This interview process was a good opportunity to learn new information about the university and potential opportunities available to me.  College life has been a very foreign experience for me.  I was born and raised in the suburbs of Ohio.  I lived in a suburb that was surrounded by farms; being in this environment, I was not surrounded by much culture.  Coming to a massive city and campus presented a large culture-shock.  I am no longer in a community filled with white, upper-class people in the suburbs.  I am surrounded by people from a different state or even a different country.  There are many people from different cultures who have come together as a single community on campus.  I have always heard that America was a melting-pot, but coming to Ohio State is honestly the first time I have ever experienced it in a large environment.  This project gave me an opportunity to connect with a community that I was unfamiliar with.  It was a way to get involved which is important to make the best of a college experience.

Finding an Upperclassmen to interview was not entirely difficult.  My brother is a senior attending Ohio State right now.   So through him, I have many opportunities to connect with upperclassmen.  I ended up interviewing his roommate because he is an Astrophysics and Astronomy double major.  I am an Aerospace Engineering pre-major, so I wanted to interview someone who had similar interests as me.  For the Graduate Student I wanted to interview someone who knew about engineering and could give me advice on how to succeed in the difficult environment of engineering school.  I interviewed the GTA of my engineering fundamentals course.  My last interview was with a professor with who I hoped to pursue a research opportunity with.  I searched for professors who had degrees in the Aerospace field and who were doing research relating to such.

The Upperclassmen I interviewed was Andrew Zitnik.  He is an Astrophysics and Astronomy double major who is pursuing a PhD in his field.  Throughout his time at Ohio State he has been very involved.  He was a founder of the Astronomical Society student organization at Ohio State.  The Astronomical Society is something I have a lot of interest in and is one of the most popular clubs at Ohio State.  They have over a hundred students in attendance weekly and are growing quickly.  Andrew now remains as the Treasurer of the club.  In his coursework, Andrew has also been very successful.  He never received a grade lower than a B- in a class.  This is an amazing achievement because Andrew is pursuing a highly difficult degree in a competitive field that is difficult to succeed in.  The Astrophysics and Astronomy degree at Ohio State is notorious for forcing students to drop out.  So far over half of the students who started freshman year in the major have dropped out.  His main advice was to study often and do homework.  It is easy to get lost in the syllabi and forget about due dates.  Because of this, it is necessary to stay organized.  He emphasized the importance of course work.  In his education, he decided to focus on his classes and clubs rather than the responsibility of research.  He is confident in his ability to make it into graduate school based on his GPA and relationships he has built up with his professors rather than research.  I learned from this interview that grades and building relationships with staff members is very important.  By forming a connection with a professor, that person could open up many opportunities for you that you otherwise would’ve never had.

The Graduate student I interviewed is the GTA of my fundamentals of engineering course.  He is in charge of our lab and his name is Alec Sichko.  He has a BS in Civil Engineering and now is pursuing a master’s degree.  The best advice I learned was that it’s possible for redemption, even if Freshman year isn’t going as well as anticipated.  Although it may not go well, it is still important to network with professors.  Alec took max credit hours for his first couple semesters and ended up getting low grades.  This forced him to find a way to improve his habits in order to get better grades or else he would not make it through engineering school.  This led to him forming a study group with a couple of engineering friends.  They took all of the same classes and did their coursework together.  After forming this group his grades improved immensely and he was able to get a degree and go off to graduate school.  Many people struggle in the first couple semesters in college.  It is a completely new environment and a completely new difficulty of coursework that is not really experienced in high school.  Those who succeed are the people who change and can adapt to the environment.  I learned that it is necessary to ask for help and improve study habits to become the best student possible.  Also it is a necessity to stay organized while picking up more responsibilities such as a job or a research position.  While Alec never did research in his undergrad, he said that if I were to pursue a graduate degree, it is advised to participate in research.  By pursuing research in an undergrad it opens up doors for the future and will make finding a professor for a thesis much easier.

I found the articles that I used through SCOPUS.  I used SCOPUS to find papers that I was interested in and then pursued an interview with professor who wrote the paper.  The professor I found was Dr. Kiran D’Souza.  He works in the Mechanical Engineering program and is very open to helping students who are aspiring engineers.  He has a degree in Aerospace Engineering and is passionate about the topic.  Dr. Kiran has done research regarding turbines and bladed disks for the use in industry.  He is working on making analysis cheaper and quicker for companies using bladed disks in turbines.  This seemed like a good opportunity to learn about industry and the things I might be doing as an engineer.  Dr. D’Souza stressed the importance of doing research as an undergraduate and building relationships with professors but he also stressed that work experience will take someone further than research will.  He also made it clear that I should pursue internship opportunities before research.  In industry, many companies will hire someone who has directly worked in industry before someone who has done research for a university.  I was able to get a position in his lab where I am responsible for small tasks.  He has many graduate students working for him that could act as mentors for me and teach me more about the research they are performing.

Overall this project was a good opportunity to get involved.  I was able to meet a lot of new people and get advice that I would have otherwise never received.  I learned a lot about what it takes to be successful in college and what I should strive to be as an aspiring Aerospace Engineering student.  It gave me experience on how to also approach professors.  It is important that I work hard in college because my future is bright and I am in charge of my own career path.