Since I’m now a fourth year, instead of saying all I plan to do that fits into Honors & Scholars GOALS, I can say what I have done throughout my three years at Ohio State.

Global Awareness
For Global Awareness, I remember saying as a freshmen that I wanted to study abroad. I haven’t yet accomplished this, as the time seemed to fly by here, but I’d still love to do a study abroad program if I can fit it in. As far as what I’ve already done, I’ve taken a few classes that I think have taught me about different cultures in the world. For one, I took French as a language, and though it wasn’t specifically on the history or culture of France, I think I learned more than just the language through this course from readings and films and books. Another class I took that did fulfill one of my Global Studies GE requirements was Anthropology 2201H. I really enjoyed this class because we learned a lot about prehistoric peoples and different human civilizations around the world by studying the archaeology of different sites. For my second Global Studies requirement, I plan on taking Classics 2220, which is on Greek Mythology and the gods and goddesses. I think this will be a good addition to furthering my Global Awareness on top of what I’ve already taken and hopefully, I will get to do a study abroad before I graduate.

Original Inquiry
As far as Original Inquiry, I have been involved in two different research labs. I have been involved in research in the Archaeological Isotope Lab and in a Chemistry lab. I believe from both of these experiences, especially the later, I have learned to work independently to develop my own ideas and procedures, and to analyze the results. Research is not structured like classes where the instructor guides you through everything; it encourages you to pursue your own ideas and to develop your own conclusions. Your graduate student or PI (principal investigator) may help you to come up with ideas or help analyze some of the advanced results, but mostly they encourage you to take the lead and do your own projects. I believe this is really good for developing good problem solving skills, as well as good knowledge of how a research lab is run and good organization skills since you are in charge of getting your projects done and on documenting the results. You really get familiar with the research process since you are very involved from idea formation, to experiment design, to analyzing results, to keeping your lab notebook, to presenting the ideas to your research group. I think these skills are very important for my future career.

Academic Enrichment
After being at Ohio State for three years, I have taken a lot of classes and been in some extracurriculars that have challenged me and have enriched my academic career. I have been in three different majors here: Molecular Genetics/pre-med, Chemical Engineering, and Chemistry. I think having taken so many classes for different subjects and majors has given me a very well rounded education and challenged me. On top of this, I have taken some honors courses and upper level courses to challenge me academically, including Biology 1114H, Anthropology 2201H, Fundamentals of Engineering Honors, accelerated math classes, Psychology 3371H, and several others. I have been involved in several activities outside of the classroom that have added to my experience. One of these was an archaeology field school, where I got to learn how archaeological digs are carried out and the very important techniques to excavating a site. This was some hands on experience to what I had learned in my archaeology class Anthropology 2201H and really enriched my experience here. Another extracurricular I was involved in was ChemE car, which is a club of chemical engineers, that designs and builds a small car powered by chemical reactions. This club challenged me to use what I’d learned in class and to have to plan and organize all aspects of a project. It was a good way to put to practice the ideas learned in the classroom and to be involved in a sort of research as a team of other students with no outside help.

Leadership
As far as leadership, I have not had any official roles, but I believe I have developed a lot of leadership skills in my courses and in the different teams I’ve worked on. In my courses, especially laboratory courses, I often take a leadership role in performing the experiments in a group. I make sure everyone is on the same page and is working efficiently to get the tasks done and also make sure the assignments are getting divided up fairly and getting turned in on time. On teams, such as ChemE car, I also try to take the lead in coming up with ideas to research and forming a plan to test the ideas. It is important on teams for someone to step up and lead, and I believe in these activities, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to practice leadership. On my robot team for fundamentals of engineering, I also helped lead to get the many assignments in on time and to organize, design, and build a fully functioning autonomous robot.

Community Service
I have always enjoyed giving back to the community through community service and have been involved on campus in several ways. I was involved in a student organization called PUP, who would send volunteers to the Franklin County Dog Shelter to walk and interact with the dogs. I really enjoyed going to the shelter to walk the dogs because I love dogs and it was a good way to serve the community. Another way I was involved in community service is I went on a Buck-I-Serv after my sophomore year to York River State Park in Virginia. On the trip, we helped the rangers in the park to perform various upkeep duties to make the park suitable for visitors, such as clearing the trails of leaves and mud, unclogging streams, building a fence, planting trees, mending boardwalks, and building a sandpit for boats to dock on. During this trip, I learned a lot about the community of the park and I formed some good friendships with the other students on the trip, all while serving the community. I found this trip to be a really good way to perform community service while forming connections with other Ohio State Students and members of the community we traveled to.