Artifacts

Over the winter break of my freshman year I had the opportunity to go to Ecuador. Through a first year experience class on ‘Why We Travel’, a group of other students and I spent about 2 weeks In Ecuador. I had been to Canada in high school, but this was my first trip to a country much different than the United States, as well as with people I did not know well. I had gotten to know my peers during class, but on the trip, the change from 55 minutes once a week, to 24/7 for 2 weeks, turned those peers into my friends. Previous to this I had been nervous to try new things on my own, but trip had proven to me that there is a lot of value in jumping into the unknown and being independent, as well as outgoing to meet new people. While there, we spent time in Quito, Belle Vista Cloud Forest, and Baños. This study abroad immersed me in a new culture and language and was very eye opening. Meeting people who grew up very different from me, seeing beautiful nature and landscapes, experiencing such magnificent meals, and noticing day to day life of locals made me come back to my daily routine with a new lens. I found the importance of appreciating every moment, and wanted to take life a little slower than I had before. I am forever grateful for this experience, and for the people I met there and who I traveled with from OSU.

My first semester of sophomore year at OSU, I took cultural anthropology. The class taught us the traditional vocabulary and history, etc. But the most important take away from that class and the largest emphasis from the professor was how to look at the world through a different lens. One of the concepts taught was on social structure, how most of ‘reality’ is a cultural construction, and is filtered through our expectations of what is possible, right, or true (Wesch). One of the readings we had was about how different cultures view marriage and relationships, and was overall about how the idea of monogamy held in western culture is not universal. Seeing how normal something so different from my own culture is in other’s respective cultures really opened my eyes up to the idea that culture socially defines our own realities. There was also a story we had learned about a blind kid who had no limits to his expectations for himself and was able to use echolocation in a sense to ‘see’. The author focused on the concept that other’s expectations for blind or disabled people limit their realities to what they are actually capable of. This is another story that furthered my changed view on reality and allowed me to really see how my perception is crafted by my culture and society. This way of thinking like an anthropologist helps me break down limits and expectations I hold of the world and people, and allow me to be much more open minded in many different aspects in life.

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.

(Katie Jenkins, First Year, Chemical Engineering Major)

“Gwen is supposedly gonna be successful, and all my parents talk about is how successful Gwen and Maddison [her sisters] are gonna be. So I would like to be successful, but its mostly for myself, especially since i’m paying for everything, which is nice. I know I really like engineering, I found that out. But one of the reasons why I guess I went into it is cause it wont be hard to repay my debt after I get out of school. And Lindsay [her roommate] said something interesting, ‘A lot of people in our class aren’t really cut out for engineering, and they just want a job that will pay more, but they’re not really engineers’, which I thought that was interesting cause like that could’ve been me, but now I know I really like it and i’m not terrible at it. I knew I liked science and math, and I thought I liked science more coming into it, but now I realize I do like the math side a lot more that I thought, I guess I just didn’t really have good math experiences in high school. Im also pre-optometry, so if I don’t like engineering I can go into that, which I know ill like. Every career test I’ve taken has said doctor, but I just don’t see myself going to med school.”

My first week at Ohio State has been exciting, but also overwhelming. The new opportunities and new people are all very liberating; however, they are also intimidating. Because I’m not sure of my passions or career path, finding clubs and involvement opportunities can be confusing. One of the things I am most excited for is finding those passions and future goals. Not having the same schedule every day, unlike high school, is refreshing, but also confusing when I try to keep track of homework and assignments. As exciting and as new as college is, there are also aspects that I am nervous about this upcoming year. Balancing social life and academic responsibilities, I feel will be a struggle at first. With all the events happening at OSU every day, I know I will want to take part in them, but this past week I have been starting my assignments later than I have liked because of different social and welcome events. I want to work on knowing when I should study and when I can participate in those events. Another hurdle at OSU is putting myself out there and meeting new people. I feel like I am somewhat an introvert, so I have been consciously embracing the opportunities to meet new people. I participated in the OWL program, which I am grateful led me to meet some people in Baker East before official move in day. Joining people in the study rooms on my floor was intimidating early on, but as the week has gone by, it has been such a good way to get to know everyone on my floor. I feel more confident in my community here earlier than I thought I would. Being apart of Humanities Scholars also eases my mind about meeting people. Since there were all these welcome events this week, I met even more people, and everyone has been very nice and friendly. It comforts me knowing I have this consistent community at OSU. Being a student here still feels very surreal, but at the same time, OSU feels like home.

[Artifacts are the items you consider to be representative of your academic interests and achievements. For each entry, include both an artifact and a detailed annotation.  An annotation includes both a description of the artifact and a reflection on why it is important to you, what you learned, and what it means for your next steps.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]