Month: May 2019

Resume

A download link for my resume can be found through clicking the hyperlink below:

Resume

I would say one of the strongest transferable skills that I have built through the years would be knowing how to lead a group and work together in a team where cooperation is necessary. I have personally lead many groups, whether it be through marching band, engineering groups, or the OWL-C program here at the Ohio State University. I feel like when I get to meet a group of people I will work with, I am able to understand and unite everyone in the group, despite potential differences such as work ethic or standards of completion. I’ve experienced what it is like to work in an uncoordinated and uncooperative group, and I always try my hardest to either lead the group so it doesn’t go down that path, or play my role to the best of my ability to ensure the success for everyone. Since jobs and life will always require working together with people in one way or another, I believe that this skill I have is valuable, and will only continue to strengthen the more experiences and opportunities I have in the future.

 

Year in Review

To be quite frank, I didn’t really have a vision of who I wanted to be going into college, or for ending my first year. However, just because I didn’t have any idea of who I wanted to be doesn’t mean I didn’t change into a more complex and slightly different person.

I don’t think I anticipated the transition from being in high school and coming back home to family everyday to a life where it was just me at a new home with finding a new family to be so hard. I obviously eventually got myself sorted out, but it took some time for me. Finding my solid friends took a long while, and I was becoming kind of discouraged in the beginning. Classes were hard, I didn’t know how to manage my time or study habits at all, and I basically did everything on the fly instead of planning ahead of time. However, those kinds of things just take time, and now that I’m looking back where I am at the end of the year, I believe I have definitely improved in every area I mentioned.

One thing I did know I wanted to do in college was to try new things and to expand my horizons. This took form in the shape of many things. I attended some of the rowing club meetings, even though I never participated in a big sport in high school. I pushed myself to interact and find new friends through athletic band, something which was a bit daunting. I even pushed myself to go around campus just to experience what college really can be, and I’m glad I did because now I feel like I belong here on campus with everyone that I know. That being said, I still want to push myself to try new things and branch out into more clubs even more than I did. Now that I have more of a firm foundation, I really want to try new things I didn’t think I would be able to do.

One of my biggest challenges through my first year was definitely academics. I remember the first time I got a 60 percent on a math exam, I was devastated. Getting that kind of grade was completely foreign to me, and I was rattled to say the least. This is when I began to question if I belonged in college, and if it was the right fit for me. However, I can now thankfully say that it was an overreaction. Over time, I realized that there are going to be some tests that will tear me apart, but it is not the end of the line. There are always many other avenues and opportunities to continue to do what I want to pursue, and that a test grade does not entirely define who I am as a person. Grades are not the final line when it comes to happiness or what I define as success in life.

Time management is still one of my biggest challenges that I need to work on. I am still awful about getting distracted by YouTube on my computer or by flipping through Instagram for hours instead of just hunkering down and getting to work. However, I am slowly but surely building up better time management strategies. I just need to stick to it and put myself in an environment conducive to getting work done quickly and efficiently so I have more free to time relax, be myself, and to find new ways to express myself here on campus.

Despite the negative experiences I’ve had in college, I would say that there are definitely more positive experiences to outweigh the negative. I would say I have grown as a person, including academically, socially, and internally. Where I started off the school year wanting to leave college, I ended the year not being able to wait to move in with my friends and start off an even better year than this one. I can’t wait to meet my old friends back at home, but I also can’t wait to start a new chapter with all of my new friends and classes next year.

STEM Current Event – Endangered Giraffes

Planet Earth as we know it is changing before our eyes, in more ways than one. Socially and technologically, international relationships are being rocked, and technology is exploding at an unprecedented rate. However, in addition to these facets, one of the biggest areas of change is found in the environment. Climate change has been argued more than it ever has been in these past few months, and for good reasons. And while climate change is a topic of utmost importance, there are other environmental concerns that have appeared to take the back seat to it; one such example is endangered species.

Very recently, giraffes have joined the ever-increasing endangered species list, coming as a shock to many. The Smithsonian published an article talking about how these long-necked creatures are now sadly part of this list. According to the Smithsonian, the giraffe population has fallen by 40 percent since 1985, leaving just about 97,000 giraffes left in the wild. As a way to bring this issue to the media and governments of the world, several conservation and environmental groups came together to petition to add giraffes onto the United States’ Endangered Species Act. In addition to this, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are reviewing the giraffe’s status level. If giraffes are added onto the act, it would start a crackdown on giraffe parts that are being imported into the United States and would offer help to reduce illegal hunting in several African countries. (Article used: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-may-list-giraffes-endangered-species-180972057/)

However, there is room for some potential bias in this argument. While it was argued in the article that giraffes should be saved from being killed, there is an argument for how trophy hunters can actually protect more giraffes in the long run, with their trophy hunting fees being put back into stopping illegal hunting, and also driving down the market for giraffe parts. However, this article is arguing that despite the biased nature that it is a good cause to help protect these creatures.

This is a very important event in a way that has the potential to impact the Earth permanently in the future. If action is not taken now to ensure giraffes are not moved any closer to extinction then they are right now, giraffes might soon face the end that many other extinct animals have faced. Without giraffes, the world loses an environmental and societal icon. Children will have to read about giraffes in books and watch them in videos, without ever being able to see them in real life ever again. If we as humans have the power to run a species into extinction, shouldn’t we use that power to preserve and protect these inspiring creatures? If we let ourselves eradicate these one of a kind animals just for the sport of killing, I would say that it spells out a rather ominous future for not only animals, but the human race as a whole.