Hello, I am Natalie Kelly from Rocky River, Ohio. I identify myself as one who tends to keep busy doing a variety of activities, however some of my favorite include bike riding in my local Metroparks, cooking, baking sweets, and spending time with my family and friends. I understand myself as a person who, throughout my life so far, has acquired various qualities that define me as a person. Some of these are that I am hard working, compassionate, and friendly. I also understand that without many of the people that I have had or still have in my life I would not be where I am today or who I am today. These people have impacted me more than they will ever know, and most importantly they have taught me that anything that I put my mind to I can achieve if I truly want it.
Since I attended an all-girls Catholic high school I had many meaningful experiences and I really flourished in that setting. There I was able to grow spiritually, mentally, and academically. One of the most meaningful experiences that I had in high school was taking challenging courses such as calculus and chemistry. Even though these courses were difficult and many nights were spent rereading the textbook and reworking problems; these courses pushed me to really understand and not just memorize the information. They also encouraged me to maintain and strengthen friendships that I had with people in those classes. The other valuable lesson that these classes taught me was that having communication with the teacher is very beneficial because their guidance and help is invaluable. Furthermore, at my high school I gained the information that I am very much a visual learner, so therefore working out problems for myself, completing experiments, and using models and images really helped me comprehend the course.
I believe that you can truly judge a teacher within the first few classes as to whether they really do enjoy their job, and I was blessed enough to have high school teachers who truly loved teaching and empowering young women. These were my role models who began to get me excited and interested about the STEM field, for there were numerous ways to get involved in STEM at my high school. Volunteering brought me in contact with my local science center, “thoroughly science Thursdays” were club meetings that I often attended, and both my teachers and peers challenged me to expand my mind and take the challenging science and math classes. Reflecting on my STEM beginnings, I must say that the specific moment that really opened my eyes to the STEM field was when I chose to attend my high school. From then on I was introduced to all the exciting things that STEM had to offer throughout all four years of high school.
I wanted to be a STEM EE scholar because of all the positive experiences that I had had with the STEM field throughout high school. I wanted a community of people who all shared a passion for STEM, for I hoped that these would be the people who supported and challenged me all throughout college. I also wanted to be in this scholars group because it is a broad field that encompasses a variety of majors and topics, therefore I knew that I would be completely expanding my horizons. In a similar way I knew that my academics were going to be challenging, since I am going into a STEM field, and therefore having scholars students around me I knew that I would be able to form a group that would help me maintain a balance between my classes and my personal life. Therefore I could have elements of fun in my life while still maintaining good academics. To conclude, I have had many great experiences in regards to my education and just life in general, and through others I was introduced to STEM. After this introduction my passion for the STEM field grew, and therefore I was quite excited to become a part of the STEM EE scholars program at The Ohio State University.