My artifact for this semester is a new experience I have had here at Ohio State.

This year I decided to branch out by joining Off the Lake Productions at Ohio State. I found out about OTL through several Mounties who are current and former members of the organization. In just the first two months of being in the stage crew for our upcoming musical I have made many new friends and had the opportunity to spend time with different kinds of people than I’m used to in my engineering classes. Joining this student organization has been a really enriching experience for me as a student, giving me a new community to be a part of.

Being a part of such an active organization has forced me to learn some new lessons in balancing school work and social life. In the past I have often put my school work ahead of my social life. As a result I have gotten very good grades my first three semesters of college but not as much social interaction as is probably healthy. An example of this lesson is in the past set building dinners the crew has after each build. Our set builds get done at 10 pm and often a big group goes to Sloopy’s afterwards. At first I never went to these dinners and instead returned to my dorm to do school work or go to bed. Eventually I found that the fun I had getting to spend time with my friends for an hour or two each week at Sloopy’s out weighed the consequences of starting my homework or getting to bed a bit later.  In fact just two weeks ago I went out with the crew instead of reviewing for a midterm I had the next morning and I ended up getting a 99  on the midterm and I bet I wouldn’t have done as well if I hadn’t gotten to relax and spend time with friends that night.

This is a picture of me from when I got to spend some time going door to door to get out the vote. Citizenship is very important to me and it felt good to do something that I felt was worthwhile. The best part of the experience was going to south columbus and seeing that part of the city, I am not from Ohio so it was a good experience to get to know the area. I also got to meet people from all over the country who had come to volunteer in Ohio, including a retired couple from southern california who I drove me back to campus one day.

This is a can of Monster. I use this image to describe a recent experience in which I learned about the importance of time management. It’s a long story but the moral is simple and should be easy to follow: Monster should be consumed for fun, not function. It wasn’t until I looked in the mirror at 3 am in the bathroom at Hitchcock hall and noticed how my face had changed shape that I realized I was losing weight at college not from a workout routine ( I go to the gym once every never) but from not taking care of myself, staying up to late and sleeping to little. Thankfully I have recognized this pattern in only the second month of my college education and hopefully the lessons I have learned in time management will not leave me before I get my degree.

[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 is a reflective description of the artifact that attempts to communicate its significance.  For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]