Year In Review – Sophomore Year (2)

Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholars (DSWS) has provided many opportunities for me to make connections personally and professionally. Personally, I have made many lifelong friendships with people who unconditionally support me. I have also made many professional connections with people in the community especially through my role as philanthropy chair on the Leadership Council. I have had to contact many community leaders to find opportunities for the scholars to provide service. DSWS has also helped me find my two current jobs within recreational sports as Learn-To-Swim Instructor and Adapted Recreation Instructor and helped me connect with my bosses for those jobs. DSWS has given me pre-med mentors who are third and fourth year scholars that have helped me tremendously with building my professional resume. DSWS has connected me with my STEP (Second Year Transformational Experience) advisor and former Director of Rec. Sports, Dr. Don Stenta who has helped me transform my leadership skills throughout this year. Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholars has taught me the importance of making the most of every moment. I have realized that you can always go through the motions, but you won’t get anything out of it so you have to be thoughtful in every moment of every day if you want the most out of it. DSWS far exceeded my expectations with the connections I made and all the opportunities I was provided. Being in DSWS has also given me a great group of people to hear other perspectives from which has opened my mind to taking in other peoples thoughts and ideas and changing mine. Being a part of the Leadership Council has helped me become a more collaborative leader by working with others to plan events for DSWS. DSWS has given me opportunities to be reflective with others as well as on our own. This has helped me become more self-reflective in my life which in turn has made me a more open-minded, calm, and intentional person. These skills will continue to help me in my personal and professional life as I will always be working in a team, I will always need to self-reflect to improve myself, and I need to be open-minded to hearing other ideas and perspectives and willing to consider them and use them to make my own ideas better.

 

Year In Review – Sophomore Year

The Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholars (DSWS) program has helped me develop strong leadership skills and teamwork skills. Through DSWS, I have had the role of a “parent” or mentor for the first years in DSWS as well as a position on Leadership Council. Through both of these, I have participated in a lot of group activities that helped me learn how to work in a group as well as be an adaptive leader. Both of these skills are very important in college and in life. Throughout my collegiate career, I will continue to use the teamwork skills I have learned, such as how to work most effectively as a group toward a common goal, through group projects, work, clubs, and other leadership and extracurricular activities. I will also continue to use these skills throughout my career after college since in the medical field, I will always be working and collaborating with other people. In my collegiate career, I will continue to use the leadership skills I have developed, like how to be an adaptive leader and change my leadership style depending on the situation, as well as making sure everyone is involved and everyone’s voice is heard. I will do this by being a leader within my classes and having study groups, being a leader in my extracurricular activities, and being a leader through work. I will also continue to use these leadership skills throughout my life and future career in the medical field. Being a physician in the future, I will work as part of a team that will require both, good teamwork and leadership skills. DSWS has really helped me develop these skills, as well as many others, since I entered college.

Artifacts

In February 2017, I participated in BuckeyeThon which is a dance marathon to raise money for Nationwide Children’s Hospital. I danced for 12 hours and raised over $500 personally and the fundraiser raised a little over $1.5 million all together. This was a really eye opening experience for me. I really got to see how cancer has affected some families and their lives. I got to see how much our efforts really helped them out. Going through this experience helped me solidify my interest in being a pediatric doctor. I realized that I really wanted to make a difference and help out. I am very interested in Health and Wellness and being a pediatric doctor can give me the opportunity to help children live healthy lives. This experience really inspired me to make a difference in children’s lives.

This is an experience I hope to be a part of again in the future. I love when I can change somebody’s life for the better. Teaching swim lessons and seeing a child improve, even the slightest bit, makes me so happy knowing I helped them. Being an Adapted Recreational Sports Instructor gives me the opportunity to help people with developmental disabilities learn sports that benefit them in so many ways. It helps them learn a new way to have fun and find new friends. I can teach them how to swim so they can have fun and be safe in a pool. I get to help them improve their lives in a way that is fun and healthy for them. Being a part of BuckeyeThon, just like being a Learn To Swim Instructor and Adapted Recreational Sports Instructor, showed me that I can make a difference in people’s lives. These experiences helped me realize that health and wellness is my passion and that being a pediatric doctor is what I want to do.

About Me

Stephanie Cox is from Canton, Michigan and attends The Ohio State University as a first year Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholar. She is majoring in Health Promotion, Nutrition, and Exercise Science with minors in Psychology and Integrative Approaches to Health and Wellness. After obtaining her undergraduate degrees, she plans on going to medical school. She plans on being a Pediatric Doctor to fulfill her passion of helping children. She currently teaches swim lessons, lifeguards, and teaches sports to people with developmental disabilities. She has an interest in health and wellness, so being involved around campus with her scholars program and other extracurricular activities and taking classes for her major and minors help her include her interests within her education and college experience. She takes part in leadership roles around campus with being part of the Leadership, Education, and Development Series (L.E.A.D.S.) at the Recreation and Physical Activity Center (RPAC) and the Leadership Council for the Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholars program beginning her second year at The Oho State University. She plans to study abroad in a summer of her undergraduate career to get a more diverse perspective on healthcare around the world.

Year in Review – Freshman Year

Freshman year was about finding where I belong. I tried many things and found what I really liked and where I wanted to make a difference. I started the school year moving in a few days early as part of the Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholars program. I only knew a few people at The Ohio State University so this was a big change in my life. I quickly met new friends within my scholars program, my classes, and extracurricular activities. I first joined club gymnastics and enjoyed meeting people that have an interest in gymnastics like me. Unfortunately, my schedule and classes got in the way of gymnastics and I wasn’t able attend as many practices as I would have liked. One of my most memorable experiences from my first few weeks of being at OSU was when I tried out for and made the rowing team as a coxswain. At first I was super excited to be a part of this team. It was really great to be in a sport like this when I never really thought I would be. After about a month, I realized that I did not enjoy being a coxswain so I stopped rowing once I realized that it was not right for me.

Throughout freshman year, especially the first few weeks, I made many changes. I realized how different college classes are than high school. I had to learn how to really study for my classes. I had to learn how to use metacognition in my classes such as how to use better strategies for learning and higher level thinking which made me a better student overall. I know I want to be a pediatric doctor so I had decided on a pre-med track, but didn’t know the major I wanted have to get there. I changed my major from Health Sciences, to Biology, to Health Promotion, Nutrition, and Exercise Science. I added minors in Psychology and Integrative Approaches to Health and Wellness. At the start of second semester, I started two jobs, a Learn To Swim Instructor and an Adapted Recreational Sports Instructor (teaching sports to people with developmental disabilities). I joined the Leadership, Education, and Development Series (L.E.A.D.S.) program. I applied for and got accepted into the Leadership Council for Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholars program for my second year at OSU. All of these have really changed who I am as a leader. While it took many changes, I found my place at OSU and I found my passion. I found the major and minors to support my interest and passion of health and wellness. I found extracurricular activities and two jobs that I really enjoy and are all stepping stones to my future goal of being a pediatric doctor.

G.O.A.L.S.

[ “G.O.A.L.S.” is a place where students write about how their planned, current, and future activities may fit into the Honors & Scholars G.O.A.L.S.: Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement. For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.

Global Awareness: Students cultivate and develop their appreciation for diversity and each individual’s unique differences. For example, consider course work, study abroad, involvement in cultural organizations or activities, etc .
Original Inquiry: Honors & Scholars students understand the research process by engaging in experiences ranging from in-class scholarly endeavors to creative inquiry projects to independent experiences with top researchers across campus and in the global community. For example, consider research, creative productions or performances, advanced course work, etc.
Academic Enrichment: Honors & Scholars students pursue academic excellence through rigorous curricular experiences beyond the university norm both in and out of the classroom.
Leadership Development: Honors & Scholars students develop leadership skills that can be demonstrated in the classroom, in the community, in their co-curricular activities, and in their future roles in society.
Service Engagement: Honors & Scholars students commit to service to the community.]

Career

[“Career” is where you can collect information about your experiences and skills that will apply to your future career.  Like your resume, this is information that will evolve over time and should be continually updated.   For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]