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.