End of Second Year Reflection
The global pandemic has made my past two semesters at The Ohio State University very challenging. Many of my classes were switched from meeting in person to only meeting online. In addition to the online classes, I was taking more credit hours and more difficult classes including organic chemistry 1 and 2, biochemistry 5613, and math 2177 to name a few. During the first semester, I struggled to get used to online classes as I ended up inside for most of the day watching lectures, however I eventually got used to the change and adapted to the new style of teaching many of my professors were employing over zoom. During the second semester of online classes, I started to lose my motivation to attend lectures, but I was able to power through and reach the end of the semester. While this year has been challenging, online classes have taught me a lot about discipline and time management which will be useful in my future career. In addition to making my academic career more challenging, the pandemic also made finding research and summer internships more difficult. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a summer internship for the summer of 2021 as many of the places I applied to decided to cancel or reduce the number of interns they were hiring to their programs. With my remaining time at The Ohio State University, I hope to find a research position, as I will be emailing more faculty over the summer, and I hope to get an internship for next summer.

Biochemistry 5613 Review
Biochemistry 5613 is the first of three biochemistry classes that are taken by biochemistry and other related majors. In this class, we learned the basics of amino acids, proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids along with different laboratory techniques used to purify and identify them. The class had three different graded portions, take home quizzes which helped solidify the information we learned in lecture, midterms which tested us on what we learned and our ability to apply the topics to more complex situations, and the final exam which tested us over everything we learned throughout the semester. I am looking forward to taking biochemistry 5614, the next biochemistry course in the series, to apply what I have learned in biochem 5613 and further my understanding of biochemistry.

Semester in Review
Overall my first semester has been a good experience in which I’ve learned important life skills and made new friends. My first semester started with the OWL program during which I made new friends and met some of my roommates. In addition, I was able to make connections with other people that lived on my floor, thus making the start of my first semester go smoothly. Once classes started, I was still procrastinating like I did in high school however I soon found out that there was much more work in college. Because of the increased workload and my busy schedule, I had to learn better time management skills to get all of my work done before it was due. In addition to using my time more efficiently, I also had to learn better study habits instead of cram studying the night before the exam. Also, by attending different Scholars events and volunteering, I was able to meet new people, altogether making my first semester a good learning experience.