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Global Awareness:

In order to develop my global awareness, I have pursued coursework to help me better understand unique perspectives and have engaged in student organization activities to help me develop my global awareness and apply what I’ve learned. Particularly through my English 3467S course on issues and methods of tutoring writing, I have learned about cultural differences in speaking, mannerisms, and so on, during our ESL and nontraditional student unit. One of my large takeaways from that unit is how methods of writing, approach to writing, writing organization, and even views on plagiarism are vastly different culture to culture and background to background. By learning about these cultural differences in writing and how to best tutor writers without accidentally taking over their voice or assimilating their work into the dominant culture, we gained a deeper appreciation for diversity and unique differences.

In the Buckeye Gaming Collective, I utilized my position as the Director of Community Management to pursue goals of creating a more inclusive environment and creating projects that acknowledged the diversity of our campus. For example, I created a Translation Committee, comprised of international students and fluent domestic students, who I worked with to translate event documents, flyers, and social media posts into Chinese and Korean. In doing so, we were able to better reach the international community and start trying to bridge the divide between domestic and international students that is unfortunately common across campus. We also had an event collaboration planned for April 4th with Gamma Rho Lambda, a LGBTQ+ sorority on campus, but it was canceled due to COVID-19.

Original Inquiry:

Original inquiry is something I particularly enjoy. One of the key ways I cultivated my understanding of original inquiry was through my English 3467S class. I was already curious about why students don’t attend the Writing Center, an amazing resource I have used multiple times, and we were assigned to pursue a project anyway. Using my past research experiences with the Human Performance Collaborative and the Movement Optimization & Prevention for Exercise Sustainment Lab (Feb. 2019-2020) and with Garg Lab at Nationwide Children’s Hospital (Spring 2017), I created a survey focused on better understanding why some students don’t utilize the resource and if any barriers exist that keep them from doing so. Data collection is still going on, but, hopefully, the information we learn from the survey can help direct marketing projects and help the Writing Center reduce any barriers that may exist.

Outside of class, I’ve been utilizing my networking skills to connect with professionals in esports to learn more about the field. I was very fortunate that I got many positive responses agreeing to talk with me about the field. Meeting online with AJ Jameel of ESG Law, a law firm focused on esports law and serving many of the top teams and personalities, was particularly influential. Esports law combines three things I enjoy: law, writing, and esports. Particularly in law, I am really interested in contracts and immigration laws, both of which are within the realm of esports law. He gave a lot of amazing advice for applying to law school also. I am extremely thankful that these professionals agreed to speak with me.

Academic Enrichment:

My Honors Contract demonstrates my commitment to pursuing academic excellence through the high level of courses that I have taken and am planning to take. Of the 157 total credit hours I plan to take, 71 are at the 3000-level or above (including Philosophy 2500 and 2000-level courses in physical sciences as the contract dictated). Many of these courses I have taken already, including Molecular Genetics 4500 and Political Science 4137 which I took in my senior year of high school. In addition to including challenging courses, my academic plan will also help prepare me for law school while also allowing me to pursue side interests and a well rounded education.

A major in sociology not only allows me to reaffirm my interest in the law and get a headstart in understanding legal concepts through courses such as Sociology 4509: Sociology of Law, but it also includes a lot of reading. Reading is incredibly important for the LSAT and law school, and the types of readings I see in my sociology courses reflect the types of passages the LSAT may have. In addition, sociology is something I genuinely enjoy and am curious about.

My minor in Medical Humanities allows me to further study our country’s healthcare system from a humanities lens that I appreciate. My History of Medicine in Western Society was incredibly eyeopening in showing how the current state of medicine and healthcare was influenced by historical events, and the Medical Sociology class helped me better understand the issues in the current system. One of the  sub-fields of law that I am curious about is medical-related law and policy, so it is also related to a potential career. A minor in Professional Writing not only opens up internship possibilities, but it also allows me to further pursue my interest in writing. I genuinely love writing, and in law school and the legal field, I will be expected to write professionally and operate in a professional culture, both things the minor teaches. One of the key skills that I’ve drawn from a current class in the minor, English 3467S, is how to quickly learn and adapt to different styles and forms of writing, no matter the discipline. We’ve learned to work with engineering reports, multimedia works, and more on the spot; the adaptability and quick learning involved in doing so are great skills to develop. Finally, the minor in Philosophy is geared towards helping me prepare for the LSAT and law school by including logic-related courses.

In terms of GEs, I aimed to take a diverse range of courses that I had an inkling of interest in but did not want to pursue a degree in, such as my Introduction to Peace Studies course and Bioethics course. My second-year writing course on video games was purely out of my own interest in games. Whenever I am playing games, I still find myself applying the ideas I learned in the course to whatever game I happen to be playing. Overall, my commitment to academic excellence is showcased in my advanced courses, curriculum choices, and dedication towards an enriching education.

Leadership Development:

For 2019-2020, I was involved in many extracurriculars and held leadership positions in all of them. The organization that I devoted the most time to was the Buckeye Gaming Collective for which I was the Director of Community Management, overseeing all 40+ events a year, managing a team of over a dozen students to plan and host these events, and developing initiatives to help promote an inclusive and welcoming environment. I also helped rebuild this organization in Spring 2019 when we merged with BuckeyeLAN to better promote community engagement after our organization’s history of engaging primarily in esports and hosting club teams. Before then, I was acting as one of the first Community Managers for what was then the Esports Initiative, helping build a strong foundation for events and community inclusiveness. For the years that I have been in the organization, I have learned how to work in a very large team and to tackle spontaneous issues in a timely manner. In addition, there was a lot of interpersonal conflict in the club that I learned how to manage and address, helping build my interpersonal skills. From this position, I have been able to learn more about the esports field, one of my interests that could be a future career goal (esports law). My work in this organization led to me becoming an Ambassador for the American Video Game League and now to me being offered a part-time position as their Growth Marketing Strategy Manager. In addition, I was the Chief of Publication for Universal Health Aid: Columbus, where I was able to utilize my writing and editing skills to work with other students on a public health publication. I also took the initiative to develop aesthetic and easy-to-read brochures summarizing those articles that we distributed at the free health screenings our organization organizes. One of the challenges I faced in this position was keeping accountable for their work, and, over the course of the year, I learned how to better do so. One of the potential careers I may go into is health-related law, and this organization’s work also coincided with my passions of helping underserved communities and of writing, so I saw it as a good fit.

While those two were the largest commitments I had of my extracurriculars, I was also the Service Chair for Buckeye’s Assemble (a Marvel club) and Secretary for Global Design Mission (an engineering organization focuses on creating sustainable solutions to global issues such as climate change).

Service Engagement:

I have been volunteering as a Legal Clerk for the Legal Aid Society of Columbus, and the experience has been absolutely amazing. I don’t work directly with clients, but I help indirectly by transcribing client interviews and managing the case information on Pika, a case management system. I’ve been able to not only give back to the community, but I have been learning about a wide breadth of legal issues, including landlord/tenant disputes, immigration issues, Veteran benefit disputes, wills, and more. In addition, as the Service Chair for Buckeye’s Assemble, I set up several volunteering events in causes from food insecurity to education to the environment. Unfortunately, a portion of these were canceled due to COVID-19. I was most looking forward to collaborating with an anthropology organization on campus and Scientific Thinkers to put on a “Science Day” event for a nearby elementary school, featuring science experiments with a superhero twist.

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