First Year Spring Project Conclusion Turn In

My project was to learn Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter on the piano. This project was a little challenging because I have never played the piano before, but, it was still a somewhat simple song to learn. I had to learn some basic notes of the piano before I jumped right in as well. Also finding time while at college was hard to do when I was always busy with schoolwork or other activities. However, I was good at making sure I got my time in every week. I would do this differently by making sure I delegate a certain time every week that I would be free to work on the project.

STEM Project Intro

For my 10 hour project, I wanted to focus in on learning an instrument. My sister has been learning how to play the piano the past couple years and I also wanted to learn to play the piano alongside her. For my project, I want to learn how to play “Hedwig’s Theme” from the Harry Potter series on the piano.

Diversity Post

For my diversity post, I went to the OAS Hafle! Arabic Party at the upstairs of Curl Market on November 8th at 7pm. Going to this event, I was a little intimidated because I was going into something I was totally not used to. I am not very acquainted with Arabic culture, so if I’m being honest I had no idea what to expect going to this event. I am very welcoming though of different cultures, I am an Ethiopian American and I have a lot of culture in my own home, so I enjoy involving myself in different types of cultures. However, even though I like trying out different cultural experiences, I still am intimidated because the first time you try it out it’s a little awkward. I definitely didn’t feel this way though at the event. The people there were excited to see a group of people going that weren’t Arabic because they appreciated the fact that different types of people were trying to learn about a new culture. I got to talk to some Arabic people and it was very cool getting to learn about a culture that was pretty foreign to me before this event. Diversity & Inclusion play a major role in the STEM field. Diversity & Inclusion means more than just being nice to your peers, but it means being respectful of your peers different backgrounds, values, and beliefs, and being willing to listen to new perspectives. The STEM fields a very diverse population of people from all over and with a spectrum of beliefs, so STEM students need to learn to adapt to different types of group work settings because as STEM majors, you’ll be put in situations that require you to be able to work with different people. For instance, in both my physics lab group and FE group, there is someone who is not originally from the U.S.. In fact, a girl in my FE group just got her citizenship three weeks ago. OSU is very diverse and very un-diverse in  a way. OSU is very good at promoting opportunities for minorities and making sure that minorities get equal opportunities as the majority, so in that way, OSU is very inclusive. But overall, OSU is a very “white” campus. The major ethnicity here is Caucasian. A lot of my thoughts have been challenged this year especially in my Morrill Scholars Program Creative Expressions Team. In this, we talk about creative outlets for people to express their diversity, and the meeting we had on halloween, we were able to discuss a lot about cultural norms and stereotypes. I am also apart of National Society of Black Engineers, and in this club it makes me feel welcome as black engineer. I am very happy to be apart of a club that welcomes my diversity and, in fact, encourages me to flaunt it. They have also provided me with many opportunities such as career fairs, resume workshops, mentorship, and advice about scheduling. So not only has the club been helpful with diversity & inclusion, but also a lot with academics.

Campus Resource Post

When I was told I was required to go to campus resource, I thought it was pointless because I didn’t feel the need to utilize a non-academic resource. I felt like the only time that I really needed to use a campus resource is if I ever got hurt or really sick I would need to utilize the student health center. But through visiting the student health service at Ohio State, I changed my opinion about the importance of non-academic resources. The only resources I was aware of were the student health services, the transportation services, the mental health services, and the career services but I guess you could consider the career services academic. So going into this, I was kinda blind to what would happen. Scheduling an appointment for the student health services was actually fairly easy. I had a preconception that it was going to be like scheduling a regular doctor appointment and scheduling those appointments as a kid needed to be done months ahead of time. But scheduling appointments with the student health services at OSU was a lot easier and took a lot less time. One could schedule an appointment ahead of time using BuckMD, but even then it doesn’t take that long. You could probably schedule an appointment through BuckMD a day in an advance and get an appointment. But there is also a computer, as pictured, to schedule an appointment which makes it really convenient for people to just walk in and schedule an appointment at the student health services. From my experience with my student health services, I hoped to be cared and helped with my current health state, because at the time I was not feeling too well. The student health services were very beneficial with helping me getting the help I need and referring me to the right medication to take to help me feel better. I don’t think there any ways the student health services can be improved. The student health services provide a lot more streamline and efficient way to help students get medical help when needed and as fast as possible. The conveniency of being able to schedule an appointment online through BuckMD, and even to be able to just walk in and schedule an appointment, is extremely helpful for college students who don’t maybe have the time to put in more effort to schedule appointments. I do not think there are any big resources that Ohio State is missing. Ohio State provides such a wide array of resources for the students here to utilize because they realize that us college students being away from home most likely for the first time, need to be cared for. I think Ohio State already does a good job at making the campus seem like home and I think the resources they already provide are sufficient for making sure students are taken care for. The student health services are just one example of the many services OSU offers to assist students in their transition from living at home to living on their own.

STEM Seminar

I was excited to go to my first campus seminar considering I had never been to an official STEM seminar before. Going to this specific seminar was a little intimidating considering the name of the presentation is “Determination of the evolutionary states of red giant stars through the use of seismology,” and I had no prior knowledge of the subject so I was going in a little blind. I didn’t really have that much interest in the topic but some of my friends were going to this specific seminar so I thought I would accompany to learn about a new topic and get exposure to a seminar on something I was not informed about. Going with friends made the seminar a little less intimidating. We were not the only undergraduate students there. There were a couple other undergraduate students there but there was mostly graduate students there seeing as the topic of the presentation was very advanced and specific. I felt a little out of place considering most of the people here were graduate students, probably in majors or areas of research pertained to this specific seminar. I did not talk to anyone there besides my friends or the speaker, because I didn’t feel that comfortable talking to the graduate student who seemed pretty serious, and I didn’t have time to talk to the speaker. The topic he was discussing about was pretty difficult to understand, considering my knowledge on astronomy, space, and high-level physics. This seminar was very specific and detailed in nature and a lot of the facts and claims the speaker was making were beyond my understanding. However, the seminar met my expectations of what it looks like to do research here at OSU. His presentation exemplified pretty well his personal experience with this topic and how he went about doing his research, because this specific speaker was not originally from the U.S., but he was from Spain. The speaker’s presentation was funneled and well organized, and he was very enthusiastic about it. He went into a specific thesis, background of his topic, and went into what his research was about. And then he concluded with his overall experience and understanding from his research. I think there is merit to being active in the academic community as an undergraduate, because in doing so, you’re setting yourself up for success in the future in grad school and in future research. It would also be a great way to do network with grad students and professors for future opportunities in research. It is definitely not a waste of time. Getting active in the academic community now will help set you apart from your peers in the future when it comes to job and research opportunities. The research in this specific seminar may have not been that interesting to me or apply to what major I want to pursue, but it was a good example of what it looks like to do research because of how the presentation was formatted and how he did his research.

Academic Resource Post

Yesterday, I went to the Engineering Open Lab with some friends after my Fundamentals of Engineering lecture to get help on a technical email I was writing for a FE lab. The experience was really great, I got a lot of writing assistance on the assignment and a lot of guidance on what direction I should take the paper. The TAs there are very helpful and really want to help you in the best way possible. I don’t think there is any stigma with getting help. Especially with this class, I think everyone requires help after some point. I have definitely sought academic help in the past, so this is not a new experience for me. I known when to recognize when I am not getting a concept and I require help. I think it really is a great thing that we have so many resources on campus to get help with our homework, so I think it is a must to utilize them. At first, in college, I didn’t seek help right away just because I didn’t really know where to go. But now that I am more aware of resources I can utilize to help me, I utilize academic resources pretty regularly. I think help-seeking significantly helps students succeed in their studies because it forces students out of their comfort zone, especially those who don’t like getting help. Now that I’m in college, I can’t expect to understand concepts more easily like I did in high school. There are limitless opportunities to seek help at such a large university like The Ohio State University. I think help-seeking also helps students get new perspectives on certain subjects they previously understood. From all the experiences I’ve had at academic resources, the person helped look at the subject I was asking them about in a different way, and expanded my thinking in new ways. The time I went yesterday, I was specifically getting help on the writing aspect of this lab write-up. I had gone in last week to get assistance on the graphing and statistical aspect of the same assignment. The TAs there helped me with improving my writing to make it more technical and concise. One of the TAs instead of simply answering my questions started asking me questions to make me really think about what I was asking. He helped guide my thinking to the right answer rather than simply give me the answer. I definitely think I can see myself being a tutor in the future. I used to tutor kids in high school on geometry, and once I feel confident with my academics in college, I would love to tutor in math. I enjoy helping people with things that I previously struggled on because I mean I’ve been there! I also think it is pretty rewarding seeing them understand the subjects after explaining it to them because it shows that your really helping them succeed. Once I get the hang of college life, I would definitely consider a tutoring role.

Student Org ePortfolio Post

I found out about the Buckeye Space Launch Initiative at the OSU Involvement Fair and the Engineering Activities Fair. I honestly had no specific reason to look into the club, I just saw that the club was about designing rockets and and flying rockets and thought that was interesting. Going to this specific meeting was kind of intimidating because it was the Level 1 Rocketry Certification meeting, and because I missed two earlier meetings because I was busy, I was going into this meeting with little background knowledge about the club or rocketry in general. It was nice going with a friend though so I wasn’t completely alone. Membership of BSLI would definitely be beneficial to me by teaching me more about aerospace/aeronautical engineering. I am currently engineering undeclared, but aerospace engineering is one of my top choices of an engineering discipline. So BSLI would not only be a club that could teach me about how aerospace engineering is used in developing model rockets, but it would also just be a fun club to join. There was only one student leader at this meeting and he was teaching the certification class. He was incredibly knowledgable and experienced with rocketry. I don’t think I could see myself being a leader at this organization considering how experienced this leader seemed with rocketry, and I don’t think I am that interested in investing as much time as this student leader into this club. If I continue membership in BSLI and continue to go to meetings, I will incorporate time-management skills such as putting meeting dates on a calendar and scheduling time throughout my week to complete activities for BSLI. I did not get a chance to interact with anyone at the meeting besides my friend because I came to the meeting straight from a class and then had to leave right away at the end of the meeting due to time constraints. I did have some struggle finding clubs that met my specific interests. Most of the clubs that I signed up to be contacted by were clubs I thought would be cool to be apart of or were a little interesting to me. BSLI was just a club that I thought would be interesting to check out, but it didn’t necessarily appeal to any specific interests I had. A club that did apply to my interests was the National Society of Black Engineers. NSBE gave me a chance to get plugged into mentorship with engineering and a community of engineers that looked like me. I find it possible that I look into creating my own club. I don’t have any specific ideas at the moment, but I think with my creativity and my desire to share my fun ideas with other people that I might consider creating my own club. I like the fact that there are so many student organizations because it gives students so may ways to get involved at the university. I think that the high number of student organizations contributes to the culture of the university by diversifying students with letting them engage in as many clubs that apply to their interests and passions.

About Me

Hey people! My name is Nathan Kebede and I am currently a first year student at OSU. I am from New Albany, OH, where I attended New Albany High School and graduated with a 4.302 cumulative GPA and as a suma cum laude. In high school, I was apart of the varsity soccer and volleyball team, and I also participated in clubs like National Honors Society and Key Club. Here at OSU, I am currently Engineering Undeclared, but my top choices are Biomedical, Mechanical, or Aerospace Engineering.

I hope to utilize the many resources available to me on campus through the STEM Scholars and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. I plan on joining the National Society of Black Engineers to not only be in a community of fellow engineers and to receive mentoring from upperclassmen, but also to be in a community of people of the same color as me. I also wish to join ECOS and STEM Outreach to do community service that also pertains to my field. Some influences to join the engineering field is that my entire life I was pushed by my parents to pursue the medical field, but in high school through my advanced calculus, physics, and engineering courses, I found a calling to pursue a field that involves a lot of creativity and problem solving.

Some communities I belong to is YoungLife, which is a religious organization for high schoolers and college students. I also belong to the athletic community; I play pretty much any sport and love to go and play soccer, basketball, and volleyball with friends.

Biomedical engineering has been an interest of mine for a couple years. Last summer I did an internship at the Newark Radiation Oncology Center and got to look at radiation therapy and medical imaging. I also am interested in pursuing research into developing prosthetics, because I know a lot of military veterans need prosthetics from their battle injuries. I plan on the future in possibly going to medical school and pursue a career in radiation oncology and medical imaging, or pursue research into prosthetics.