Benefit of Studying Humanities

On Wednesday, February 26, 2020 at 5 pm, I attended a seminar sponsored by the Modern Greek department at University Hall Room 448 as my academic credit. The speaker was Ohio State Alumnus Louis Anastas who has been a successful writer and filmmaker. He spoke about studying Modern Greek and how this background genuinely helped him foster his creativity and begin his own unique career path by starting his own company, The Blue Agency. He attributes the confidence he had to pursue his dreams from studying what he loved. He also spoke about how stories, whether they be in films, books, or spoken to one another, bring people together. In daily life, we are all just parts of each other’s stories and narratives. He claimed that every single one of us is the protagonist of our own story, and that this is how we shape each other’s lives and impact each other’s narratives.

This topic definitely aligns with several of the topics that we have covered in my Modern Greek class. My professor has often encouraged us to study whatever interests us most and develop our creativity because he claims that you can be successful at anything as long as you put in the effort. This idea has been applied to a lot of the students in the class, because we are often encouraged to study the humanities (Greek) even if we plan to pursue a career path not quite related, such as Medical School.

This seminar relates to International Affairs because the speaker related all of his passions to growing up in a Greek household. His culture and upbringing truly influenced his chosen career plan because he wanted to be able to incorporate a large part of his identity into his work, which he has been able to do.

OIA International Film Series

On April 10th at 8 p.m., I zoomed into the OIA’s international film series group to watch the Brazilian Film, “Don’t Call Me Son” as my Campus event with several professors and other students, everyone calling in from various locations. The series required everyone to begin the movie around the same time, join a GroupMe to message others if there were questions/comments during the movie, and then join in for a zoom discussion after the movie. The movie is about a middle-class teenager named Pierre who lives in Sao Paulo and is constantly exploring his gender identity and sexual orientation. He was living a carefree life with his mother and sister when a detective finds him and reveals to him that his “mother” had stolen him at birth and that he had to get a DNA test. After his test results confirmed that his adoptive mother stole him and his sister, he was forced to go by the name Felipe and move in with his upperclass birth family who were much less receptive to his gender fluidity. The film is dominated by his birth family expecting their missing son to be a person who he is not. His gender identity exploration frustrates his birth father especially and leads to several different conflicts, with his brother ultimately being the only one who understands him.

This film really encapsulates the struggle involved with not being the person that everyone expects you to be and provides insight as to how difficult it can be as an LGBTQ+ member in an unaccepting family. This film relates to international affairs because it demonstrates the large gap in socioeconomic classes in Sao Paulo by emphasizing the dichotomy between his humble lifestyle with his “adoptive” family and the luxurious lifestyle of his birth family.

Honors and Scholars Wellness Workshop

On January 26th, from 4-6pm at the RPAC, I attended the Honors and Scholars Wellness workshop as my professional development credit. I have always struggled with not allowing my academic stress leak into other aspects of my life, so I decided to attend this event to learn more about several aspects of wellness. During the first station, we focused on being present and as a group, practiced active meditation. It was the first time that I have ever attempted to meditate, and it did in fact calm me down and bring me a bit more peace. The second station I attended focused on physical wellness. We talked about nutrition and ways to prevent stress eating when we are experiencing some tougher emotions. We then crafted our own unique trail mix to represent what we struggle with most. During the third and final station, we talked about how to take time to appreciate the nature around us, as we took time to make wellness goals and decorate eucalyptus plants.

This event helped me realize that it is okay to take a step back and make time for yourself. It also made me realize the importance of fueling your body with foods that give you energy. I often fall into the trap of stress eating junk food, and it dawned on me how much that might be negatively affecting my own emotions and opinion of myself. Attending this event gave me more insight on how to lead a busy yet healthy life, while also assisting me in making friends with students of other scholars groups (which is something that I have had few opportunities to do). It was really interesting because several of these topics overlapped with my Resident Advisor leadership class, but the way it was presented was entirely different. This class was focused on helping yourself and holding yourself accountable whereas the RA class was more geared towards helping others balance their own dimensions of wellness.

Attending the Columbus Greek Festival Part 2

As part of my Service credit, I volunteered at the Columbus Greek Food Festival at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church once again. Previously, I had volunteered for one day last year and did not really know anyone, but this year, my experience was much different. I volunteered the night of Friday, August 30th. I chose to volunteer at this event because I am Greek Orthodox, and I regularly attend this church during the school year. Additionally, I recently was elected to be on the Executive Board for a Greek Orthodox organization on campus called Sigma Epsilon Phi. Sigma has a really great relationship with the church; often, the church will host lunches and fun events for Orthodox college students to attend. It really means a lot to the parishioners when the college students try to reciprocate by helping out when possible. Their festival is the easiest was to volunteer and still have a great time celebrating Greek culture. I was surprised to see so many familiar faces at the festival—it was such a contrast compared to last year! Many of the people who I volunteered with I already was great friends with (either from Sigma or from going to church with them). After my shift ended, I stayed until the end Greek dancing and enjoying the time with my friends. This year, I attended the festival a second day (on Sunday) to purely enjoy the festivities. I had an amazing time bonding with everyone from the Columbus church and fellow Greek-American students. Attending the festival both of these years has taught me how much my mindset and perspective can change within a year. I remember being so intimidated and scared last year; I did not know a single person there and was too timid to introduce myself to others. However, this year, I knew at least 40 people there and really enjoyed dancing with my friends and meeting other Greek-Americans from different areas. I had completely switched roles, becoming the one to help the freshmen meet returning students and other new students. Reflecting back, I feel really proud of the progress I have made. I felt like I was really stepping out of my comfort zone by joining Sigma last year and that initial discomfort has proven to be very worth it.

The Greek Food festival relates to International Affairs because it is a celebration of the culture of those who have immigrated to America from Greece (and their families) and of those who currently live in Greece. It demonstrates and teaches others about typical Greek traditions, such as Greek dancing, which is an instrumental aspect of everyday life.

This event actually does relate to my current class, Modern Greek I. I already had a slight background in speaking Greek due to years of Greek School, but I am officially taking a college class on it. In this class, we learned several Greek songs that were played by the band throughout the duration of the evening. We also study aspects of culture, such as why someone speaks to an older person differently to show respect, since there is a huge emphasis on respecting those senior to you.

Undergraduate Research Fair

On March 26 at the Ohio Union, I attended the Undergraduate Research Fair as my IA Academic Credit. For this event, I went through four rows of research posters and tried to talk to as many of the research students as I could. Each student that I approached summarized their project by describing their purpose, methods, results, and overall significance of the project. The projects ranged from being related to social experiments, most effective learning techniques, advertising strategies, and computer programing to projects pertaining to certain genes in cancer cells.

This event really helped me feel less overwhelmed when applying for research. I have been interested in applying for a research position at a few different labs, but I felt really intimidated by how many options there were and how outspoken you need to be when applying. Talking to several students and just hearing about how they got involved in research really inspired me to take initiative and look into the topics that I am genuinely interested in, even if it does not pertain to my major or future plans (which is what the majority of them suggested). I also got to meet several other Pre-Optometry students who provided really helpful feedback when asked about certain classes to take and organizations that they are involved in to prepare for applying to graduate school. Although this topic does not directly relate to international affairs, research is extremely important in new developments for cures for global diseases and infections.

Currently I am taking a Behavioral Neuroscience course (Psych 3313), and many of the research projects related to topics we have discussed in class. For example, golgi staining of brain sectioning to see visually determine the higher concentration of neurons was utilized in several projects. Additionally, many of the regions of the brains discussed, I was very familiar with their functions and locations. One of the studies that especially resonated with me was one about testing the effect of dancing classes on Autistic children. I thought this project was extremely unique because the woman who I spoke with was a Dance and Neuroscience double major, and this experiment was a perfect combination of both of her interests. She came up with the idea herself and went to different resources on campus to receive funding to carry out this testing. Since Autistic individuals really struggle with their spacial perceptions and motor abilities, she wanted to see if dance classes from a young age would be beneficial in teaching Autistic children some of these skills. The results of her experiment showed that these dance classes were very effective in helping these children develop these skills that are primarily very difficult to combat at older ages. I was especially inspired by her experiment because it was one way of her giving back to the community and helping individuals who are at a physical disadvantage when it comes to sports and other athletic events. Additionally, the results were very promising when it comes to room for more research in this topic.

Overall, I am really thankful that I had the opportunity to speak with so many bright research students because each one of their projects was very unique and significant for future findings.

Arab Night at the Union

Growing up in a small town, I was not exposed to much ethnic or cultural diversity. Most people were Caucasian or African-American. I knew one Korean family and one Chinese family at my high school and that’s about it as far as ethnic diversity goes. I had never personally known any people from Middle-Eastern descent. I had never even met someone who identified as a practicing Muslim. Coming to college, I was very excited for the diversity that I knew I would experience. And attending Arab Night Event at the Ohio Union on March 3rd from 6-8:30 (Non-IA) was one of those perspective-changing experiences.

I attended the event alone—the rest of my friends found other events to go to earlier in the month. Initially, I felt so out of place. Everyone around me was dressed up, with beautiful outfits and perfect tan skin. However, as the event began, those feelings washed away. The introduction was amazing. Individual countries were represented through various types of music playing and dancing in, with the country’s flag held by several people. The countries represented included: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraw, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirartes, and Yemen. I honestly had not even heard of some of these countries, which made me realize how little I actually knew about the Arab nations and how I really would like to learn more in the near future.

The whole event was put on to show unity among the Arab countries, but there was so much more woven in that really opened my eyes. For example, speakers brought up how the Union has a multicultural center; however, there is a cultural specialist for every ethnicity except one for the Middle East/North African region. The theme of the event heavily revolved around “we exist” because they have felt so forgotten by society in America. Many forms on the common application or scholarship applications ask you to identify as “white” or “other”, which unfortunately leaves those of other backgrounds at a disadvantage because they cannot track their progress and change in education. Not to mention, the other category is dehumanizing in and of itself.

One performance especially moved me. It was by a female who rapped about her childhood growing up post-9/11. She was very talented and she explained all types of discrimination growing up that had seemed so far-fetched to me because I have never witnessed it. She talked about wishing she could choose her race growing up. She never let her immigrant father come to any school events because she did not want to be embarrassed. She hated her name and tried to change it in school so that people would not know her ethnicity, yet the teachers forced her to go by her full name. She tried to change her natural hair and frequently would be called a terrorist to her face. One line that really stuck with me was, “Hush little baby don’t say a word, even if you speak you’ll remain unheard” which really just blew my mind trying to fathom that so many people my own age have been discriminated against so terribly just because of the way that they look or because of the God that they pray to.

This event has not exactly changed my mind on anything specifically, but more drastically opened my eyes. The world I see around me could be so different than the world others’ see just because of DNA and heritage—uncontrollable things. This experience has really caused me to want to be more involved in raising awareness for unjustices that minorities face, and I think that hopefully as an RA next year, I’ll be able to host dorm-wide events educating others about these issues.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service

I attended the Martin Luther King, Junior Day of service for my International Affairs service credit. The day began around 7:30 a.m., when a group of my fellow IA Scholars and I were instructed to meet in the lobby of Smith-Steeb at that time. We were under the impression that someone from IA would walk us over; however, we were mistaken (shade no shade Steven). Instead, we had to take matters into our own hands and decided that it was time to head over to the Union—where we all would be separated into different service groups—because we feared being turned away if we had waited too long (since they had a maximum amount people who they were accepting to help). After entering the Union, we all quickly got split up into a series of lines, varying from necessary information for the day to getting breakfast. It was really considerate of the people “sorting” the groups because they allowed whole groups of people to receive the same wristband color, which meant that they would be sent to the same service location. After entering one of the large ballrooms in the Union, we were escorted to our section, based on wristband color, and told about where we would be volunteering for the day. After everyone was sorted, there was a series of tributes to only Martin Luther King, Jr., but also to Aretha Franklin. I could definitely feel a sense of community among everyone in the room, and it was really inspirational to witness and be a part of.

We then loaded the buses and headed to COSI—our designated location. It was only my second time being there (the first time being only a few days prior), and it was a fantastic experience to watch how helpful a small group of college students could be. When we arrived, the coordinators explained to us how they hope to expand the knowledge one can gain at COSI to other classrooms across the United States and even across the world. We were asked to help assemble their packages, which would be sent to these various locations, contained with a variety of unique science experiments. Each task would have been extremely daunting to complete by oneself (and quite frankly would have taken hours to complete), but with the help of about 30 students, we were able to complete all of our designate do tasks in about an hour and a half. Going in to this day of service, I really did not know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised to witness so many strangers bonding over a common goal.

It was really nice to be given the opportunity to give back to the community, and it was a really fun day! I gained experience working as a part of a large group to complete tasks in the most efficient manner possible. It was also really incredible using the introduction of that day to give credit and thanks where it is due. It seems especially important currently, as we are in Black History Month, to identify those figures that made this integrated society we live in now even possible in the first place.

Attending the TedxOhioStateUniversity Red Light Event

I attended a Ted Talk hosted by The Ohio State University on November 27, 2018 to serve as my Non-IA event. The talk was hosted in McPherson 1015 at 7 pm and included a multitude of speakers ranging from judges to victims of human trafficking. The whole event was focused on educating what can actually be done to break the cycle of human trafficking. The event changed my opinions of human trafficking in a multitude of ways. I learned how easily great people can be tricked into the system and how devious and manipulative the “recruiters” are. I also learned about how common it is in the world and how addictive it is for those involved. Many of the people who get lured into that lifestyle are at a low-point in their life and often have no one else to depend on or trust, so they end up trusting the wrong people. Judge Paul Herbert also shared some very unnerving statistics that he came to be aware of as a prosecutor of prostitution. For example, the average age of sexual abuse eight and a half years old, one-third of the women involved in prostitution are under sixteen, and sixty-two percent are under eighteen. I also learned that unsuccessful prostitutes often get beaten up by their bosses, and prostitutes have a average life span of thirty-four years old. All of these facts really put in perspective how dangerous this illegal activity is.

This Red Light event related to the topic of International Affairs because human trafficking is a global issue. It disproportionately affects females and children, and it is a large issue in many countries, including the United States. In my International Affairs Scholars Seminar, my group project was actually focused on sex trafficking in India, the country with the highest number of trafficked females; however, before that project, I had never discussed human trafficking in any type of school setting. This fact seems especially problematic to me since human trafficking is on the rise, with numbers increasing annually. It is also worrisome because the first step to preventing/ending a reoccurring problem is educating people and raising awareness around the issue. If this cannot even be done in school, then those who do not have access to social media or families to tell them what to avoid (the more at-risk individuals already), then those people might be ignorant and fall into the smart, experienced human traffickers’ traps. I thought it was really interesting that it was recommended to get businesses involved. The most common time to buy sex was found to be on business trips or during the work day (2 pm), so it was recommended that companies explicitly state no sex-buying at any time during work or involving any work-related resources. It was also found that when this rule was violated, the most effective method to prevent it from happening again was public embarrassment. Most companies have swept violations under the carpet but that only perpetuates the problem. If there was not the demand for prostitution, the industry of human trafficking would no longer exist because it would not be profitable. As a community, it should be our job to educate others and report suspicious activity when we suspect it around us.

Attending the Mini Involvement Fair

On Thursday October 23rd, I attended the Mini Involvement Fair orchestrated through the International Affairs Scholars Program. It was hosted outside of Smith-Steeb dorm building and counted as an academic requirement. This involvement fair encouraged me to branch out and join new clubs or student organizations. At the main involvement fair at the beginning of the year, I felt extremely overwhelmed because the roads were completely packed with students, at times even making it impossible to move. Apparently, it is not usually that hectic, but it certainly made an intimidating first impression for me. It was challenging to speak with people at each table because it was so loud and even hard to get to the desired tables. However, during this mini fair, there was personal time to speak with each organization’s representatives. The fair was not highly populated, and there were very few clubs so it was much easier to find out the specific details of each club and find out which I would be most interested in joining. The three clubs there I was most interested in were Student Leadership Advocates (SLA), Advocates for Women of the World (AWW), and the Collegiate Council on World Affairs (CCWA). I had no idea that any of these organizations even existed on campus, and I was really impressed with several of the events that these groups host. I learned that SLA is a group that focuses itself on coaching other organizations in the ways of leadership and development. It is an awesome resource to utilize because their workshops are free. Additionally, all of the members described the great skills they have gained from their experiences in the club without it being too demanding on time. It also is still available to freshman applicants (unlike most other exclusive clubs) because their applications open in the spring semester. Both the AWW and CCWA are strongly related to the topic of international affairs. The AWW hosts several large fundraisers annually to give back to women living in impoverished places. For example, as discussed in my international affairs seminar, women are typically at a disadvantage globally for education and opportunities. In many small, poverty-stricken places, women that are being educated are expected to fetch water and complete the “housekeeping tasks” in schools if these things need to be done. Additionally, they cannot afford feminine products while they are menstruating, so they are confined to one room covered with cardboard for an entire week. To help combat this problem, the AWW uses a portion of their funds to purchase feminine products and ship them to these impoverished areas so that the women there may have supplies free-of-charge. Additionally, the AWW hosts a weekly meeting where a member discusses a specific female issue in the world about which they are particularly passionate. This weekly activity raises awareness and is a great resource on campus to investigate further. Similarly, the CCWA involves several diverse “pillars” of events that they host, but they also focus on awareness and discussion of current international issues. The aspect I was most interested in was Model U.N., which includes members joining together and researching both sides of the international problem/debate given, to then argue against other teams from other colleges. It seems very similar to Mock Trial, a club that I was an active participant in throughout high school. This branch of the CCWA educates all of its members on both sides of a current and relevant international issue as well as teaches students to argue and negotiate peace agreements. The involvement fair expanded my scope of the student organizations at Ohio State and caused me to step outside of my comfort-zone with the organizations that I have joined.

Attending the Columbus Greek Festival

The service event I attended was the Columbus Greek Festival, hosted at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church on Friday, August 31st. I was presented with the opportunity to volunteer at this festival because I am a member of a Greek cultural organization at The Ohio State University. I have grown up in a closely-knit Greek community and have volunteered extensively at my own church’s festival. This activity impacted me by causing me to realize how large the Greek community extends. Not only was the festival larger and run in an entirely different way, but there were several parishioners there that could identify members of my own church.
Initially, I was a little intimidated to start attending the Columbus Greek church because of its magnitude. I am from Pittsburgh, and there are about seven different Greek Orthodox churches placed throughout the city and surrounding suburbs; however, Columbus only has one church. To ease my transition, I decided to volunteer at the festival in order to meet some members before I attended a service. Unlike my previous experiences with festivals though, the Columbus festival had many booths (approximately twenty) where everything was broken up into different departments. All of the previous festivals I had attended typically have had everything more centralized. Unfortunately, I was only able to interact with one family—the booth where I was volunteering—because they have one family run a booth each. This is an especially rare trait because very few churches have enough volunteers to have this type of setup. Through observing how everything ran from an inside perspective, I was very surprised to see how many mistakes occurred. I expected a larger church to have better techniques and more organized processes, but I was completely wrong. It made me realize that though my church was very small and did not make nearly as much profit during our festival, we were quicker and much more efficient. Through volunteering, I gained experience in introducing myself to complete strangers and temporarily stepping outside of my comfort zone in order to have an easier transition in the future.
The Columbus Greek Festival relates to International Affairs because it is a celebration and appreciation of Greek culture and heritage. It is a perfect example of immigrants and descendants of immigrants celebrating their lineage and origins while also allowing others who may be unaware of Greek culture and traditions to experience it firsthand and also participate in the celebration. At the festival, Greek dancers, in traditional dancing costumes, were constantly Greek dancing to traditional music. It is a common part of Greek culture to know these dances is commonly used to bond with one another within your community. The dances that were performed have survived in America through generations of immigrants from different islands and represent the pride that Greek-Americans feel about their heritage. Even when the performance ended, the performers entered the crowd and began to pull different observers to teach them how to Greek dance.
My experiences relate to other classes in that all cultures need to have respect for others different from your their own in order to have a functioning society, which is something we discussed in my “Shattering Stereotypes” F.Y.S.S. (First Year Success Series) class. It was a great experience watching everyone come together to celebrate, regardless of their individual backgrounds.