Personally, I believe that the G.O.A.L.S. that have been outlined in the Honors & Scholars program at Ohio State help to push students to improve in more ways than just the five outlined in the acronym. The G.O.A.L.S. encourage students to become more globally aware, to pursue their own original inquiries, to achieve great things from both an academic and leadership standpoint, and to engage in service both on and off campus. Yet, in striving to meet these standards, I feel as though students accomplish move more than these five things. I believe that while engaging with the G.O.A.L.S. students also gain a certain confidence in themselves and their abilities, as well as provide an opportunity to build bonds with other students who are often different from themselves and those who they most often spend time with. By being involved in the Honor & Scholars program, and working closely with the G.O.A.L.S. I feel as though I have developed a number of skills that will help me in my professional future.

Ever since the beginning of my time as a Scholars student, two of the G.O.A.L.S. have always stood out to me, Global Awareness and Leadership Development. While I acknowledged the fact that all of the G.O.A.L.S. were useful to me and would help me to develop crucial skills, those two remained the ones that I was most interested in. I believe my interest in Global Awareness stems from the fact that my family vacations almost every year, and I have been lucky enough to see and experience things that many people my age have not. I am also lucky for the fact that when we do visit these places, we do not just sit around the place we are staying, we venture out in the nearby cities to try and get an appreciation for the area we are in. This has been most crucial whenever we visit cities outside of the United States, because I have seen that countries like Mexico and the Dominican Republic are more than just resorts and beaches, but rather places with a rich histories and a dedication to culture which impacts their everyday lives. Through the small peek I have had into what life is like in the rest of the world, I have developed a curiosity as to how other cultures and societies live, and thus my interest in Global Awareness has only increased as time has passed.

Though my interest in Global Awareness has been in the making for years, it wasn’t until much more recently that I began to notice the importance and relevance of Leadership Development in my life. Throughout my time in grade school, and even through most of high school, I was extremely quiet. Almost every year in at least one of my classes I would get knocked off points for lack of participation, or I would have teachers tell my parents that I seemed to know all the material, but I just needed to speak up more in class. Finally, in my junior year of high school I got my first taste of leadership. That year, I was cast as a lead role in my school’s spring musical and faced a new kind of responsibility, one that I fell in love with. I liked having the opportunity to inspire others and help push them to be their best, and this feeling motivated me to become the band secretary and a dance captain of the marching band. Though speaking up is still something I have trouble with sometimes, I love that the importance of Leadership Development in the Honors & Scholars program is helping me to overcome that and become a strong and inspiring leader.

In the future I feel as though I also believe that Global Awareness and Leadership Development will be the most relevant G.O.A.L.S. in my career. Someday, I hope to not only display my technical skills in my job, but also the skills that I have developed socially, and I feel as though being aware of the rest of the world along with possessing the qualities of a good leader will help me to do this. Since the rest of the world has always fascinated me, I am extremely motivated to strive for a job where I will get to travel, but I know that I will not get to this job easily. Traveling for work is not something done by most, and it is frequently delegated to those in higher positions of power in a company, thus why my leadership skills have become extremely important to me. I strongly hope that my time in Scholars program will help me to develop the global awareness and leadership skills I will need professional, because I know that my ambitions are lofty and will take a while to achieve, but I am willing to work hard to meets the goals that I have set for myself in my career.