The task the Scholar 1100 class was assigned to complete was designed to aid the students in their college experience by interviewing an upperclassman, graduate student, and professor at The Ohio State University about their individual college experience. Additionally, the students were assigned to read two scholarly articles, published either by the professor they interviewed or in the student’s field of study. For the assignment I interviewed upperclassman biochemistry major Austin Cool, Chemistry 1220 graduate teaching assistant Allyson Langley, and engineering Professor Dr. Chris Ratcliff. Each of these knowledgeable people took time out of their busy schedules to provide me with advice for college as well as sharing some stories from their collegiate careers.
Each of these unique individuals crossed my path at some point in time during my first semester here at Ohio State, and thankfully all of them were willing to spend a few minutes of their time to answer some questions about their undergraduate experience in college. I met Austin Cool after the upperclassmen interview panel and discussed his collegiate experience with him for an hour following the panel. I met Allyson Langley (who prefers to be called Ally) and Professor Ratcliff in similar manners as Ally is my lab TA in my Chemistry 1220 class and Professor Ratcliff is my Engineering 1181 instructor.
In my interview with Austin Cool, I learned more about the biochemistry major, chemistry at Ohio State, and the organization Ohio Staters, Inc. Austin is a very driven individual with big goals for himself and for the Staters organization. From my time with Austin I learned that biochemistry is a very difficult field that deals with the chemical processes that take place inside living organisms. The biochemistry major requires an abundance of chemical and biological knowledge and students that wish to graduate with this major must be willing to work diligently in order to balance the difficult coursework in addition to living their lives. As a chemical engineering student, I was interested in the various chemistry classes that Austin had taken. He said that classes like organic chemistry and physical chemistry had difficult content, but if you pay attention in class and study hard that the classes are manageable. Lastly, I discussed Ohio Staters, Inc. with Austin and it was very easy to see that Austin has a tremendous passion for the organization. The joint student-faculty organization undertakes large-scale projects that benefit the Ohio State community. Austin is currently working on a massive statue for the Ohio State marching band, but could not share too many details about the secret project. I was thankful for Austin’s time as his advice will help me in future classes.
Following my conversion with Austin, I emailed my chemistry GTA, Ally, and set up a time to interview her about her undergraduate and graduate experience in college. During my interview with Ally she provided me with many pieces of advice about how to succeed in college. My biggest takeaway from my interview with her was that she suggested to find a major that a student “likes to do, is good at, and places little to no stress on the student.” Ally also advocated strongly for building relationships with professors and advisors. In her experience, the relationships she made with professors and advisors helped her to do better in classes and those people were also able to write her meaningful letters of recommendation which allowed her to get her current research opportunity at Ohio State. The final point Ally made during the interview is to find something you love to do and go for it wholeheartedly, because if you like something and put all your efforts towards it, then you should have no regrets. Interviewing Ally was a great experience because she had so much to say and I will be sure to follow her advice in the future.
Once I had completed my interview with Ally I began reading scholarly articles on the database, Scopus, in order to find a professor that I would have an interest in interviewing. I navigated to the Scopus database using the following process: Initially, I went to library.osu.edu, navigated to the STEM EE Scholars page and opened the Scopus database. Once on the Scopus page I utilized the database’s various search features to narrow my search to my desired topic with affiliations at Ohio State. I then sifted through the various articles and selected a few that I found interesting and had been cited by other articles. I read the abstracts of the articles and clicked the download button on each article’s page to download the articles. Ultimately, I decided to interview Dr. Ratcliff, so I read his research and some related articles in the OhioLink library catalog. The scholarly articles I read were rather difficult to read due to the complex jargon utilized by the authors. The advantage of the complex language used in these articles is that experts and professionals in the same field of study can communicate their research very precisely. However, the utilization of complex language makes it exceedingly difficult for people who are not experts in that particular field to make sense of the content in the article.
Once I had read a few scholarly article abstracts, I contacted Dr. Ratcliff to see if he would be interested in discussing his research. He responded quickly and was more than willing to spend his time to discuss his research and provide advice on how to succeed in college. During my interview with Dr. Ratcliff I learned that he received all his higher-level education from The Ohio State University and enjoyed it so much that he decided to become a professor at the University. Dr. Ratcliff graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physics engineering, his master’s in electrical and computer engineering and performed his post-graduate research on solar cells to receive his PhD. I found his research into growing new materials for solar cells to be very complex, but it was fascinating nonetheless. I share Dr. Ratcliff’s passion for clean and renewable sources of energy, so it was great to speak with someone who has conducted research in this field. In addition to discussing his research Dr. Ratcliff also said that the most important trait of a successful college student is that he or she never stops asking questions. I found this to be a very worthwhile piece of advice and have tried to implement this strategy in my classes.
Overall, I found this assignment to be beneficial to the STEM EE students. The Scholars 1100 students are just entering our first semester of college and having the opportunity to interview fellow Buckeyes who have been through many of the same experiences that we will experience in college was great to have. I learned a great deal from Austin, Ally and Dr. Ratcliff, and was glad that I was able to interview them about their time in college. I am thankful to have had this experience and will do my best to implement the advice gained in this assignment to my collegiate career.
Works Cited
Kent, Thomas. “III-Nitride Nanostructures for Optoelectronic and Magnetic Functionalities: Growth, Characterization and Engineering.” Electronic Thesis or Dissertation. Ohio State University, 2014. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. 24 Oct 2016.
Ratcliff, Christopher. “Growth and Characterization of III-Phosphide Materials and Solar Cells for III-V/Si Photovoltaic Applications.” Electronic Thesis or Dissertation. Ohio State University, 2014. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. 24 Oct 2016.