On December 4, 2019, Om, Ben, Kani and I took a short trip down to the Smith-Steeb basement kitchen for a late night breakfast with Chef Steven. There was a wide variety of breakfast food, including eggs, bacon, grapes, and orange juice. After snacking on a lot of grapes, me and other international affairs members made funny memories. I liked being able to connect with other members I have not even met before. This event was also during finals week, so I was already stressed out to the max. However, spending time with my friends, old and new, made the week much more bearable. Although this event did not have much to do with international affairs, I am glad I went and made friends in other scholars programs as well. It reminded me of the cookout in the beginning of the year, and I prefer going to social events like these to interact with other scholars members. I thought this was only going to be an international affairs event, but when I showed up, the line was really long. Thankfully I was able to make friends with the Politic, Society and Law scholars around me. It was nice to see how tight the bond is between multiple scholars groups, and I cant wait for another social like this.

I attended the showing of the documentary “13th” on November 21st which was held in the glass classroom on the first floor of Smith-Steeb. This event falls under the campus category. Throughout the showing of the documentary I learned so much about inequality and the specific tactics people with power used to bring down people of color and place a terrible label on their race. I learned about how even after slavery was ended, crime rates started to rise even more. The US holds only 5% of the worlds population however it has 25% of the worlds prisoners (about 2.3 million people). This documentary talked about many things that play a huge aspect in the topic of International Affairs. From watching this document I gained plenty of knowledge academically and personally.  Watching this documentary opened my eyes significantly, as before I had known about all of this however I did not know all the true facts behind the hate against the people of color. It was absurd to me how these people that were put in power placed laws that indirectly affected people of color. They tried to hide the fact that they were degrading the people of color and it baffles me that they did this. I find it so frustrating that racism and discrimination to this extreme had even happened and its very upsetting that still today, things like this are still continuing to happen.

I attended the Zoo Lights event on November 15th from 4 – 8 pm that was held at the Columbus Zoo which is about 30 minutes from campus. This event falls under the social category. Throughout this event, I was with a group of friends just walking around the zoo looking at the light display they had put up. However, this event has a direct correlation to International Affairs because the Columbus Zoo is organized into different sections and each section was a different continent. Because of the way the zoo is organized, we were able to learn a lot about where each animal is from and much more. As we were walking through the zoo I came to a realization of something very sad and the more I thought about it the more I was affected personally. I kept looking at all the animals and almost all of them were just laying in the same spot with their eyes open in misery. I started thinking about how sad it was that these animals are caged into this small area were they just lay or roam around every single day. And when comparing it to their actual habitats where they roam freely, it is hard for me to believe that they aren’t suffering in these small spaces. One question that I have for all zoos around the world is: Why do we cage in all these animals for our entertainment? In a way, a zoo is basically a prison for animals. We seem to put aside the mental states of animals because it’s something a lot of people don’t think about. Animals are just like humans. Being put into a small area everyday of our life, I’m sure everyone would agree, would be terrible for us, and I think we should think the same way for these zoo animals.

I attended the showing of the “American Factory” documentary that was supposed to be held in the Smith side basement on Sunday, October 20th from 8-10 pm. However the sound on the TV was not working so a group of us decided to come up to the 8th floor common area and set up a projector onto the wall. Unfortunately, this did not work either so we decided to bring a TV out that had a better speaker.

Once we started the movie, I noticed that in the beginning the movie was mainly focused on the Chinese workers interacting and trying to adapt with the Americans and trying to find a middle ground between the two. The interactions between two different countries and their lifestyles allow this movie to relate to International Affairs. Also, throughout the showing, the movie was honed in on the chairman of Fuyao, Cao Dewang, and how he was trying to tweak a lot of the aspects of the recently reopened factory. It is clear that the Chinese work methods are a lot different than American ways because Cao Dewang never had to deal with things such as worker pushback, meaning that he couldn’t just demand for something to happen and it happens immediately.

By watching this documentary I learned how difficult it is to join a workforce that has people from two different countries interacting. It sounds like a spectacular idea, creating more jobs for people, however it may not always be as easy as it sounds.

I attended the Global Engagement Night – Fashion Around the World event on Tuesday, October 8th from 6 – 7 pm that was held at the Enarson Classroom building. This event falls under the campus category. During this event, I learned about many different styles of fashion from countries around the world and how those specific styles define their identities. This event directly relates to International Affairs because we were exposed to international fashion trends and places such as fashion capitals like Milan. In addition to that, I also got to learn about fashion trends going around in my own community and what other students opinions were on these fashion trends. As they were showing pictures of different trendy styles, I noticed the majority of people at the event would either agree that it was a good trend or a bad trend. However, for a few of them, I realized I was the outlier, liking certain trends that the majority of the people there disliked. Personally from this event I learned how different styles of fashion can mean many different things. People express their identities through fashion and maybe how they are feeling a certain day can determine what clothes they wear for that day.

I attended the Navigating Job Fairs & Landing an International Internship event on September 9th that was held in the glass classroom on the main floor of Smith Steeb. This event falls under the professional development category. This event relates to International Affairs in many ways because the panel was about internships around the world and how it is a great way to meet new people of different backgrounds while building on your future career path. In this panel, there were four students who shared their own experiences with international internships. After listening to what they had to say about their own experiences at internships, it’s pushed me to learn more about internships and do my own research on them. I’ve always been interested in going to France because I have taken 7 years of French, and I have done a lot of research looking at different internships in France. However, I am not only limiting myself to internships in France because I learned that doing internships in a different country does not mean you have to be able to speak the native language of that country. One of the students on the panel did an internship in Portugal and she told us that most of the people in the internship spoke to each other in English. Overall, this event had a positive impact on me because I learned a lot about what it is like working in a different country.

I attended the Cookout Event that was held on August 29th at the Park Stradley/Smith Steeb lawn. This event falls under the social category. Throughout the event, I had the pleasure of hanging out with my friends from International Affairs, while also meeting new people from different scholars programs. I’m not a very outgoing person when it comes to big groups, but when I saw my friends going around and talking to new people, I felt it was best if I took a step out of my comfort zone and talk to these people as well. When I first moved in, I felt like it would be hard to meet new people and find people that had similar interests as me, but this event definitely showed me otherwise. Apart from the kids I met from my program in the days coming up to this event, I met several people from other programs at the cookout who seemed to share similar ideas as me and I realized that I was able to speak my mind here without getting any hate or backlash, which was something I always worried about before I came here. This event is significant to International Affairs as it allowed me to communicate to many different people within a large diverse community. Communication is a big part of International Affairs so the cookout was a great way to build on my interpersonal skills.

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