As a student in the Honors Program at OSU, it is my duty to uphold the Honors G.O.A.L.S. These “G.O.A.L.S.” refer to five key areas of personal development, which include Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement. I cannot believe that in only a month, my time at OSU will be halfway complete. I have made significant strides as a sophomore in my exploration of the Honors G.O.A.L.S., and will now review my progress, as well as suggest ideas to further my experience.
So far, one thing I have done to develop my Global Awareness within OSU is to take coursework that shifts my focus to things abroad, such as my Post Conflict Reconstruction class (PolitSc 3225) which focused on developing economies and governments after civil wars in Africa and Central America and my History of Mexico class (Hist 3106) which focused on Mexico and the 19th and 20th centuries. Thankfully, I was able to take Spanish 3 a semester prior to taking my History of Mexico class, which helped me contextualize some of Mexican History in respect to Mexico, today. Currently I have actively been looking to study abroad at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands through STEP, however that plan is currently on hold until further notice. I hope to look towards the future with hope to look at study abroad as an option.
A way to look at my collegiate experiences with Original Inquiry are the various projects I am involved with. I have been working with a research team since spring semester of 2020, looking into the opinions behind gun violence and their shifting polarization within the media. The study covers various media types (TV, radio, etc.) as well as sources (MSNBC, CNN, Fox) from about 2000 onwards. Additionally, I will soon be working on another research program with the same team of researchers that covers the topic of sexual harassment and the way that news outlets handle covering sexual harassment scandals. This experience has helped me learn more about the coding language R, as well as how it is used in a more professional research capacity. Secondly, through my higher level coursework I have been able to experience Original Inquiry from a first hand perspective– I experience it when I am looking for primary sources, utilizing the library system, and ultimately formulating a thesis and paper that explains my reasoning. Because the majority of my classes require term papers as final projects, I have been able to fine-tune my personal research process, so much so that I am additionally intending to pursue a senior-year undergraduate honors research thesis within my History major.
My Honors Contract demonstrates a level of commitment to Academic Enrichment because it shows my continued commitment to taking advanced coursework that will intellectually push me as a student. This is evident in my choice of General Education courses, with almost all courses having Honors distinction (Anthrop 2200H, Geog 1900H, English 2260H, and Art 2502E). I made an active effort to choose classes with the Honors distinction to push myself, and to think more deeply about the subject it covered, oftentimes staying late to have discussions with professors about class content or about outside ways to learn more about the topics covered. This commitment to higher level coursework is not only limited to that of GEs, however– I actively choose to take advanced coursework within my majors as well. Being a double major is difficult to begin with, so the temptation to take classes in which I was ensured an easy semester was high, but at every instance where I could, I took challenging classes, such as Honors Gun Politics, Honors Seminar on Modern U.S. History, Early Modern Political Thought (a 5000 level class), as well as Honors Supreme Court Decision Making. Within all of these classes, I have not only participated in class, but I have gone above and beyond in order to understand the content. My grades have reflected this commitment to excellence as well. I know that in the coming semesters that this commitment to academics will still shine through.
An activity that I have been involved in at OSU that has cultivated my Leadership Development is Trip Leading through the OSU Outdoor Adventure Center (OAC). I have been working and trip leading through the Outdoor Adventure Center since Fall of my Freshman Year, and since starting I have been able to lead various trips rock climbing at Red River Gorge in Kentucky, one of the most premier destinations for climbing on the East Coast. As a trip leader, my responsibilities are to plan meals for the group, to make decisions on the trip itinerary, and to keep professional staff informed through a Risk Management Plan that is created before the trip is to go out. Ultimately, through the trip leader program at the OAC I have been able to learn team building skills, decision making skills, as well as wilderness safety skills that have transferred over to my personal ability as a leader. I am additionally involved with the OSU Mountaineers, a student organization that is oriented towards getting students into the outdoors and experiencing nature while also respecting the land and who it once belonged to. Through this organization I have also been able to lead backpacking trips to as close as Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and as far away as Colorado and Utah. With the Mountaineers, trip leading also looks very similar to trip leading through the OAC, however with the Mountaineers there are far less established resources and places to reach out to, so I also learned to navigate personally contacting parks offices or campground managers for my potential trip. It has been through these experiences in leadership that I have realized my passion for the outdoors, something that greatly influenced my dream career goal of becoming an Environmental Lawyer in the American northwest. In the semesters to come, I hope that I will be able to lead more trips about the outdoors, especially trips that are catered towards people who have systematically been kept away from the outdoors.
As someone who is very involved within a small outdoorsy niche, I have been extremely fortunate to be able to spend time engaging with the communities around me, which is why I didn’t find it hard to participate in Service Engagement while at OSU. Opportunities to help others become engaged in the outdoors, a passion of mine, have come often in the form of being able to volunteer my time to the outdoor communities that have for so long offered me a place to recreate and to have fun. I was able to participate in Johnny and Alex Trail Day, a day where me and the group I was in helped provide trail maintenance to a local climbing crag at Red River Gorge. Additionally, at the Outdoor Adventure Center I volunteered my time to help belay inner-city kids who were able to climb for the first time. Through the trips program at the OAC, I have also been fortunate enough to hear from Elise Keaton, an activist against Mountaintop Removal in West Virginia. Most recently, I have been able to organize a Mountaineers trip where fellow participants and I worked together to construct a 1.5 mile long ‘sacrificial trail’ (A trail which ‘busts the crust’ in order to direct traffic through one small trail rather than busting all of the crust.) in Utah’s Goblin Valley State Park. I was recently elected as the Volunteer Coordinator for the OSU Mountaineers club, however with the pandemic the scope of the position this year is somewhat limited so far. Hopefully in the future through the Mountaineers I will be able to help host more inner-city kids and to teach them the fundamentals of climbing in a safe environment, even in the midst of the COVID pandemic.