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Junior Year in Review
This time last year, I had just found out I wouldn’t be spending the summer (and, later the full year) abroad in Amman, Jordan and Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The COVID-19 pandemic permanently changed many of my plans, but I now believe I have grown because of it.
First, this year at Ohio State, even if virtual, allowed me to truly dive into my Geography major. At the end of last year, I had only recently declared the new major, had taken only one class in it, and only vaguely understood what the study of Geography is about. But this year I took seven courses in the Geography department and discovered that the Geography approach to the world is my true academic home.
Second, this year The SOAR Initiative, a nonprofit I co-founded with a group of other students to fight the overdose crisis, underwent huge changes and massive growth. We became the largest supplier of fentanyl test strips in Central Ohio, launched our Deadly Batch Alert system, hired our first employees, and thanks to recent grant funding are now expanding statewide.
In the end, the cancellation of my Boren scholarship to Tajikistan frees me from the associated service requirement, and it let me learn more about my own ambitions and hopes for the future before I hopefully go abroad again in the future. As to the specifics of how that will look, we shall see!
Update: A few weeks after posting this update, I found out I had been awarded a full scholarship to study Arabic at the American University in Cairo. I’ll be leaving in May 2021 and will be in Egypt for an entire year. If you would like to read quick weekly updates about my experiences and learn a little about Cairo in the process, I invite you to follow my Substack at
Sophomore Year in Review
After just one day in Intermediate Macro this fall, I decided to switch majors. After several weeks of deliberation and conversations with professors, I officially became the only Geography and Islamic Studies double major at Ohio State. While I have greatly enjoyed my classes for both majors this year, the switch has left me without a defined plan for my post-graduation future.
I think I have come to terms with the uncertainty for now though. This spring semester I started to find fulfillment in several different activities outside of school. My friends and I have been working since last spring to start The SOAR Initiative, a nonprofit which will soon provide free Fentanyl Test Strips as well as distribute an app to deliver “bad batch” alerts to fight the opioid epidemic. This year I was responsible for incorporating SOAR as a tax-exempt nonprofit as well as leading our fundraising efforts (over $3500 in grants and crowdfunding to date). But the most meaningful thing I did was to begin volunteering regularly at Safe Point, the only syringe exchange in Columbus, where I had a chance to get to know the people we are trying to help.
I also began volunteering regularly at the Riverview International Center, a community center that helps recently arrived immigrants, mostly from Algeria and Bangladesh, navigate the challenges of their new lives in Columbus. Because of my language skills I actually felt like I could be useful, and while I am still unsure, I am considering doing this type of community work with immigrants in the future.
Of course, the Covid-19 pandemic ended both of these volunteer positions. The pandemic also cancelled the Critical Language Scholarship, which I had received to study Arabic in Amman, Jordan for the summer. I may still have the opportunity to study abroad next year however, as I am currently an alternate for a Boren Scholarship to study Persian in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Regardless of the status of future travel, I am very fortunate to have the chance to intern with a refugee resettlement agency in Cleveland this summer, where I will hopefully be able to practice both Arabic and Persian while helping new Ohioans fleeing conflict around the world. And I am most of all excited to be back on campus in the fall to see my friends and begin the second half of my Ohio State career.
G.O.A.L.S.
1. Global Awareness
A global perspective permeates nearly everything I do here at Ohio State. As part of my Islamic Studies major, I am working towards fluency in both Arabic and Persian, and most of my classes focus on the history, beliefs, and culture of Muslims around the world. Last summer, I studied abroad in Morocco, living with a host family there as I learned both standard Arabic and the Moroccan dialect, and forming lasting friendships with Moroccan students. I am also a co-founder of Polyglot Club at Ohio State, a student organization that works to promote the study of foreign languages on campus and to bring together everyone interested in other languages and cultures. In the future, I hope to study abroad again in Morocco or another Arabic-speaking country and in Tajikistan to further improve my Persian.
2. Original Inquiry
I worked throughout my first year at Ohio State as a research assistant for Dr. Bruce Weinberg in the Department of Economics, doing the data cleaning and processing needed to conduct higher-level statistical and economic analysis. Since then and since my change in majors from Economics to Geography, I have worked on several independent papers for my coursework that included novel research and that combined my Islamic Studies and Geography interests. I have researched the Jewish and Muslim communities of Central Asia in the post-Soviet era, as well as the spectrum of mosque architecture in China and the effects it has on perceptions of ethnicity and nationality for Chinese Muslims. Now, I am looking to research the unique effects of the opioid crisis on the Muslim community here in Central Ohio.
3. Academic Enrichment
In the future, I plan to work for an international non-governmental organization helping refugees around the world. My coursework is targeted towards this goal. I will take advanced classes in multiple languages with the intention of becoming fluent in both Arabic and Persian, the languages of a huge number of the world’s refugees before graduation. Through my Islamic Studies major, I am exploring culture in general and its effect on the people who I want to help in the future. In my Geography major, I once again explore how those people view the world, but through the lens of their sense of place, be that their neighborhood, their city, or their country. My Statistics minor gives me the ability to add to these qualitative observations with rigorous quantitative analysis of the world and its trends. And finally, I have chosen my GE courses to provide a well-rounded perspective on the rest of the world, from its economy to its art and literature.
4. Leadership Development
Over the past two years, I have taken an active leadership role in fighting the opioid crisis in Columbus. Along with several other students, I co-founded a nonprofit, The SOAR Initiative, and a student organization, Buckeyes for Harm Reduction, both focused on saving lives and helping all those affected by substance use disorders. We work to make harm reduction resources like Fentanyl Test Strips and Naloxone (Narcan) available both on campus and in the Columbus community, to facilitate conversations about specific policies, and to ultimately save lives. I have gained valuable skills including grant writing, nonprofit finance and compliance, event planning, and program management throughout this process. And because I plan to work in the nonprofit sector in the future, learning to talk to and empathize with some of the most marginalized people in our community has been invaluable.
5. Service Engagement
I volunteer weekly with two different service organizations in Columbus. The first is the Riverview International Center, a neighborhood community center in northwest Columbus that works to help immigrants manage the challenges of building new lives in the United States and access the government and nonprofit services to which they are entitled. I also volunteer with Safe Point, Columbus’s only syringe access program, which provides supplies and resources to people who use drugs in order to prevent overdose deaths and the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C. I am working to learn the nuances of applying for Medicaid, as well as becoming fluent in Arabic, with the goal of eventually interning with the Riverview International Center, and I am currently in training to become an interviewer at Safe Point so that I can talk independently with participants and provide additional harm reduction resources in the future.
Lessons from Morocco
Above all else, traveling to Morocco this summer taught me that I don’t like traveling.
I phrased this in a somewhat misleading way however; I’m using the word traveling in two different meanings here.
When I say “I don’t like traveling,” I mean it in the sense of a week in this country, three days in that city, checking places and sites off a list. And when I say “traveling to Morocco,” I mean it in the sense of going somewhere and building a life there, if only for a short period of time.
The part of my summer in Morocco that I will remember most clearly and most fondly is my life in Fez. Fez is a wonderful city to visit in its own right, but even the marvel of peering through the door of the oldest university in the world, or of standing on a balcony overlooking the thousand-year-old tanneries only holds its appeal for so long.
Rather, after ten weeks living in Fez my most vivid memories are far more mundane. I remember sitting on the roof of my house, hearing the calls to prayer from dozens of mosques mix together as the sun set. I remember wandering through the dark labyrinths of the city’s secondhand book and technology markets. Most of all, I remember the many hours I spent talking with my best Moroccan friends, Younas, Abdelmoula, Imane, and Saida, under the orange trees in the garden at school, or wherever else we decided to go explore on a given day. In Morocco, I realized the beauty of learning the routines that make up everyday life somewhere new, and the personal and educational value of building relationships.
In my classes in Fez, we studied the great Moroccan explorer, Ibn Battuta. He “traveled” the world for 30 years throughout the fourteenth century, staying long enough in many countries to settle down, marry, learn the local language, and work as a teacher, diplomat, or judge. When he finally returned home to Fez, he wrote about his travels, and about his lives in the places he had been.
The way Ibn Battuta “traveled” allowed him to not only observe, but absorb the cultures and ways of life he had experienced along the way, providing a valuable source of information about life across the Muslim world at the time.
This summer, I had the opportunity to travel to his home in a similar way. The financial support I received from the Eminence Fellowship Enrichment Grant and from the Hajj Abu Ismail Jallaq Scholarship Fund through the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures allowed me not just to visit Morocco, but to build a life there, and for that I am extremely grateful.
About Me
Hello! My name is Larkin Cleland and I am a third-year Eminence Fellow with a triple major in Geography (Urban, Regional, and Global Studies), Islamic Studies, and Arabic and with a minor in Statistics. I am from Medina, Ohio, which I like to describe as the furthest south where everyone still pretends to be part of Cleveland, but I can’t wait to see more of the world outside Ohio.
I love learning about other cultures and religions, especially those of the Middle East and Central Asia, and spend lots of my free time learning foreign languages (currently Arabic and Persian) and trying these cultures’ food, either by cooking or by exploring Columbus’s many restaurants.
At Ohio State, I am a co-founder of both Polyglot Club, a student organization which promotes the study and importance of foreign languages, and Buckeyes for Harm Reduction, which seeks to fight overdoses on campus.
I also co-founded and now serve as Director of Operations for The SOAR Initiative, a nonprofit organization which works to save lives and better communities affected by the opioid epidemic. To learn more about our Deadly Batch Alert app, our Fentanyl Test Strip distributions, or harm reduction and the opioid crisis in general check out www.thesoarinitiative.org.
I have also interned with an interfaith NGO at the United Nations and worked as an interpreter for Columbus Refugee and Immigration Services. In Columbus, I volunteer regularly with Safe Point, Columbus’s only syringe exchange program, and the Riverview International Center, a neighborhood resource center for immigrants to Columbus. As for my future, I hope to eventually study abroad in Arabic or Persian-speaking countries, and after graduation to work somewhere in the world of global public health!