During my second year at Ohio State and in International Affairs Scholars, I worked on a project to present at a symposium at the end of the year. The first of its kind in the program, it was a way for those of us involved in the scholars program to invest time and energy outside of our classes working towards something of substance that we would then get to display and discuss with our peers.

Presented April 5, 2017

The goal for this project  was to improve my conversational language skills. Through this project, I was able to watch myself improve with time. Not only communication and understanding, but my confidence in speaking also grew as weeks passed, and it was noticed by the speaking partners I had since the beginning of autumn semester. 

Thanks to this project, I was able to put together a presentation and also motivate myself to devote more time in my free time to language study, as I have now seen firsthand the outcomes.

Proposal

As a second year on campus at Ohio State, I had the opportunity to participate in the Second-year Transformational Experience Program. Through this program, I was able to build a proposal to aid in funding my project. Also by participating in this program, I was able to meet and develop a relationship with a faculty member at Ohio State, as she was my mentor and aided me in developing my proposal.

The project I was working towards this year was a study abroad to Dresden, Germany. I will be attending Goethe Institute for two months, during which, I will be studying German in a formal class setting as well as in an immersive context. I hope to drastically improve my language skills during these two months, and the grant through STEP will help me to finance this extraordinary learning opportunity. By the end of this study abroad experience, I will have finished my German minor, or begun working towards a second major in German studies.

I went to the 3rd annual student peace conference on April 14, 2016. I was invited to attend by the professor of my Introduction to Peace Studies class, Dr. John Carlarne. The speakers I had the pleasure to listen to were Dr. Danielle Poe and Dr. Craig Hovey. I was most interested in Dr. Poe’s presentation, as she spoke about the different ways in which we can identify and respond to aggression and use tools to spread an interest in peace amongst our peers.

Her lecture introduced me to new ways to understand the emotions involved in verbal conflict. I began to understand parts of my own life in new way that I had not considered before, and then I learned how to deal with these things. I am so glad I went to this conference because it was eye-opening for me to see how little I knew about my own life and how seemingly insignificant things were perpetuating prejudice and stereotypes. Things that I could change within myself and in the people around me.

Daphne, Spring 2016

I am a member of a club on campus called 4 Paws for Ability. It is an organization based in Xenia, Ohio and their goal is to train service dogs generally for disabled children who need them. They send puppies first to prisoners to help rehabilitate them and for them to give the puppies basic training. Then the puppies are given to college students who must go through a five hour training class. They are taken to every class and event that the student goes to in order for the puppy to be socialized and used to busy surroundings. The dog must also interact with children five or more times a week since most of the dogs are going to work with children and these encounters are recorded. They are kept on campus for one semester before going into official service dog training.

This is Daphne. I worked with her the second semester of my first year at OSU and although she was difficult at times, I wouldn’t give up that experience for anything. It was rewarding to know that after the semester was over, I had participated in helping a kid get the service dog that they needed.

The Official Site for 4 Paws for Ability

Full Presentation

Our Millennium Goal was universal access to education. We decided to focus on Southeast Asia in particular, the changes made to the region, and the effectiveness of those changes on the rate of completion of higher levels of education.

My focus was on the current challenges facing the region preventing accessible education to the children who need it. I new beforehand that poverty and funding issues were going to be some main points, and wasn’t surprised that gender equality was an issue in the education systems across the globe. I was not expecting the clarity of the goal to be an issue; to me, it was exactly what it sounded like: primary school for all. I was also not expecting the availability and adaptability of teachers to be a problem, but really, a teacher teaches for decades, and if they aren’t keeping up with curriculum in places that are less strict/standardized then their students begin to suffer.

Floor Dinner Oct 2, 2015

This is a picture of a floor dinner that I helped put together with two friends of mine. We really wanted to have a “Family Dinner” with anyone in out hall who wanted to participate. We didn’t have any funds so we had to pool together to buy the food supplies we needed and had everyone who was able help us to shop and cook. The meal was a combination of efforts from everyone invited.

Perhaps the most memorable part was actually putting the meal together, rather than eating it. The teamwork involved to make the sheer amount needed was a spectacular feat in itself. There were a few disagreements when we were getting pressed for time with the kitchen, but everything worked out in the end and the meal was delicious. The entire event definitely helped build the community feeling in our hall.