Global Awareness: Global Awareness is an especially important goal for me. As an anthropologist, I want to try and figure out why a culture is the way it is but it is impossible to do that from my own culture. I think in this case, that, although it is impossible to completely separate yourself from the culture in which you were raised, everyone should make an effort to look at the world from another individual’s shoes because hot topic world issues will look different to different cultures. Global Awareness is important because the fact that one solution is ideal for your culture and aligns with all of the beliefs and morals within your culture does not mean it aligns with everyone’s and does not mean that the solution is right. I think the trip to India that I took with IA Scholars was a good introduction to Global Awareness because it allowed us to start to get outside our comfort zone and experience a culture very different from our own without leaving our own too far behind. I am willing to admit that the India trip, as amazing as it was, was a very cushioned trip. We would go out on tour buses to see different landmarks and then return to our hotels where we enjoyed every Western convenience even though we just left a farm with no electricity, let alone WiFi. The value of India, however, was not diminished because many people in the group, myself included, had never been faced with such a vastly different culture or had never even been outside of the United States before. The value of India, I think was that it opened the eyes of myself and my classmates to what Global Awareness actually means.
Original Inquiry: This year, my sophomore year in college, is really the year that I have started my own Original Inquiry. As of the spring 2016 semester, I have been volunteering in the archaeology lab on campus to start gaining skills in the lab work that follows any archaeological dig. I have learned that there is so much more to archaeology than just going on digs and that everything that is dug up must be washed, cataloged, and reported. This is a very time consuming process that involves the cleaning of every sliver of pottery, bone, or lithics that was dug up and sorting each into their respective categories and subcategories to be reported. Although I mostly work on cleaning artifacts, this has helped me better distinguish what is pottery, bone, and lithics (they can be more similar than expected) and sort out unimportant rocks that were accidentally included. However, I have done some sorting of pottery by temper and cord markings and have begun to be able to identify the species or at least family of the bones that I clean. This Original Inquiry came with the help of faculty members in the Anthropology Department that I went to looking for experience. I will be learning even more on these subjects during my field school in Spain this summer where I will be spending half my days digging in the necropolis of an ancient Roman city and the other half working in the lab to analyse and process what we found. Next year, I plan on applying to one of the National Science Foundation field schools to continue this Original Inquiry. These field schools require an application and previous experience and thus are much harder to get into, but they do not cost anything to the student should they be accepted and provide a more in depth and real life experience in archaeological digs then the open field schools like the one I am going to this year. All of the experiences I have gained through Original Inquiry have helped me gain a better understanding of the career that I hope to have after I finish school and what I will experience in the field of archaeology.
Academic Enrichment: Academics is one of the most important aspects of my life to me right now. I would not sacrifice finishing my education in order to meet my career goals for anything. Archaeology has been my dream job since I was a little kid and I would do anything to make my dream reality. I chose to be an anthropology major because archaeology is a sub-discipline of anthropology, but anthropology is also a very broad subject that can be defined as “the study of humans” so it touches a little bit of everything. Anything can be related back to anthropology, so it was also a good choice as a safe major that, if I were to change my mind about my career, could be used in almost any field. I chose the Bachelor of Science in Anthropology because, if I focus on bio-archaeology like I am planning to, it is a very science heavy sub-discipline that requires an understanding of hard sciences like genetics and biology while the Bachelor of Art in Anthropology focuses more on the social science side of anthropology. My second major is History that I just picked up this semester (spring 2016). This decision was fueled by two main things: my decision to focus on archaeology that came about through lab work and the fact that a background in History is useful in archaeology. The History Department also offers archaeology classes that can supplement those I am taking through the Anthropology Department. The GE classes that I have taken have also been a reflection of my interests in archaeology and an attempt by me to pick topics that are useful to my majors. For example, for my last social science GE course I am taking a geography class on the geography and movement of people and for my second year literature and writing courses I have taken courses such as “Ancient Norse Mythology and Culture” and “Eastern European Immigration” to gain a background knowledge on several cultures and their beliefs that I can refer back to in my anthropology and history courses. Through my major and GE courses, I have attempted to explore different parts of the world and enrich my education through diversity.
Leadership Development: I am not involved with very many extracurricular activities and programs on campus simply because of lack of time with my large class load and work. However, I still make time to participate in IA Scholars and Ski and Board Team on campus. I am not in a leadership position in either of the two programs, however, I like to contribute in any way that I can. On the other hand, at my job I am in a leadership position, Student lead. Basically, me and my fellow student leads are in charge of training new employees and taking on tasks that require a higher level of experience and trust. These could include taking care of high priority customers like the President of Student Dining Services when they come in to eat, taking private parties in the Private Dining Room, or taking larger sections to keep the restaurant working at full capacity. I also participated in “A Day in the Life of a Buckeye” this year, in which a high school student from southeastern Ohio followed me to all my classes in an attempt to encourage higher education after high school. These activities do not really relate to my career goals in any way other than through further interaction with people who do not share the same beliefs and values as I do and how to still proceed in a respectful and amiable matter despite that. However, personally my work and activities on and off campus have taught me how to better manage my time so that I can be active in a few campus programs, work 25 hours a week, and take a full 18 credit hour class load. It has lead to my leadership style turning into a more gentle, guiding style because I try and take the individuals circumstances into account. This style is probably partly a product of the amazing faculty that worked with me when I was still figuring out how to manage work and classes and was suffering from a head injury that lead to problems with short term memory. Working within and with faculty at Ohio State has allowed this style to develop to the point that I feel comfortable working with most individuals.
Service Engagement: Since I have started college, I have not been able to be as active within the community as I was previously. The loss of financial support from my parents when I moved away and the lack of knowledge on how to provide for myself meant that much of my first year of college was spent figuring out how much I had to work to be able to eat and pay for school and how much I could work with classes and homework. However, community involvement and volunteering is an important part of my life, so I worked to be active in even just a few events a year. My freshman year, I volunteered at the Wood County Youth Olympics for the fifth year in a row and spent 12 hours keeping the kids in my group energized and positive. We also all participated in service activities in India, where we served food to the poor with a Sikh temple and went and played with children at an after school program designed to teach poorer children about art and technology. This year, I participated in “A Day in the Life of a Buckeye” as previously stated. This allowed me to interact with people and kids outside of the few I interact with daily. Although this is very little volunteering compared to what I have done previously, it was meaningful to both me and the participants and will hopefully have a lasting effect on both parties. To make up for my lack of time to actually volunteer, I try to help out via donations as well. Whenever there is a drive on campus for whatever goods, I try to donate to it and I donate blood whenever I can. This way I still feel like I am helping the community in other ways than just volunteering my time.
