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Overall, my first year at Ohio State was better than I ever could have expected. I feel like I’ve grown so much over the course of just this first year, and I can’t wait to see what else is in store for me. I learned both in the classroom and outside of the classroom, and there’s so much more that I can learn as the years progress. My passion for environmental justice has grown as I have taken classes focusing on sociology through an environmental perspective. While I knew about these issues beforehand, my classes have taught me about specific communities and global environmental problems with which I was unfamiliar before coming to college. One thing that impacted me in one of my classes was being able to read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring cover to cover for the first time. Learning about the history of environmental activism has further inspired me to continue on my path of social justice and environmental activist work.

Outside of the classroom, I learned over and over again how amazing it can be to ask my teachers and peers for help. Attending office hours, scheduling appointments and study sessions, and simply talking with my professors and friends in my classes has let me get so much more out of my education than I ever did in high school. I have also learned that, when I have the opportunity, I am a major extrovert. Studying in groups and finding excuses to visit my friends has been one of the best parts of learning in college so far. 

In high school, I was always afraid of committing to most leadership positions. Now, I am part of the Leadership Council for my scholars program, and, once I get back to campus, I’ll be serving as a community manager for my dining services operation! I have learned that I love to offer advice and plan events. I also love finding creative ways to keep people feeling connected. I think that I have a lot of potential as a leader, and I am so glad that being in college has made me confident enough to realize this! College has allowed me to branch out and make friends who I never would have reached out to in high school, and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to meet some of these great people.

My favorite memory from this year was being able to go to the Smoky Mountains with some of these new friends. Being on this trip, spending time hiking, playing camp games, and learning what music meant the most to everyone, confirmed what I already knew: that the friends I made in my first year of college are the people I want to spend the rest of my life with. Even just the drive to Tennessee brought me closer to all of them, and I am so excited to take even more trips with the people I was lucky to have as roommates this year.

Next year’s classes can only be more exciting. With all of my GEs out of the way, I’ll be starting to work towards my main career goals in aquatic science classes. And, I’ll be back to the job that I love, doing even more to help the student community.

Despite the quarantine, I wouldn’t trade this year for anything. As I write this, I’m listening to the Grateful Dead, and I would tend to agree with Jerry on this point: What a long, strange trip it’s been. I’m looking forward to continuing that trip as soon as I can see all of my friends again, and as soon as I return to Ohio State. 

After taking the enneagram test, my responses corresponded with a type four personality, or The Individualist. At their best, the website says that type fours are creative, self-aware, sensitive to the needs of themselves and others, and emotionally resilient. At their worst, they may be narcissistic, hopeless, and self-destructive. Generally, they are a combination of these positive and negative qualities; they are empathetic, imaginative perfectionists with a tendency to think of themselves as both inherently unique and inherently flawed. I definitely see myself in some of the descriptions in the “Levels of Development” for this personality type. I think of myself as someone who tries their best to be compassionate, and can definitely see myself as a creative person at times. I also understand that I can tend towards self-consciousness and self-pity when things go wrong, so I can understand both the negative and positive sides of this personality type fitting me well. While I do not think of myself as so unique that other human beings are incapable of understanding me, I do tend to criticize myself–typically non-constructively–for my failures, and I can be judgmental of others when I feel they do not understand my point of view.

At this point, I see aspects of all of the development levels in my personality, not just the healthy, average, or unhealthy levels. In order to stay in the healthier levels, I need to work harder to be constructive in my self-criticism, and work hard to view myself and others in the same objective lens. I need to begin staying in touch with my feelings by opening up to others, and admitting when I could use help from my team. 

I can apply this knowledge at Ohio State by reaching out to teachers and classmates for support instead of assuming that I can figure things out on my own. At times, I can be too proud–or too frustrated–to ask questions, and that leads to easily avoidable struggles in classes I would otherwise enjoy. I can also set better schedules for myself so that my perfectionism does not lead to procrastination and anxiety about starting projects. Overall, this personality test has given me a deeper understanding of how to counteract some of my major flaws without harsh self-judgment.

For the rest of my Columbus Experiences over the course of this semester, I chose to select from a few different lists! The ones featured here are, in order, the Columbus Zoo (for Wild Lights), Fox in the Snow Cafe, Jeni’s Ice Cream, and Whit’s Frozen Custard. For two of these experiences, I went with the friends I’ve made in Columbus. For the other two, I took a friend from my home town with me to explore Columbus. All of these experiences were great, but it was especially fun to experience different parts of Columbus with different groups of friends.

I especially enjoyed going to the Columbus Zoo. I went for the first time with my mom a few weeks before going to Zoo Lights with my suite mates, and it was interesting to see the zoo from two different perspectives. My mom and I went in the morning, and we were able to see a lot of the animals out and about during the day. With my Columbus friends, I went at night, and the experience of walking around the zoo in the dark was totally different from the atmosphere during the day. While we saw some of the same animals–my favorites being the elephants and the manatees–we also had time to appreciate the general atmosphere of the zoo, with fun holiday music playing and big tumblers of hot chocolate (with free refills!) in our hands. I would definitely go back to the zoo again, especially since it is such a huge place that you’re bound to miss something when you go. It’s also possible that your next visit will let you see new animals–a new polar bear cub, in fact, has arrived since our last visit! So, I’ll definitely be going back as soon as possible.

I also really enjoyed Fox in the Snow Cafe. It was a little bit intimidating to order, since I’m not familiar with all of the different types of coffee that I could have gotten, but what I did order was delicious! I would like to branch out next time and order something I’m not familiar with, but this time, I was happy with a spiced apple cider–and a few sips of my partner’s chai latte. With places like cafes, I would always recommend going back whenever you can, and bringing lots of friends, so that you can start to try a little bit of everything! Places like this also have interesting seasonal drinks, and I am excited to see what the rest of winter has in store.

Jeni’s Ice Cream was the next stop, on the same day as Fox in the Snow. While I’ve been there many times in Chagrin Falls, it was fun to see the original store in Columbus! I would ABSOLUTELY recommend going there, and plan on going again as soon as the weather is warm enough to walk there.

Whit’s has become a pretty much bi-weekly outing for my friends. We all enjoy trying their different “Whitsers” and flavors of the week, and we all have our own favorite flavor now that we’ve been there so often. You could go every day of the week and always get something different, but once we found our favorites, we’ve tended to stick to the classics. I would definitely recommend it to a friend, but there’s one drawback: every time we’ve gone so far, we’ve gone in a car. Until we have our own cars on campus, going to Whit’s has a heftier price than just the ice cream–whether that’s an Uber or just the fossil fuel emissions we’ve used to get there. Still, we’ll definitely find ourselves going back soon.

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed exploring Columbus so far, and it’s exciting to know that as long as I’ve been here, and as much as I’ve done, there’s still so much left to do over the next few years of my life here. In any case, our To Do Lists have been a great introduction to the types of things Columbus has to offer!

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