At a school as large as The Ohio State University, students are able to gain insight on almost any topic from all the available resources on campus. For this assignment, I was easily able to find an upperclassman to interview about his experiences at OSU and discover additional information about the campus. He is a third-year student that majors in actuarial science, which is my major. We discussed the path of classes to take and difficulties he has encountered thus far. I also interviewed a Calculus I teaching assistant who is a sixth-year graduate student at OSU. He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from a university in China, so it is only his second year at Ohio State. He is currently studying theoretical math. I managed to talk to a statistics professor about research at Ohio State. She has been involved in several research programs, and teaches upper level statistics courses at the university.

Finding resources to talk to and ask questions was not too difficult. When I was looking for an upperclassman to interview, I talked to other freshmen in my major to see if anyone knew an upperclassman in actuarial science. I found a student to talk to, and sent him an email asking if I could meet with him and ask him a few questions. We eventually met at Scott for lunch and then chatted. I wanted to find a TA that was related to math. Therefore, I asked my calculus TA if I could interview him during his office hours sometime. He said yes, so I stopped by his office hours one day and interviewed him. The hardest part was finding a professor to talk to. I searched around on the online databases for articles about several different STEM-related topics. I eventually found an interesting article about statistical analysis, and found that one of the people involved with the research is a professor at Ohio State. I sent her an email saying the article was interesting and asked to stop in sometime, so I visited her during her office hours to ask a few questions.

Meeting with an upperclassman was very nice, I did not have to have too many questions prepared, but I asked questions as they came up during our conversation. He brought up some very good points during our discussion. He suggested that if you are ever falling behind in a class, do not wait around and hope you learn the material on your own. He advised to visit office hours or find a tutor or friend to help you catch up. He also suggested certain classes and when to take them for actuarial science. He is not involved in any clubs on campus, but he suggested getting involved as it is a good way to meet friends and other possibly influential people. He has not participated in any research and does not plan on it, as there is little to no research available in our field. Outside of schoolwork, he mentioned beginning to look for housing at the start of my second year, because he waited too long in his sophomore year and did not have many options for houses when he began his search.

When interviewing my TA, I was curious about the path he took to be a math graduate student. After completing his graduate studies in China, he applied to ten schools in America, and chose Ohio State because of its large and successful math department. I learned from him that office hours can be very helpful, but he also suggested student seminars and student group studies to excel on exams. He does not participate in research as a math major. however, he has done work when a professor has given him a set of complicated problems and he has to research how to do them and complete them as assignments. As a graduate student, he is a calculus TA and holds office hours each week, and also must have weekly meetings with his professors to make sure he understands material and is staying on track.

In order to find scholarly articles, I used databases such as Scopus, Web of Science Core Collection, and Google Scholar to search a variety of STEM-based topics. I started the search by just typing in carbon, emissions, sunlight, and statistics. I found some articles that were somewhat interesting, but none of the authors of the article or journal were at Ohio State. After further research, I found an article about statistical analysis combined with DNA and protein, which combined a few STEM fields. After reading the article, I realized I did not understand much of the information since it was in-depth writing about chromatin interactions mediated through a protein. It was difficult to thoroughly understand any article on the database in these fields because the language and writing of the professors is different and I am not fully knowledgeable in these areas. However, I was still interested in the one article about chromatin interactions that combined science and math. I tried to do some research to get a slight understanding of all of the components of the research before speaking to one of the professors.

I spoke to a statistics professor here at the university during her office hours one day. I learned that there are research programs at the university that relate math or statistics to other science fields, but there is not too much specifically in math alone. She did not think that research is necessary for math students, however, research can have its upsides. It pushes students to learn at a more in-depth level which can help them in the long run. She believes that students should build relationships with professors so that the professors can get to know the students in case a student needs additional help, letters of recommendation, or other advice. It also helps students get used to speaking to people in a professional environment. She is not in charge of any clubs at the university, however she suggested I go to Actuarial Club meetings and consider joining other math-related clubs.

The process of finding interviewees and meeting with them was somewhat challenging, but rewarding. Speaking to an upperclassman was not difficult, but I feel that I went out of my comfort zone to talk to my TA and a professor. My TA ended up being fairly easy to talk to, and was very willing to answer questions. My professor, however, expected me to be more knowledgeable on her research and I felt slightly uncomfortable trying to talk about her research since I did not have a full understanding. Despite that difficulty, it was a good learning experience to be more prepared when talking to someone at a professional level. I did learn some useful information from all three sources, and I am glad I spoke to all of them. This assignment pushes students to get involved in the real world and work with people who are experienced in fields that students are studying, and overall it was interesting to see what each source had to say.