Wait, that means I’m going to be a senior…

Well, that wraps up another year. A short list of things that happened this year:

  1. Survived another year of 18 credit hours
  2. Practiced 100+ hours of case interviewing, ultimately landing my dream internship at McKinsey
  3. Helped save people $16k on fresh produce with Best Food Forward
  4. Began the creation of the BUCC Resource Network
  5. Vacationed in the Caribbean
  6. Consulted for a local business on expansion plans
  7. And, of course, visited the Tesla showroom an unreasonable number of times

I will just kind of bounce around from topic to topic in free form, so let’s see how this goes.

Why 100 hours of practice? Simple. McKinsey has the most inspiring people working for it. The consultants have that certain spark of life about them. They aren’t just going to work- they’re coming to make a difference and to leave things far better than they used to be. They are there to grow the client, and grow themselves personally and professionally. I love striving for something greater than simply the task at hand, and by entering the GEM (global energy and materials) practice I hope to make a difference for these companies that are so pivotal to the success of generations to come.

For Best Food Forward, we rolled out custom packages and automated ordering this semester, which I believe will be critical to the long term success of the organization. These things were brutal undertakings for the logistics committee, and the roll out of these initiatives was not as smooth as we would’ve hoped. That said, this is all part of a learning and growing process and we’re excited to announce our new locations that will be opening in the fall. But you’ll have to wait a few months for that!

$12 from BFF, compared to $23 at the store. Not bad!

 

Lastly is the BUCC Resource Network (BRN). Continuous improvement and learning is critical to any consulting firm. After all, why start at square 1 if you don’t have to? The BRN is this medium for continuous improvement. It contains simple things like “How to write a marketing plan” and then dives deeper to include public as well as library exclusive databases that can be used to augment your research process. Connecting knowledge to resources is how we’re going to “Establish Institutional Excellence.” BUCC is one of the best orgs at all of Ohio State- and it’s potential for expansion and improvement is unprecedented. Very excited looking forward to see what BUCC is able to accomplish.

A Glance in the Rear View Mirror

This year has been the most challenging year academically of my life so far. I spent way more time on school work than I had in the past, and the result was that I have learned far more than I had previously. Being able to push ourselves is one of the greatest opportunities in life, although at times it feels like the exact opposite. I am abundantly grateful to have had these experiences this past year, and I know that the things I have learned, both academically and about myself, will be foundational to my success as I move forward.

1st Semester:

LeaderShape: Who said leading can’t be fun?

            The year started out on a few awesome notes. For the week leading up to the fall semester, I had the privilege of attending LeaderShape. This camp brought in some of the best leaders from Ohio State, with the purpose of creating purpose driven leadership. Their big motto is, “To lead, live.” All of our leadership starts in first being true to ourselves. So in order to have purpose driven leadership, we have to live a purpose driven life. A large chunk of this week was spent exploring who we were on base levels. It was an absolutely incredible experience and between meeting amazing people, learning more about myself, and being pushed to understand how I can change the world for the better, I was excited to get into the semester and embrace its difficulty.

Honors and Scholars Launch, featuring President Drake, Dean Carlson, Dr. Van Woerkom, and fellow excited undergrads

The first week of school, myself and two other Eminence Fellows, Abd Traboulsi and Jacob Enders, spoke at the Honors and Scholars Launch. We each spoke on a specific topic, and my topic was Global Awareness. How can we utilize Honors and Scholars in order to become ‘global citizens’? And in fact, what does ‘global citizenship’ mean? My internship in Germany and the travel that I was able to do as a result of that allowed for relatable experiences as I spoke to 2700 eager freshmen about this very complex and exciting topic. So many people have inspired me and pushed me during my journey, and I am thankful to have the opportunity to pass that on to the many people who need it after me.

Once the academic portion of the school year began, things became far less picture worthy. 15 of my 18 credits were honors engineering, so I knew this was going to be a wild ride. The most important take away from the semester itself was on a personal level: I knew I could genuinely work hard. I was able to learn a variety of coding languages, and my physics and calculus skills progressed exponentially. I was able to maintain a high GPA, which in the face of other organization commitments was very rewarding. My main outside commitments for this semester included Best Food Forward, The Eminence Fellows Leadership Council, and the Sustainability Innovation Virtual Lab (SVIL). In fact, here’s an article that was written about out SIVL project: https://senr.osu.edu/news/sustainability-innovation-virtual-lab-launches-first-project

2nd Semester:

Beautiful view at 6000 feet

After a tough first semester, winter break was a very nice relief. My family went to Los Angeles for a little over a week, which is where my sister lives. This was probably the best vacation I’ve ever had, and we were able to do so many awesome things, like hiking up this mountain in the afternoon (this is actually on top of an old missile silo).

What is functionality without style?

As the academic portion of the semester began, I once again knew it would be quite a challenge. This semester centered around a few things outside the immediate classroom. The first was the robot competition, where engineering students had to build autonomous electric vehicles (AEVs) to complete a course that had different tasks. The time commitment to robot is similar to that of a part time job, if not more. While this was a massive time commitment, it was also a very rewarding experience. Beyond being able to efficiently complete the course, our robot also came in second for the “hottest robot” award. I was in charge of construction and CAD, but admittedly I didn’t do the beautiful decorating.

Our first bulk buy, ft. the processing crew. By the end of the semester, we were ordering 382% more produce!

Best Food Forward (BFF) was my other primary activity, and perhaps the most rewarding experience I’ve had at Ohio State. This semester was the first time our wholesale bulk buying model was in action, after over 1.5 years of planning. The result? We were able to save members $3802 through 5 bulk buys, which represents an average cost savings of 55% compared to local grocers. People pre-pay for the bags of produce (separate bags for cooking or dorm focus), and the come on Saturday mornings to pick them up. Even more exciting is that BFF is working to become an independent non-profit, and with this status we have some aggressive expansion plans. Stay tuned!

This year has been incredible, and I can’t wait to begin the summer. I am very excited to be working at Honda of America, where my role will be to work on a team that assesses supplier sustainability.

A Little About Me

I’m Mark Dickerhoof, and I aspire to move the world forward towards a more sustainable future. I am studying Industrial and Systems Engineering as an Eminence Fellow and Stamps Scholar, and I believe that manufacturing and engineering can influence humanity in tremendous ways. I had an internship in Germany this past summer working at Media-Saturn’s International Headquarters as part of the e-business team. Working alongside German colleagues, we tracked all of the touch-points that the company had with their customers and how technology could accentuate these touch-points. We also performed a benchmark analysis of industry and non-industry competitors, with a focus on their use of technology in the retail space. I am currently working on a consulting project through the Sustainable Innovation Virtual Lab (SIVL), which is an initiative that I helped Dr. Neil Drobny bring to reality. SIVL provides multidisciplinary services to companies in and around Central Ohio who are looking to become more sustainable, but who lack the resources within their own company to do so.

Enjoying the Alps in Salzburg, Austria

Enjoying the Alps in Salzburg, Austria

The project I am currently working on for SIVL is a Life Cycle Analysis for a large corporation who is considering several sustainability options. A plug and play model is being created for this project using EcoFlow software. When I’m not involved in academic pursuits, I love enjoying nature through hiking, mountain biking, and kayaking. In fact, I love it so much that I think future generations should be able to enjoy it too, which was the initial spark for my sustainability interests.