose to come to Ohio State since it is known for its Speech and Hearing Sciences major, as well as it was pretty close to home. Something that Cora and I have in common is our passion for working with kids. Cora wants to be a speech pathologist in the pediatrics field, and I am a special education major who wants to work in a classroom setting. Because of this similarity, we were always able to exchange many stories about kids or students we have worked with in the past, and we got to bond over how much we loved working with them. Another similarity was our passions for social justice. Cora is very passionate about refugee rights, and I am very passionate about disability rights. One difference that we had was that she had many friends from high school at Ohio State since she was in-state, whereas not many people from my high school go to Ohio State since I am an out of state student. This was always interesting to talk about because it really made a difference in our college experiences. I had to immediately throw myself into clubs and other social scenes in order to make friends, whereas Cora had some friends that she knew she could lean on at the beginning. However, this also forced her to reach out and join organizations because she did not want to have to lean on these friends throughout college. It was awesome to see how much Cora grew from her first semester to her second semester. She seemed a little bit shy when I first met her, but she really broke out of her shell throughout her freshman year. Seeing this transition was really cool for me, and it made me really proud of Cora and all of her accomplishments. For example, when I met with her in November before first semester finals, she was very nervous. However, when I met with her in April before second semester finals, she had a much better handle on where and how she studied best and most productively. I believe the ACES mentorship program helped me grow a lot both as a mentor and a leader. It taught me responsibility because it made me responsible for someone else. This helped me learn how to guide others and make other people a priority in my life. This has helped with my leadership development because it taught me how to reach out to other people and make sure they are doing okay. A leader should care about the well being of the individuals he/she is in charge of, and this program really helped me learn that and develop those skills. I helped Cora in the areas of mentoring, orientation, and socializing by encouraging her to get involved, join organizations, and put herself out there. One organization I have seem Cora grow increasingly passionate about is Students for Refugees. This organization is a club that aims to help young refugees in the Columbus area. The club provides tutoring and other care or resources to these communities. It was so awesome to watch Cora get involved in this student organization because it has such an amazing cause and mission. Seeing her passion for it grow every time I saw her and asked her about it was amazing. There are many benefits of being in a mentoring program like the ACES mentoring program. One of these is getting to know someone who I otherwise would probably not have gotten to know. Cora is such a cool and motivated person, and I am so lucky to have spent this year getting to know her and guide her through her freshman year. Because of our different majors and interests, I am not sure I would have met her had it not been for this program. Another is that it helped me reflect on my own college experience as well. For example, when Cora asked about study tips, I had to reflect on what had really helped me throughout my own college experience. The saying “you learn better when you teach” definitely comes to mind because I learned a lot about myself when I was reflecting on my own experiences in order to help her. Another advantage or benefit I have learned being in a mentor program brings is that is makes you take more responsibility. I had to remember to check in on Cora and take responsibility for being a resource for her.

For our second semester interview, it was great to catch up with Cora and see how she was doing. The first question I asked her was how she managed her time. Cora said she really takes advantage of breaks she has between classes. Rather than going home and napping in between her classes, she often goes to Thompson library to get work done. This way, her evenings are free for clubs, activities, and fun. One club she is very passionate about is Students for Refugees. Time management is very important to her because it lets her be a very involved member of this club, as well as ACES. The second question I asked her was how she felt about her first year as a member of ACES. She said that she really enjoyed being a part of ACES because of the live-in requirement. Cora said that living in a close knit community really helped her make friends and feel at home, especially at such a big school. She also really enjoyed having lots of other ACES members that have the same major as her. Her major is speech and hearing sciences, and having other ACES in that major gave her a support system for her classes. My next question for Cora was how she was enjoying her major. Cora said that she loves her major and she is very passionate about it. She did, however, waiver in this passion for a little bit in the middle of the semester. This is because she is very interested in the pediatrics side of speech pathology. However, undergrads in this major do not specialize. As a result, she often found herself learning about parts of the field that she was not interested in, such as the geriatrics side of the profession. By the end of the semester, she had fallen back into her passion for Speech and Hearing Sciences, and she was very excited to continue these classes next semester. I really sympathize with this because as an education major, I often have to learn about subjects or age groups that I am not interested in teaching. We both agreed though that working with our preferred populations makes it all seem worth it in the end. My fourth question was about her career plans and if they had changed or adjusted throughout her first year at Ohio State. Cora said they had not. She found her passion for speech pathology in high school and has always been extremely passionate about working with kids. The combination of these two passions as a pediatric speech pathologist has been her dream job ever since high school, and college has only fueled, rather than hindered, that passion. My fifth and final question for Cora was what her most challenging class was. Cora said she struggled in her pre calculus class. This class had been a struggle for her all semester. She said she did pretty well on her last midterm, which is awesome, but that it required hours upon hours of studying and late nights. She said that she felt confident in future tests for this class as long as she kept up the same work ethic as she had for the last midterm. I also asked her what study methods she was using to help her and she said she really likes flashcards and practice problems for this class. Cora seems to have really grown up over the past two semesters. Getting to watch her settle into college and grow has been such a cool privilege for me. I cannot wait to see all the amazing things she does at Ohio State!

For our second semester Explore Columbus assignment, Cora and I decided to go and get brunch together. Just like first semester, we ran into the problem of neither of us having a car. We also ran into the same problem of not having a ton of time to go far into Columbus, or to take a COTA since we met right before finals week. One more obstacle we ran into this time around was finding a place that Cora had never been too. Since she now had nearly two full semesters at Ohio State complete, she was pretty familiar with most places around campus. However, Cora had never been to the brunch place, First Watch, so we decided to go there. First Watch happens to be one of my favorite restaurants near campus. Since it is so close to campus, we decided to meet there. We met on reading day, so it was a really nice study break. Cora and I were both very stressed about finals, so it was nice to have a few hours just to talk to each other and relax a little bit. We talked a lot about our summer plans. This summer, Cora will be working in a day care she has worked at for quite a while. She said she loves working here because it really helps her remember the passion that she has for working with young kids. We also bonded over how excited we were to go on family vacations this summer. Last summer, we both were not able to go on our family vacations because we both had conflicts with work. We also talked a lot about the upcoming finals we both had. Cora said she was nervous for her pre calculus final. We had talked throughout the semester about how she did not enjoy taking pre calculus. Even though she was nervous, she was excited for the class to finally be over. As someone who has always hated math, I totally sympathized with her on that one. We also talked about how her first year went, now that is was nearly over. Cora seemed to love her first year at Ohio State. She seems like she has made a really solid group of friends, many of whom are also in ACES and live on her floor. While we were at First Watch, we both really enjoyed our meals. Cora said she really liked it and didn’t know how she had never been there, especially since it is so close to her dorm (First Watch is on south campus and is less than a five minute walk from Smith Steeb hall!). Because I have been there many times, I would definitely recommend it to a friend, and Cora said she would as well. After we finished eating, we walked back to campus together and talked about our study plans. We both talked about how we would soon be spending a lot of time at Thompson Library over the next few days. It was nice to walk back to campus with her since the weather was getting so nice. Overall, I had a really great time with Cora! It was awesome to meet up with her and see how much she has grown throughout the course of her freshman year.

For our first semester Explore Columbus assignment, my mentee, Cora, and I went to Chatime one Saturday afternoon in November. Chatime is a bubble tea place close to campus right off of High Street. It was right in the middle from where Cora and I lived, so we decided to meet in front of the cafe. At first, we had a hard time choosing a place to go to because neither of us had a car. We were also right in the heat of midterm season, so neither one of us had a lot of time on our hands to research and find a place. Because neither one of us had a car, we could have taken a COTA. However, it was starting to get very cold, and we did not have to worry about getting on a COTA, making sure it was the right bus, and standing out in the cold. Because of this, it was hard to come up with a place to go to at first. However, me friend had talked about Chatime earlier in the week to me, and neither of us had been to Cha-time. As a result, we decided to go there. It was cool to experience something new so close to campus, and I ended up going back throughout second semester. Something confusing about getting there was the entrance. The cafe is in a strip mall attached to an apartment building so finding where to go in was kind of confusing. Soon we figured it out and went to order our bubble tea. Cora and I both really liked what we ordered. I got a strawberry-mango bubble tea, and Cora got a hazelnut chocolate bubble tea. One nice thing about being there was that it wasn’t too crowded, so we did not have to wait in a long line, and we could talk to each other without yelling or talking over noise. We went right before we got off from school for Thanksgiving break, so while we were sipping our bubble tea, we talked a lot about what our plans for the break were. We were both going home for Thanksgiving, and decided we were both very much in need of a break from school. We also talked about getting ready for finals season because finals season always feels like it comes up pretty quickly after Thanksgiving break. Cora said that even though she felt kind of nervous, she felt pretty confident and well prepared for her first semester of college finals. It was really great to catch up with Cora, especially so close to the end of the semester. It has been really cool to see how much she has grown throughout her first semester of college. I also really enjoyed finding a new place close to campus! I would for sure recommend this place to a friend because of its tasty bubble tea and its close proximity to the OSU campus. I also really enjoyed this assignment because it let me do some research on cool places that Columbus has to offer. Overall, it was a great afternoon, and I am so glad I got to spend this time with Cora.

Mentor Interview

Mentee: Cora Hardern, Speech and Hearing Science Major

List of Questions:

1.  Are you enjoying your major? Why or why not?

2. How have you gotten involved on campus?

3. What has surprised you about OSU?

4. What kind of study habits have you developed and have they worked?

5. Do you enjoy living in the ACES community in Smeeb? Why or why not?

I had so much fun getting to know Cora! We had breakfast at Sloopy’s, and it was great to take her to my favorite place to eat on campus. Cora is from Dayton, Ohio, and she is a speech and hearing science major. Cora loves her major so far. She said that it is a small major, so it feels like a small and close-knit community within Ohio State. On campus, she has gotten involved in the club, Students for Refugees, which is an organization that helps tutor young refugee students in English after school. I think it’s so awesome that she is a part of such an amazing club! It seems that she is very passionate about it, and I can’t wait to see what else she does with this group! She is also in a part of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association (NSSLHA), which is an organization for students who wish to be speech-language pathologists and audiologists in the future. She says she loves this group because it is a great way to meet other people within her major who are either in her current classes or taking classes she will take later on. She says it is a very fun and supportive group. She is also, obviously, involved in ACES. It seems like she has a good handle on how to manage her time. I know I joined a little bit too much when I first started out at Ohio State, so I hope that, if this happens to Cora, I can help her learn ways to manage her time more effectively. Something about Ohio State that has surprised her is how pretty the campus is! She said she was surprised because Ohio State doesn’t get a lot of credit for being a pretty campus, but there are so many absolutely beautiful places on campus! She was also surprised about how many resources Ohio State has to offer to students. I hope I can show her my favorite places on campus that are pretty, and also let her know about some of the resources I have found that are helpful. Cora seems to have developed some very solid study habits. She always goes over her notes after lectures to make sure she retains the information better, and she makes flash cards. She said that she loves making flashcards to study because she finds them extremely helpful. She also tries to get all of her studying done during the day, but she says that does not always happen. I think I can be a good mentor to Cora by letting her know some of the study habits I find helpful, and by telling her about the places I know about on campus that are good to study at. Cora said she loves living in the ACES community in Smith Steeb because it makes Ohio State seem like a smaller community. She said it’s awesome to have this community and be able to interact with people who have similar interests, habits, and goals. I remember that I loved living in the ACES community for these reasons as well. Cora seems like she is absolutely loving being at Ohio State so far! She has been doing so many amazing things just in the short time she has been at Ohio State. I hope that I can be a resource to her during her freshman year, and I plan on doing so by helping her find the right direction and being someone she can come to if she needs help. I am so thrilled I get to be Cora’s mentor, and I can’t wait to see all the great things she will do in her time as a Buckeye!

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