- Concept: A reflection on your first year at The Ohio State University and the things you learned both inside and outside the classroom during the year.
- Requirements: In at least 500 words, cover the following areas:
- Something you learned in a class that impacted you
- Something you learned outside the classroom
- Something you learned about yourself throughout the year/how you changed as a person
- A favorite memory from the past year
- What you are looking forward to next year
- Post your Review on your ePortfolio and then submit the link to your Review on Carmen.
I cannot put a definitive label on what I learned in class that impacted me the most. I appreciated all of the things I learned this year, which encompassed various fields of study from history, to languages, to calculus. Probably, the most important thing, or things, that I learned this year in class were my professors. Especially during my second semester, I was able to create better and deeper relationships with my professors, and I feel like I distinguished myself as a student and made real connections. My change in major was the reason why I was able to flourish my second semester. I had begun to feel more comfortable in what I was learning, things that challenged me but also played to my strengths, and the smaller class sizes compared to last semester helped.
The most important thing that I learned outside of the classroom was my epiphany that I am not a sciences major. I partly learned this in the classroom when I felt out of my element in my science and calculus classes. However, this realization came from talking to my friends and family and evaluating what I’m passionate about. Yes, this self reflection was caused by my classes; however, the realization wasn’t based on class material. What’s the realization? Well as stated before, I’m not meant to be a sciences major. I think they are fascinating, but that is not my strength, and if I want to have a successful career during and after college, I must follow what I’m good at and passionate about. This came to me in the form of me realizing that my career goal is international law. With international law, I can travel and make an impact during my career, and I can also study what I’m passionate about during undergrad: languages and history.
Yes, as I stated before, one thing I learned about myself was what I’m actually good at and what I’m passionate about. At the beginning of the year, I had this faulty notion that I was going to be a doctor, but that’s not me, and it was a goal perpetuate by societal belittlement of the fields that I wanted to study. I realized that people viewing me as smart based on having a science major wasn’t important to me, and what was actually important to me was my happiness in what I was pursuing.
My favorite memories from last year may appear very boring, but they meant a lot to me. The memories that I cherish mostly consist of me getting a meal with my friends and then watching a movie. Not very exciting, but these were moments when we could relax, forget about school, actually talk, and truly just enjoy ourselves. A tradition that I loved that was sadly cut short was on Friday’s I would get Chipotle with one of my roommates, and then after one of my other roommates finished with work, we would all come together and watch a movie. Kids from my floor would join, ad other girls from my room as well. It was just very special, because the movies we watched were always one of our personal favorite, so through watching together, we learned about one another.
Next year, I’m mostly looking forward to my classes and seeing my friends again. I will be taking Arabic and Portuguese for the first time, so I’m very excited to learn two new languages. Also, I will continue taking French and Spanish classes, which are two languages I already love. And finally, I will be taking two history classes, one about African history after decolonization and the other about Mexican history. These two topics are things that I’m very excited to learn about, because in the United States, we only really learn the history of the United States and Western Europe.