While I am wrapping up my second year here at Ohio State, I was able to engage in service opportunities through my Scholars group and also through my own efforts. From fulfilling these service opportunities, I am able to serve my community and learn more about the diverse society in which we live in. Participating in these service opportunities has allowed me to learn about the different types of roles that other people in our community would normally take on. While there is only so much we as university students can do, each service opportunity that we take on is rewarding for both us and those that we serve. I’ve learned that there is no task that is too big and there is never a task that will be considered not beneficial. Every time a service event is completed, I would always go home with the hope that my small contribution would have some sort of impact on those I have served.

Through my volunteering experience, I continue to develop my leadership skills that I can use throughout my educational and professional career. I volunteer for a youth program that runs throughout the year, but I devote most of my time volunteering during the summer time. There is a six hour long summer program that consists of more kids that are usually present during the school year and this requires more staff and volunteers to be present to help organize and facilitate activities.

I am part of the teens that help facilitate the program and if necessary, run my own group of kids. We often have an uneven staff to camper ratio and when this occurs, it often requires teens to help step in and take charge of our own group of children for different activities. I’ve done this multiple times whenever we are short of staff and I feel comfortable and confident in doing so. There have also been times when there are a few of the younger teens who don’t feel as confident in leading groups, and I accompany them in their groups so that they can adjust to this role.

Through these opportunities, I feel that I am able to continue developing my leadership skills so that they may be useful in a professional setting. I also use opportunities in my classes to develop my leadership skills through the forms of group projects or group presentations. Through such opportunities, I work alongside my peers as we work together towards the same goal and accomplish our tasks as efficiently as possible through teamwork.

During my autumn semester of my second year at Ohio State, I took a class called Abnormal Psychology. Originally, I thought of this class as nothing more but another class to fill a General Education requirement. However, as I progressed through the class, I had learned about many different psychological disorders that I had only heard of and even had the opportunity to do compose an essay about a disorder (or a category of disorders) of my choosing: Eating Disorders.

My paper required me to utilize all the information that I had learned in the class as well as conduct my own research with the university library database. Upon completing this assignment, I realized that the minority population (referring to those in the psychological disorder category) are often stigmatized by the public, and the main reason for this stigmatization occurring is due to the fact that people are often under the influence of  “unconscious bias”, having preexisting thoughts and attitudes towards individuals with psychological disorders.

I realized that in our community, this issue is also present with other individuals as well, whether they are part of a minority group or not. There is a large amount of people who face stigmatization for even the littlest things and as a result, this often sparks debates within our communities that can even be a national issue. Such stigmatization and bias can easily be eradicated if everyone at least does a little bit of research about the topic of debate and understand the other party before making their claims. Unsupported claims often hurts others even though the person stating these claims did not mean any harm, and I believe that if everyone understands a little bit about each other first, then this issue can easily be fixed.

Wrapping up my first semester here, I had overcome many academic obstacles which were unknown to me before. Even though my schedule is currently filled with General Education classes, there is a great amount of pressure that I deal with as I make an attempt to obtain the grades needed to remain in good academic standing. My Microeconomics class has allowed me to test my skills as a critical thinker and has allowed me to have a glimpse of what the Business major looks like as I make my decision in applying for the college and deciding on a specialization. Though I don’t plan on pursuing Economics as my major, I do plan to utilize all the knowledge I’ve gained from this class and apply it to the real-world situations that I handle in the future, whether it correlates to the business world or not. Everything I have learned thus far has been very intuitive and all the different applications that are reviewed in the class have been very useful in reinforcing all the information that has been taught. Upon completion of this course, I believe I would have some of the most essential pieces of information in aiding me along my path to the business world.

Over the course of my high school career and my first semester in college, I have become even more aware of the different situations and backgrounds that people come from and that the people I interact with all have their own unique stories which make them who they are today. My closest friends, some whom I’ve known since childhood, and some whom I’ve grown close to over a couple years, have all experienced very difficult challenges throughout their lives, and as they mature, they grow stronger each day and become more appreciative of what they have. I can never come close enough to fully understanding each one of their stories and the pain they have all felt before, but I do understand that every single one of my friends is working hard in their own ways to provide for their own daily needs while keeping their families safe. Through my volunteering experience, I have met students who are struggling with the same hardships that my friends had gone through and seeing these kids who are only in elementary school show up to our program each day with a smile on their face without mentioning their personal issues had made me realize that our younger generations are starting to become stronger as they face challenges that usually involve teenagers or adults.