G.O.A.L.S.

How do my planned, current, and future activities fit into the Honors & Scholars G.O.A.L.S?

Global Awareness:

  • I have been planning, budgeting, and preparing for a Global May Study Abroad program in May of 2020. I will be taking classes prior to my trip to better understand and engulf myself in the cultures and history of the places I will visit in regards to World War II. I will be visiting many different historical sites and even multiple countries in context to WWII. This is extremely exciting and a new experience for me. I have never even flown on a plane, and although I am so filled with wanderlust, I have so much to learn about other cultures. This trip can be a gateway to my education outside of my bubble growing up.
  • I have also learned so much from my year of service site (which I will discuss in a later category) because of the vast amount of families that have come to our country, and even this community, with nothing for what I was just given when I was born. It has been such an amazing experience getting to interact with and learn from these other people an their cultures and lifestyles.

Original Inquiry:

  • This scholars experience alone has given me so many opportunities for self-reflection, growth, and learning about myself: where I am at now.. and where I want to be!
  • This past semester I had the opportunity to backpack along young women I had never met before, with no cell phone for four days along the Appalachian Trail. It was a trying, challenging, and amazing experience. I grew so close to these encouraging, strong women and learned so much about myself, my limits, and just had some time to breath with nothing but my mind, nature, and a physical and mental test.
  • Last year was an amazing, eye-opening year. Moving away from home for the first time, learning that I actually have to study here, understanding that I am not as smart as I may have believed I was in my small town high school and that there are so many brilliant people around me–but that this is okay! And that I still have amazing things to offer! Learning how to live with others, how to build relationships that haven’t just been there for years, leaving sports for the first time, riding a city transit system, and balancing a long distance relationship.
  • However, this year (if even possible) was even more trying. That long distance relationship ended, I had to (and still have to) learn how to rely on myself and learn about myself. I have experienced rockiness in other relationships. I have gained more roommates and met the challenges of this. I began internship hunting, and making decisions that affect big parts of my life. I have struggled with faith and values that I have put my identity in my entire life. I have left toxic relationships, something I have never had the strength to do before. I have learned about my passions, my hopes, and what is important to me.
  • BUT the most important thing I have learned about myself: is that I am still learning about myself everyday.

Academic Enrichment:

  • This year I have finally entered the world of job-hunting and internships. I attended my first career fair: and got my first interviews! I received my first internship offer!—- and my first internship rejection. I have received the rewards of hard studying with good exam grades!—- and received my first failed exam. I have began to understand the power of group studying, and the power of training my brain in other ways that textbooks. I have began to understand the fight for a good class schedule, the importance of a good professor, and the enrichment of classes that is up to what I put in.
  • Scholars has given my a great lens into everything I have experienced and makes me believe that even without the straight A’s I had in high school, I am still doing great things.. that grades are not everything.. and that I can be important and stand out, even while surrounded by brilliant people! The saying: “If you are the smartest one in the room: you’re not in the correct room” truly resonates with me now. I am encouraged and supported to always strive for better, thanks to the intelligence, kindness and drive that I am surrounded by in a scholars program.

Leadership Development:

  • Through Mount I have had the opportunity to take on many leadership roles. Up to this point this includes being a member of the Wellness and Athletics committee, a captain for Team Poverty during Legacy Week, a captain for Buck-I-Frenzy and serving as a Service Committee chair.
  • In the future of Mount I have also been offered a position as a Student Coordinator for 2019 and I could not be more excited and encouraged by all of the knowledge, experience, and trials I know I will face through this experience!
  • Within another organization on campus, CRU Ohio State, I have taken on the very involved role of a target area leader. In this role I meet one-on-one with many girls throughout the week, encourage and advertise for events, and lead weekly bible studies. My experience in Scholars has definitely prepared me for this role and its time commitment.

Service Engagement:

  • During my first year of Mount I had the opportunity to participate and engage in a different service project within this community each month of the year. It was an amazing experience to see different aspects of my own community and the ways that I can make a difference in my first few months here!
  • Also during my first year, I got to engage in Mount Legacy Week, where I, along with a team, got to understand the process of planning and implementing service. Not only did we just volunteer, but we sought out driving issues in our own community and planned, organized, and implemented our own service projects over the course of months of hard work. It was so rewarding and really opened my eyes to so many reflections about what service really is, beyond just showing up.
  • During my second year here, I got to experience a more engulfing Legacy Week experience when I had the opportunity to get behind the planning, reaching out and executing of the first-year’s service projects through my work as a service committee chair. My co-chairs and I spent the entire summer reaching out to agencies and planning every detail for a successful execution of many service projects, some long and some short, for the first-year Mounties. This was one of the most challenging but truly rewarding experiences of my college career up to this point.
  • Finally, during my second year I also got to engage in a Year of Service project. This experience was life-changing. I always knew I had a passion for service, but I never knew how much I still had to learn, gain, and experience from others. I got to serve my Year at the Clintonville-Beechwold Community Resource Center and it was so rewarding! I have now built so many relationships, learned about my voice, educated myself on the behind the scenes processes in a resource center, and grown as a person and member of this community.

Career

Click here to review my current Resume!

  • At this point in time I have not completed any internship or research opportunities, however I am excited to announce that I have accepted an IT internship with MTDProducts for this summer, 2019, and cannot wait to find out how much I will learn and how I will grow from this amazing opportunity!
  • In regards to projects, I have recently participated in HackOHI/O as mentioned in my second year artifacts, a semester long AEV project within the college of Engineering, and have plans to participate in this year’s DataFest as well!
    • During HackOHI/O, my team spent our time building an app with Swift that provides “scores” and data to clients based on their reliability of paying back borrowed money from others and then allowing money to be borrowed through the app- being able to choose if you can trust someone based on their score or data provided. Although I learned a lot working on our project, it was just so amazing to see thousands of other students working alongside us and to see what brilliant ideas were formed and created in just 24 hours. I can’t wait for the next one!
    • Within an Engineering course during my freshman year I worked with a team of three other students to design, create, and test a unique AEV device that could complete specified tasks in a time and energy efficient fashion. This semester long project taught me so much about a long commitment project and working in a team of people with different strengths and weaknesses. I learned and grew a tremendous amount at an integral time of my college career.

Year 2 Artifact 2

A hackathon. “A what?”

This year has been full of growth, struggles, change, and experiences for me already. Growth especially within my career path. I was officially accepted into my major, Computer Science and Engineering, over the summer and therefore have started my true major courses. I have even accepted my first internship for this summer with MTD Products and will be living on my own for the first time.

As someone who came into college with no coding experience and no idea if CSE was actually for me, I can tell you I am in the right place. I love it so much. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my college experience, and honestly right now I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my future career. A huge indicator of this realization was my first ever Hackathon. Ohio State hosts its very own hackathon here at the Ohio Union and I was blessed with the opportunity to participate! A hackathon is a 24-hour marathon of building, coding, or designing something great with a team of other students. My team spent our time building an app with Swift that provides “scores” and data to clients based on their reliability of paying back borrowed money from others and then allowing money to be borrowed through the app- being able to choose if you can trust someone based on their score or data provided. Although I learned a lot working on our project, it was just so amazing to see thousands of other students working alongside us and to see what brilliant ideas were formed and created in just 24 hours. That is when I texted my mom. I knew this was where I belonged: I was thriving off this environment! I would just walk around when I was taking a break and awe at all the brilliant students working away and then remember I am one of them too! We all drank cups and cups of coffee and kept each other laughing the whole time. We researched and learned new things to get our app to work and we even got to talk with huge companies!

This event was more than just a resume-booster for me. This event gave me the glimpse into what I want in my future and I am oh so grateful. Thank you OSU for yet another amazing opportunity.

Year 2 Artifact 1

This year so far has been anything but easy for me. I have struggled with many changes, relationships, internal conflict, and even mental health issues that have never been an issue for me before now. I was struggling to find myself inside all of the chaos and it was really hurting me.

This fall break I had been given an amazing opportunity- one I have never been given or experienced before. I received an email from a student organization that I was hoping to get involved with. They were planning a backpacking trip to Shenandoah National Park for fall break. I have always loved the outdoors. I love camping, hiking, four-wheeling, and even just seeing beautiful places. But, I have never been backpacking. I have never tested myself like that.

I decided I was going to go. I didn’t think twice about the money, I asked for equipment as a christmas present. I rented from the OAC. I researched. My mom researched. I was doing this. I was doing it for me. I needed to find myself- the girl I had somehow lost this semester and I couldn’t even put my finger on why I’d lost her. That’s when I decided I was going to shut my phone off the entire trip. I knew I wouldn’t get service most of the time anyway, so why not shut it off and learn more about me? I wanted to get away from the world and test myself alone- with nobody else to prove myself to. I wanted to enjoy nature without a phone screen nagging for my attention. I wanted to lose those materialistic snapchat streaks and start fresh. I thought maybe I’d find out what I was struggling with and how I could fix it.

The trip was more than amazing. I cannot even put into words how empowering it was. We hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail. We didn’t see other people for over a day. We hung our food up from bears, we learned all kinds of trail guidelines, we took off our shoes and waded through knee high rivers, we pushed our physical strengths- hiking 11 miles in one day. But most of all we did it all on our own. Just a few of us girls. A dad on a day hike even stopped us and said how impressed he was we had been out there for days. I was proud.

Needless to say, I didn’t have some monumental realization of who I was, a fix to all my problems, what was happening in my life, or who I was.. and maybe that’s what I needed: to know thats not how it works. But I did learn a lot about myself anyway and I learned how hard I can push myself and my boundaries and get through anything because I am still me. I got a break to be with myself and nature, an experience not everyone gets. It was very needed and I cannot wait to do something similar again. Thank you OSU, yet again, and Women in the Outdoors for such an amazing opportunity.

Artifact 2

This year I came to Ohio State wanting to be very involved. I was already integrated in Mount Leadership Society when I arrived on move-in day, but I wasn’t sure where to even begin searching for the other organizations I would want to be apart of. During the involvement fair I went to the different categories of booths that I knew I was interested in- but wasn’t sure which club was the fit for me. When I got to the faith-based area of booths, I talked to many clubs and was thinking of joining H2O. However, a friend on my floor was going to a church service that Sunday night for CRU and invited me to go with her. There’s always fun in company so I went with her. Once we were heading out I realized there was a large group of people from my dorm and scholars program that also attended this event. It is called RealLife. Here, I found such joy, interest, awe, and beauty. I LOVED it. That night I felt something amazing and I couldn’t wait to go back. This is when I decided I would be a part of CRU.

At this point I knew I wanted to join CRU, and honestly just thought that included going to RealLife every Sunday night- which was okay. Luckily for me, CRU is so much more. After the first week I got connected with a small group within the club and this group became my group for bible study every Tuesday night. They all live in my dorm or are involved in Mount. It helped that two of the girls were two of the best friends I had made up to that point, and we were instantly welcomed in. Then, as if this wasn’t enough, we were told of another smaller group within CRU, called the Freshmen Leadership Team (FLT). My friends and I, who were freshmen, decided to go to the first meeting and loved it! We got to know other freshmen in a smaller setting, play games, and pray together. I also loved our leaders: two high school sweethearts who are now married. Once again, I was very happy with how involved I was getting within CRU because of how important my faith is to me. However, we then found out about a fall retreat within CRU. Instantly I wanted to go because I love the outdoors and the idea of getting away from campus to worship God was so appealing. It was impossible for me to imagine how amazing this time would be for me.

The CRU fall retreat was probably the best experience I have had since coming to Ohio State (and that is saying a lot because I LOVE it here and have already made so many great memories and had so many great opportunities). During the retreat, we got time to worship our God with such community, have alone time with Him, enjoy nature, and take a break from the stress of school. We also got to make more connections with people in CRU and get closer with those we already know. I cannot describe how beautiful it felt to worship with everyone through song because of CRU’s amazing band. And as if it couldn’t get any better: we had the opportunity to hear from Mike Erre as a speaker to learn more about our faith. He was indescribable. I truly can say he was the best speaker I’ve ever heard. But overall, CRU fall retreat was just an amazing time to worship the perfect God we have and I will forever cherish this memory and the opportunity I was given to join CRU and the outstanding community that comes with it.

Artifact 1

The small town that I come from is so dear to my heart. It will always be a part of me. I am so thankful for growing up with such a tight knit community behind me and for all the memories they gave me. However, I came to Columbus, Ohio; the city. Never have I been so awestruck by “everyday occurrences” such as hearing sirens all night, city busses, a walk across the street to essentially any restaurant I want, or the need to carry pepper spray. I have never been exposed to the sounds of so many people walking along one street, laughing and living: but separately, without recognition of each other. Needless to say, I have already grown so much in my time here. I am so privileged to have gone beyond my small town and experience this lifestyle. And I’m just getting started! The picture above was taken by my friend Maggie during our visit downtown for my roommate’s birthday. It may appear as just a very aesthetically pleasing background, but to me it is much more. Behind me holds so many opportunities: the memories I will make, the people I will meet, the chances I will take, the mistakes I will make. It holds my future. Soon, I will enter that background, along with many larger backgrounds, and leave my impact. Today, I study, learn, work and live for the chance to do that. And back home, I know everyone is rooting for me to do the same.

About Me

Hello! My name is Alexandria Howell, but I go by Alex. I am a first year student at The Ohio State University studying Computer Science Engineering. My hometown is Dellroy, Ohio where I attended Sandy Valley High School. There, I was very involved, as I intend to be at Ohio State. I was a four year varsity member of the cross country team, basketball team and softball team. In addition to athletics, I was the president of my class and three other clubs. I was active in nearly every school club we offered and loved every minute of it. I was proudly voted Homecoming Queen and Prom Queen my senior year. However, my most proud accomplishment of high school was being the Valedictorian of my class. This was something I had made a goal in the 6th grade and worked for ever since.

At Ohio State, I am already involved in the Mount Leadership Society Scholars program and CRU. Within Mount, I am involved in the WAC committee and serve as a team captain for Legacy Week on team Poverty. Also, in CRU, I am involved in the Freshman Leadership Team. In addition to these, I hope to play intramural softball and I will continue running to train for my first half marathon. I am extremely passionate and active in my faith and community service. Seeing the face of those you are helping and how they help you in exchange is something indescribable. I have served on 7 mission trips and intend to serve on many more throughout college. I also intend to study abroad because traveling and adventure is another passion of mine. Outside of class, I am obsessed with playing card games. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me! 🙂