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.

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.