This past year has offered many different opportunities and experiences that were different from my first year at OSU. Academically, I started my first major class for Chemical Engineering in the Autumn semester. This shift in classes focused more on my specific interests rather than the overarching goals of engineering that I had seen in my first year. I enjoyed being able to push myself intellectually as the concepts were presented in a different way to what I was used to. This year began to push my knowledge and made me draw on concepts I have learned over the past few years in ways my first-year classes didn’t as much. I also developed my time management skills more with my academic schedule as more classes required more time spent with them. Furthermore, with the shift to mostly online courses for the fall semester I feel I became a more self-reliant learner as I wasn’t in a class with all of my peers all the time. I began to go deeper into the topics and relied on myself more to understand topics rather than always going to others in my class for help. Academically I also feel I progressed by better adapting to new styles of teaching, especially online than I had in the spring semester of first year.

During my spring semester of second year, I had the opportunity to complete an internship with pH Matter, an energy and materials company. Professionally, this was my first internship, and the wealth of knowledge I have gained I believe will help me in the future with the rest of my major classes and internships. Through this internship, I have been exposed to how research and development works, learned how specific instrumentation works, and was a part of multiple teams working on projects dealing with catalyst synthesis, batteries, fuel cell supports, and catalysts. This internship has provided me first-hand experience with these topics and has allowed me to see what areas I enjoy within chemical engineering and what I want to pursue further into my major at OSU. I have been able to develop a clearer goal of what I want to get out of my major and the path I want to follow, which as of right now is an environmental focus within chemical engineering. This experience has also made me want to explore other areas where chemical engineering is used not just in research and development, but I also want to look at areas of manufacturing or plant work.

During my second year at OSU, I feel like I have developed a lot personally. In my first year, I remember focusing heavily on school rather than on taking time to spend with my friends. However, with everything being online and the restrictions, I feel like I realized the importance of taking time away from school to spend with friends. Thus, I feel like I did a better job of taking time both to myself and to spend with my roommates this year compared to my first year. I also feel that I developed my communication and confidence skills this year as I continued to be a teaching assistant for chemistry for another semester. Compared to my first semester teaching in my first year, I was more confident in my teaching. I feel like this then translated to the lab, where I was more communicative, better at assessing the class, and created better solutions to problems that arose in the lab.

During the summer, I have two major plans. I am continuing my spring internship through the summer, which I think will help me delve into the topics that I have begun to learn about more. The next big part is I’m taking two summer classes for school, which I feel will be a good way to come back to classes after taking a semester off.

This past year has been an eye-opening experience for me that has taught me so much and helped me evolve. Even though my year in Mount Leadership got cut short by the situation going on in the world, I was still able to gain so much from my Scholars program. There are many areas of my life such as being a student, leader, and community member where I have improved over the year.

As a student I have taken classes where the rigor has been higher than I have experienced before coming to college. I have learned new time management skills that have allowed me to complete all of my schoolwork and still have time to spend with my friends and doing other activities. I have tried over the year to better focus my time on tasks that are easy to complete first to decrease the amount of work I have to complete. I have also learned through Mount that the things you do should be something you are passionate about. For this reason, I have tried to take classes that peak my interest and are something I genuinely want to do.

As a leader I have grown a lot as well, especially by learning how to become a better leader through Mount. Before joining Mount and coming to college, in my various activities I didn’t usually organize projects ad I didn’t try to actively take on leadership roles. My goal this year was to put myself in situations that were different and try to learn how to be a better leader. I wanted to gain more confidence in taking a lead on projects. Throughout this year, I had the opportunity to help be more involved in the planning process of projects in Mount. For example, I was a member of Summit Committee, which was a committee that planned a leadership event for my scholars program. Furthermore, as a member of Mount, I participated in Legacy Week, which is where each first year in Mount helps plan and create various service projects to help a social issue in the Columbus community. As a leader for my team, I helped my team plan two environmental events in Columbus. I learned how to manage a team and communicate effectively with different types of people to get a shared goal completed. These opportunities in Mount were imperative for me to develop my leadership skills.

Through these experiences, I have also gained a lot of confidence to put my leadership skills in other areas of my college experience. During second semester, I became a Chemistry Teaching Assistant, which was another opportunity for me to develop my leadership skills during my first year. I have been able to lead and teach a lab to a large group of students and learn how to help students who need different things. I felt like this experience has benefited my communication skills and ability to think outside of the box. I have been able to learn the best ways to help others based on their needs and to always be sure I am thinking about what they need. This sentiment is also applicable to my community leadership/participation. Through Mount, I learned that it is important to look for what the community needs not what you want to do for the community. This impacted me a lot because throughout the year I have participated in community events and saw how intentional they were in meeting the needs of the community. I learned as a community member to help those with their specific needs.

This year has taught me a lot and made me evolve as a person. I am excited to continue to develop and grow more next year during my second year in college and as a member of Mount Leadership Society.