Month: November 2018

My first semester at OSU has been amazing and I can’t imagine going anywhere else for college. I feel at home and like a buckeye. I was worried about finding my way around campus before this semester, but that quickly faded. My biggest fears; however, were finding a group of people who I connect with and performing well academically. Although the pressure to get good grades is an ongoing process, I feel very comfortable and confident in both of these areas now. I have loved all of my classes this semester, and have been doing well in them. I am sure I will face academic challenges in the future, but I feel confident I have the resources and knowledge to handle them. My end goal and degree are still up in the air, but I am not as worried about choosing my major so early in college anymore. Socially, I have to thank Humanities Scholars. It gave me the opportunity to meet wonderful people and find people I connect with. I’m very grateful for everyone I have met, and I look forward to connecting and meeting even more people as I progress through college. The nervousness about making friends was greatly reduced knowing I had this community behind me. I of course want to continue in Humanities Scholars next year, and am looking forward to meeting more people and expanding my perspectives through continuing to participate in the events.

Being on a diverse college campus, aspects of the humanities are all around us. Passing people of different heritage, and interacting with people from different backgrounds expands our understanding of culture and each other. Every day experiences like sitting in the union studying, I will hear strangers speak a different language with one another, which I can sometimes recognize and sometimes cannot, broaden our perspectives. One specific humanities experience I remember from this week is learning about Appalachian dance in my Introduction to Folklore class. Dance is very cultural, it carries meaning and a sense of identity with it. It is also simultaneously art, and personal expression. Hearing about the history of dance and the development of Appalachian step dance, tap dance, clogging, and other rhythmic dances, opened my eyes up to a new culture and new art form that I never really knew much about. Having new experiences through the humanities expands our knowledge about each other and ourselves.