This is a screenshot of me (top right) and Renee (middle) during our Zoom interview.
I met Renee Austin during one of our first all-PSL program zoom calls. In the original email that she and my other mentor, Clara Hach, sent me and my fellow mentees, her bio read “She (Renee) is a third-year Moving Image Production major. Renee likes watching movies, driving buses, and hiking.” After my recent interview with Renee, I am lucky to say I have been able to pick her brain and get to know her better as the driven and passionate mentor that I can look up to. Of course, when she is asked questions like “What’s your major?” or “Where are you from?”, Renee, like most students, is always prepared to rattle off her answers. However, when asked what her secret talent was, Renee let me in on the fact that she knows how to play bass, a fact in which we both considered to be an impressive skill to pull out of her back pocket. Your first instinct might tell you that, being a small-town girl (Renee is from Marietta, OH. A small town in Southwest Ohio that happens to be the oldest city in Ohio), Renee is still getting acquainted with some aspects of living in a big city, like finding her way around or taking public transportation, but you would be wrong. Not only does Renee take the buses, but she drives them too. One of her proudest accomplishments so far at Ohio State is receiving her CDL or Commercial Driver’s License. She began working for the COTA (Central Ohio Transit Authority) bus system during the first semester of her sophomore year, starting as a service member cleaning the buses at the end of each night. After about four months of training, she was able to start driving buses around campus. Her recent promotion to the supervisor of the service crew goes to show how Renee’s hard work and dedication to her commitments lead to her success in many areas. Aside from driving buses and being a member of PSL, Renee is a proud member of the Parks and Rec. club here at Ohio State. She explained to me that she thinks the club originally started as a fan club for the show Parks and Rec. but has since turned into an actual outdoors club. Renee is still very close with some of her peers in her PSL class and is good friends with my other PSL mentor Clara. Apart from them having PSL in common, they both also have never broken a bone. Renee’s fondest PSL memory is when the program held an election watch party in the law school building. Although she doesn’t remember which election they were watching, she remarked on the community aspect and irony of such a large group of her peers watching an election on a big screen as if it were an intense football game. As Renee let me in on some of her favorite memories and experiences from her time at OSU, she also left me with a piece of advice. To freshman, Renee suggests, “The biggest thing, especially this year, it’s obviously a little bit difficult this year, is just getting out and experiencing new things.” Some would argue that being from Ohio, Renee was born a Buckeye, but now, she is a true Buckeye through and through. There’s just one contradiction, her favorite color is blue.