Diversity

Today, I attended a campus workshop focused on Diversity and Inclusion. The event was put on by DICE, and was focused on social identity and how that affects my life and worldview as well as that for others. I felt very uncomfortable going to the event since I knew that many of the topics going to be discussed in it might be controversial. This feeling was likely influenced by my own identities, specifically those that are white and male, since white males are often painted as the enemy to society. However, after going in and experiencing the workshop, I realized that those feelings I had going in were both valid and normal. Through this event, I learned many things about Ohio State–one of these things being that the DICE program exists. Also, I learned that with only 7 more DICE credits, I could earn a DICE certificate of completion which would be a very helpful thing to talk about during interviews if I am ever asked about diversity. I think that diversity and inclusion impacts everyone on a daily basis because it constantly affects our experiences. Personally, I think there is a good amount of focus on diversity here at Ohio State, but only for some areas. In fact, it seems like most colleges focus a really good amount on diversity of race, background, sexuality, gender, etc, but not at all on diversity of thought. Diversity is always a strength, but if you have a pool of 50,000 people who all look different, act different, and more but think the exact same way as one another, then that pool of people is not very diverse. I think that the way colleges today address diversity and inclusion is often politically biased; it ends up pushing one political worldview while shoving another down. This is not true in all cases, but it seems to be true for many and I feel like Ohio State and other colleges alike could really improve in presenting diversity and inclusion in a more unbiased manner. While at the meeting, I do feel like the presenter went very deep into the material, which was beneficial for both understanding and personal reflection. The group I was a part of helped me understand the material by providing valuable insight and viewpoints in discussion, and I feel that this helped me a lot with my own beliefs. Overall, I feel that this was a very positive experience.

 

STEM Campus Seminar

Tonight, I attended the 57th annual Alpheus Smith Lecture, where I listened to 1997 Nobel Laureate Dr. Steven Chu speak on the topic of “Climate Change and Innovative Paths to a Sustainable Future.” It was very inspiring to be listening to such an intelligent, experienced person speak in person, and I felt very excited to be in attendance. I went to this lecture with friends, which I feel definitely made the experience better for me than if I had gone alone. Being with friends allowed me to easily talk about different parts of the lecture for which I was confused, or parts where I had questions, and in general just opened a dialogue to further discuss the topic with each other. When I was in the lecture hall, I looked around and noticed that the contrast of ages within the room was very interesting. There were some undergraduates like myself, many graduate students, and many people of age, but few people of any age in between. Being one of the undergrads, which was the the smaller population in the room, made me feel a little bit intimidated as the lecture seemed to be aimed at those with higher education than myself. For the majority of the lecture, I was confused and did not quite understand the information and data being explained by Dr. Chu, but there were bits and pieces that I was able to pick up on which helped me get a general feel for the message that Dr. Chu was trying to convey. While I was there, I was able to talk to the people sitting beside me which definitely helped me understand certain points as well as appreciate the content more. Out of the content that I did understand, I learned that undoing the global temperature increase which has already would require a negative worldwide net carbon emission–in other words, undoing it is impossible at this point. Here is a photo of the lecture taking place!

Campus Resource

Earlier in the semester, I scheduled a one-on-one meeting with a personal coach through Ohio State’s Student Wellness Center. While there are several resources offered at the Student Wellness Center, I chose to take advantage of their Financial Education—mostly, I will admit, because my parents told me I had to. They explained to me that since I am now officially on my own, I must know how to manage my finances on my own—both intelligently and responsibly. Especially so since my attendance at Ohio State has required me to take out student loans. Upon their request, I ventured out to Ohio State University’s Student Wellness Center website to schedule an appointment with a personal financial coach. I was surprised to see how overwhelmingly popular this campus resource is—I had to schedule nearly 4 weeks out since there were no available time slots before then! The extremely long waitlist definitely discouraged me a little bit, but at the same time, I figured that the coaching must be worth the wait if that many people were in line. So, I scheduled the appointment and went on with the rest of my month.

Waiting four weeks for the appointment gave me a lot of time to consider what I hoped to experience through my visit and what questions I wanted to ask. I decided that my main goal was to talk about saving money and paying back loans since these two things are certainly fundamental to financial success as a college student. When I finally met with my Scarlet and Gray Financial Peer Coach for my hour-long session, I instantly felt as though I had made the right decision in waiting it out. I very quickly noticed my coach’s relatability, and her experience and expertise were impossible to miss. The beginning of the session consisted of questions aimed at getting to know me and my financial history. I explained to my coach that this beginning semester of college is the first time since I was 9 years old that I have not had a steady income flowing in, and I was worried about adjusting my spending habits so that I could save more money. I was able to ask my questions regarding loan repayment, savings accounts, money market investments, credit, and stocks. By the end of the appointment, we had crafted a detailed budgeting plan to help me stay in control of my finances along with a list of next steps for me to take to move towards my long-term financial goals.

After meeting with a personal financial peer coach through Ohio State’s Student Wellness Center, I would definitely say that I am much more financially literate. I have already taken some of the “next steps” determined in my appointment—I have begun repayment on my student loans, moved my sitting money into a higher interest rate savings account, invested a portion of money in some promising stocks, and created a weekly spending budget. There is definitely a multitude of fantastic campus resources at Ohio State University, but after my experiences with the Student Wellness Center, I would definitely recommend the Financial Education service through OSU’s Student Wellness Center for anyone looking to make the most out of their finances.

Here is a photo of me calculating how much to save this month to help me pay off my loans!

Attending a Student Organization on Campus

Today, I searched for and attended an Ohio State University student organization. There are over a thousand student organizations on OSU’s campus, so thankfully there is a helpful tool built into the Ohio State app which organizes all of the orgs into one place. I was able to search for organizations by keyword, for which I entered “engineer,” and quickly found several related orgs which I was able to sign up for, but I ended up landing on one specific organization that is not much related to my major: Ohio State’s Big Data and Analytics Association. I decided to attend a BDAA meeting because I am interested in learning more about what data analytics is.

Attending this very first meeting was somewhat intimidating because I went alone into a classroom full of data analytics majors while not knowing anything about data analytics myself. Thankfully, though, I was among several other new members who were attending BDAA for the first time due to the “Zillow Tech Talk” being hosted. Since the meeting was mainly a presentation by the real estate company Zillow, I even scored a free Zillow t-shirt just by showing up! The meeting ended up being extremely interesting as I got to learn about a lot of the techniques and algorithms underneath the hood of Zillow’s product. Here is an image I took as the program was just about to begin. Notice how crowded this room is!

Zillow beginning their Tech Talk for Ohio State’s Big Data and Analytics Association.

One thing I immediately noticed about BDAA was the student leaders’ professionalism and relevant experience. All of the leaders seemed to really know what they were talking about and knew exactly how to connect students to potential employers as well as educate them about topics relevant to their field. For example, in my conversations with the person sitting beside me at the meeting, I learned that last week’s BDAA meeting was an introduction to machine learning. Almost like a class outside of class, BDAA is designed to give students exposure to concepts they will need to learn and grasp in their upcoming years at Ohio State as well as in the industry. Overall, I was very impressed with the manner in which this student organization is run.

Attending this meeting opened my eyes to another interesting field of study outside of my own, and I plan to continue going to meetings with this organization in hopes to gleam more insight on what data analytics is all about. It also motivated me to search for similar student organizations to this one within my own field of study. I hope to join and fully commit to at least one similar student organization for my own major as well as continuing to learn more about big data and analytics. In order to achieve this, I am going to have to greatly sharpen my time management skills to carve extra hours out my already-packed schedule, optimizing my efficiency and speed of work. This will be no light task, but I believe that it will greatly help me in my future.

Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

G.O.A.L.S.

[ “G.O.A.L.S.” is a place where students write about how their planned, current, and future activities may fit into the Honors & Scholars G.O.A.L.S.: Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement. For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.

  • Global Awareness: Students cultivate and develop their appreciation for diversity and each individual’s unique differences. For example, consider course work, study abroad, involvement in cultural organizations or activities, etc.
  • Original Inquiry: Honors & Scholars students understand the research process by engaging in experiences ranging from in-class scholarly endeavors to creative inquiry projects to independent experiences with top researchers across campus and in the global community. For example, consider research, creative productions or performances, advanced course work, etc.
  • Academic Enrichment: Honors & Scholars students pursue academic excellence through rigorous curricular experiences beyond the university norm both in and out of the classroom.
  • Leadership Development: Honors & Scholars students develop leadership skills that can be demonstrated in the classroom, in the community, in their co-curricular activities, and in their future roles in society.
  • Service Engagement: Honors & Scholars students commit to service to the community.]

Career

[“Career” is where you can collect information about your experiences and skills that will apply to your future career.  Like your resume, this is information that will evolve over time and should be continually updated.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Academic Resources

     There are many excellent academic resources around Ohio State’s campus, and one of them is the Math and Statistics Learning Center. I visited the Math and Statistics Learning Center earlier this week for help working through difficult exam preparation material, due to my first Calc 2 midterm being this Thursday! Despite it ultimately being a positive experience, I will admit that I felt very strange and uncomfortable when first going into this setting. I have always had a strong academic drive and have been able to succeed in my high school classes without much need for outside help, so I was fairly conditioned to view the act of going to tutoring as stigmatic, to say the least. However, Ohio State has opened my eyes to the reality that attending tutoring is not only okay, but encouraged. This has been repeated to me time and time again, most notably in the First Year Success Series I attended as well as by my academic advisor. Additionally, I have heard from several of my peers that they have visited the MSLC’s free tutoring and that it was great. Bearing all of this in mind, I abandoned my discomfort, strolled boldly into the Math 1172 Free Tutoring room at Cockins Hall and found a seat.
     Asking for outside help was definitely a new experience for me. Even after I sat down at a table and laid out all of my homework, I still was not fully immersed in the tutoring. The way that the MSLC organizes this particular free tutoring session is very interesting due to several factors I noticed while attending. First off, help is not immediately just given. It is true that several graduate and post-graduate student tutors are constantly roaming around the room helping others, but one must raise their hand and wait for a tutor to make their way to them before any help is given. This was especially tough for me at first, due to the fact that I entered the room without any questions ready since I had no clue what to expect. However, like many other students in the room, I began working through my homework until I eventually hit a stumbling block, at which point I raised my hand and was quickly met by a tutor.
     The help I received at the Math and Statistics Learning Center was very personalized, and the graduate students roaming around the room were skilled in explaining difficult content in a clear fashion. Their strong grasp of the course material was evident in the fluency of their different teaching styles, and I feel like I gained a deeper understanding of the material from them than I have in the lecture hall. I appreciated the tutoring style of the MSLC because it truly allows students to work at their own pace, and receive help only when they need it. After this visit, I am certain that I will be visiting the Math and Statistics Learning Center, as well as several other academic resources on campus, much more often and without feeling odd about it!
     Here is a photo I shot of me walking out of the MSLC at Cockins Hall, feeling much more confident about Thursday’s midterm!
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About Me

My name is Austin Hendricks and I am a first-year student at The Ohio State University. I am majoring in Mechanical Engineering and am very excited to progress through OSU’s first-year engineering program! There are several reasons I chose to pursue a mechanical engineering degree, and among those is the fact that I am very good at math. Math and science have always been my favorite subjects in school, and I love how in college almost all of my classes are now math-oriented! Growing up, I always liked to build things–legos, self-assembled toy cars, and even the occasional (basic) computer program! Learning how things work has always been something I am very intrigued by. Progression of this as I got older led me to love science, especially physics, which is why I chose mechanical engineering over the other specializations within engineering. I can’t wait to get the most out of my first year at Ohio State! Here is a great photo of my siblings and me on move-in day!