As a freshman in college, I am perfectly aware that  I am approaching some of the four most formative years of my life. Quite literally, since the day I was born, this time of my life has been in the making. I see college as I time where I will discover who I truly am, being in a new, unfamiliar environment since the first time I was born. Yes, as a child I was taught dos and don’ts, rights and wrongs, and, of course, yes’s and no’s, but this is the time where I get to go out on my own and prove that all of those lessons were worth something. People constantly say that college will be the best four years of your life, but I prefer to believe that while these years will be great, the future is so unpredictable that I can not possibly name anything as “the best” quite yet. Though, after eighteen years of preparation, I can’t help but be excited to see what is to come into my life within the next four years.

My name is Taylor Hassel, and this year, I am beginning college at The Ohio State University as an Applied Mathematics major. This, too, has been in the making for quite some time. From Kindergarten all the way through the 8th grade, I thought I wanted to do something that would make me well known. I wanted to act, I wanted to be an artist, I wanted to be a chef, I wanted to have anything other than a “boring desk job”. Above all, I aspired to be different. I didn’t want to be just another face in the crowd for all my life, I wanted something about me to be unique, and the easiest way to do that seemed to be having an “out-of-the-box” career. It wasn’t until later that I discovered that it wasn’t how I spent my time working that made me unique, it was how I spent the rest of my life. Throughout all of the time before I learned this, my parents simply listened and planted the seed that maybe I should pursue something in science, math, or engineering, but it wasn’t until high school that I realized they were right.

My sophomore year of high school is when I finally started to take some much needed accelerated math classes. Granted, I had been a year ahead in math since eighth grade, but I still seemed to breeze through them without much effort. Sophomore year was different, though: in Honors Algebra 2 And Trigonometry (HAAT for short), I was no longer one of the top students. I struggled to grasp some of the concepts at first, and I remember being frustrated, and wondering whether I was really as smart as I had thought I was. Yet, I also remember my father telling me that at some point, math would get hard. I would question myself and my abilities, and I might even think that continuing in advanced math was not the right path for me. When that time arrived, I was distraught. I had thought maybe he was wrong, or that maybe I was different, but to my dismay, I was not. As hard as I tried, that class never seemed to become as simple as the other had been in the past, yet, some how that just made my desire to be successful even stronger.

After that year, I moved on to Honors Pre-Calculus, and AP Calculus and AP Statistics the year after that. Somehow, as the math classes grew harder, my love for math seemed to grow stronger. Each new problem was a puzzle to solve, and on some days I’d even find myself calling my math classes fun. When it came time to choose a major, that’s when things got tricky. I didn’t know whether to follow Statistics in Actuarial Science, Physics (which I considered to be just another math course) into Engineering, or Calculus in Mathematics. I was back and fourth between those options and even more for a significant amount of time when I came across the STEM Scholars Program at Ohio State. In this program, I knew I would be able to be around like-minded people who all had the same academic interests as myself. It seemed to be the perfect fit, because I could follow which ever path I wanted, and still manage not to lose the connections I enjoyed so much in the other fields. I find that even in my small dorm of four I have these connections. Though I decided to follow my passion for math, I know I still have connections to my love of science through my Molecular Genetics, Animal Science, and Neuroscience majoring roommates. All in all, I have been extremely lucky to be a part of the Stem Program and be in Applied Mathematics and can not wait to see where Ohio State will take me on this amazing journey.

According to the Strengths Finder 2.0 book, my top five strengths are Positivity, Includer, Futuristic, Maximizer, and Woo, and I couldn’t find these strengths to be more accurate. These strengths indicate a personality that is overflowing with a love and passion for people, success, and overall happiness, which I couldn’t agree with more. As someone described with Positivity, Includer, and Woo, I see in my day to day life an appreciation for the people around me, and a desire for them to enjoy their time with me as much as I enjoy my time with them. I truly enjoy developing an appreciation for other people and their lives and believe that it helps to enlighten me and alows me to learn from them. These three strengths, along with the Maximizer strength, motivate me to spend quality time with people and earn an appreciation for all of the things that they do, and try to help them make the best of all their abilities. As  a Maximizer and Includer, I really try to make everyone aware of all of the good they bring into friendships, projects, school, and just life in general, because I know that not everyone can easily see that in themselves. Overall, I try to use my strengths in my social life to make everyone feel happy, and to remind them how important they are.

I have also found many practical uses of my strengths in the world of academia. Being Futuristic helps me to motivate more towards my goals, and be able to focus on work in the time being, even though I won’t be able to see the benefits of it right away. I feel as though many college students find it challenging to focus because they only want to focus on the short term benefits rather than the long term benefits that studying and homework can provide. Because I am futuristic, I feel as though I can better combat this and create plans to help me study and get my homework done in a timely manner. Positivity also helps me a lot in the academic world, because I refuse to let one bad grade or experience bring me down, I instead focus on improving in that area, and doing better the next time. Once I finished my first midterm, I truly realized how different college is from high school, and needed to call upon my Positivity to help work through the situation and continue to improve in the class. Through these examples and more, I hope to utilize my strengths to the best of my ability in college to help me have a successful four years.

Once I graduate from college and start a career, I hope to utilize all of these strengths to the best of my ability in my workplace. Being an Includer and a Maximixer will hopefully be very useful because I hope to work a lot with other people in group tasks and projects in the professional life. I hope to make everyone feel as though they are being used to the best of their ability, rather than feeling as though they can not contribute properly because of their placement on the project. If I am able to avoid this, I feel as though I will be able to help motivate people, and help everyone use their best abilities to get the work done, and create a good product for my future company. I also believe that being Futuristic will also help in this sense to help communicate my vision of things to my coworkers so that we can all be on the same page. By being able to share my thoughts have have my coworkers share their thoughts, I feel as though we will be able to work together better and be more efficient. Finally, in the working world, I really hope to utilize Positivity and Woo to make my work environment a more fun and enjoyable place for me and everyone that I will work with, and create an overall better company for all who are employed there. In conclusion, I hope to use my strengths in the work place, as well as in school and in my everyday life to make each day more positive and enjoyable for all of those around me.