My second year has been filled with making new friends, learning how to be a leader through my on campus job, and enjoying my last times as a Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholar (DSWS). This program is actually one of the reasons that Ohio State has really felt like my second home. When I entered my freshman year, I had no idea the impact this program would have on my experience here. It has given me my best friends, my roommates for all four years of college, and countless professional connections that have helped further me in my career. This year, I started working as a supervisor for the Department of Recreational Sports here, which was quite an upgrade from just scorekeeping basketball games. I learned more about this job thanks to the connection DSWS has with recreational sports as well as through a fellow scholar who was a year ahead of me. He allowed me to shadow him and helped me prepare for the interview so I was confident doing one of the things that scares me the most. This job has allowed me to make new connections with the pro staff and build friendships with other students who love sports as much as I do. This job has also helped me put into action what I learned about leadership in my first year as a DSWS member. When I started at OSU, I never would consider myself a leader as I rarely spoke up and tried to stay in the shadows. Through a leadership course at DSWS I learned the important of how to be an effective leader through my actions. When I am working, I am the supervisor on site so whenever refs or participants encounter problems, they come to me. I truly have to be leader as I set the example for the officials on how to treat participants and approach the job. DSWS told me to lead by example and I have been able to develop those skills this year so now when I graduate from scholars in April I can confidently say I am a leader at OSU. Lastly, during the last half of this year I have really enjoyed involving myself in this scholars program as I know this is the last time I will be with all of my fellow scholars at once. Whether its socials, service opportunities, or just weekly meetings, I truly have cherished these last weeks. Last weekend, a group of us went to Hocking Hills and spent time hiking to waterfalls, sitting around a campfire, and sharing some of our favorite memories. It was a great way to sort of end the school year and wrap up my time in scholars. I am very excited for my junior year and can’t wait to see the unique ways I can stay involved in scholars as I go through my last two years at Ohio State.
Welcome to my Honors & Scholars e-Portfolio
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2016-2017
A memorable experience from my first weeks at this university comes from my very first days there. As part of the Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholars, we have the opportunity to move in early on Thursday and participate in a bunch of activities over the weekend in order to help us easily transition into college. In order to organize this, some second years in the program volunteer to come and act as “parents” to the freshman. For example, three or four second years would be assigned to around five or six kids to get to know. My parents were awesome and answered any questions I had and made me feel very comfortable and less nervous for college. Most of the activities involved playing sports, which was something I was passionate about in high school. This made it very easy to connect with people and make friends since that is how I met a lot of my closest friends in high school. We were also given free time and our parents took us to UDF and we sat in the Oval and just talked. The second years provided us with valuable information that I am forever grateful for. This experience really brought everyone in my scholars group closer and allowed us to get to know each other before school started. It all ended with the honors and scholars launch where I learned more about what scholars is and what a great community it builds. This memory will always be my favorite of freshman year as it really gave a glimpse of the joys of being a buckeye.
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.]
Artifacts
An artifact that represents my first weekend at OSU is the two pins that were given to us during welcome week. One I received at the big welcome presentation in the Schott. The other I received at the Honors and Scholars Launch. The first pin is the Ohio State “O”. They told us at the event that they would like us to keep these till we graduate in four years. I really liked that idea because it gave us something to look at when times got tough to remember what we were striving for in the end, to graduate in hopefully four years. I also enjoyed it because it allowed me to feel connected to the thousands of other freshman. Even though we came from all different states and backgrounds and wanted to study different things, we all had one thing in common. We chose to come to Ohio State. The second pin is the “&” symbol which represents Honors and Scholars. This is significant to me because it gives me a smaller community to be a part of. Coming from a small private school, I learned to really value community and the relationships it brings. Therefore, when I see this pin on other student’s backpacks, it reminds me of this. I also see it as a reminder of my specific scholars program, DSWS. I will never forget that first weekend on campus and how much fun I had forming friendships with the people in my scholars group. In fact, the other 5 girls I am living with next semester are all in my scholars program. This shows that through this simple program, I met some of the best friends whom I think will stay in touch with even after graduation.
About Me
My name is Natalie Dajani and I am from a town called Cary in North Carolina, which is right outside of Raleigh. I graduated with 60 kids in my high school class so coming to OSU has been a big change. This, however, never seemed daunting to me and I was very excited to come to a new environment and meet new people. Originally, my major was Health Sciences as I planned on going to Physician Assistant School. After hearing the department head of Respiratory Therapy speak at my survey class though, I decided to switch to RT. After researching more, I am very excited to start this program because it encompasses my strong passion of serving people. I love medicine/biology and to be able to know I am helping people while practicing what interest me most excites me. I am the youngest of three in my family. My older sister is a junior at NC State University and my older brother is a senior at The University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
