Welcome to my Honors & Scholars e-Portfolio

Hello and welcome!! My name is Anna and this is my blog. It is still a work in progress, so it will always be changing or having new things. This blog is here for the purpose of helping, therefore you are welcome to read or look around. I hope this blog can be of help, and can be enjoyed.

Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Professional Interview with Dr. Ryan Harne

 

Dr. Ryan Harne is an assistant professor at The Ohio State University, in the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. In this department, Dr. Harne oversees leading the “Laboratory of Sound and Vibration Research” (also known as LSVR). He has always shown a great interest in this topic in research, therefore, his area of expertise in research fields lies within vibration, acoustics, mechanics, nonlinear dynamics, and smart materials. As he leads the LSVR, he mentors’ students, undergraduate as well as graduate, that are part of the lab team. He guides them during the process of starting their own research and prepares them to start independently on a research of their own.

There are two very significant things that Dr. Harne does, one is research related to the LSVR and the second is mentoring students. As our society is growing more and more in knowledge and size, as well as the world is getting older and older, a lot of new problems keep arising and or aspects that need to be better. Problems such as, increasing amounts of energy consumption and increasing negative effects that our society is causing on our world. Therefore, research in the LSVR or topics related to it can have great impacts. Research that the LSVR do, can help find better ways to harvest energy from vibrations that are found in our everyday life (creating an efficient clean and renewable energy source), or help us learn of the effects that acoustics, vibrations and the mechanics related to them have on our surroundings and ourselves. In other words, without research like this and investigations, we would not have a lot of the things that we see around us today. Such as efficient airplanes, strong homes, electricity, music, etc. This area will continue to grow. Since now a day a lot of energy advancements are being made, such as electric cars, magnetic railways for trains, etc. Even space travel is immensely growing, which will need a lot of research such as the one done in this area. Knowing the importance, the LSVR, I started the interview with Dr. Harne.

During my conversation with Dr. Harne, I learned and gained a lot, that truly made me think and appreciate many of the experiences that I have had and are still to come. In my own words, these are some of the things that stood out to me from our interview. At the beginning after he finished his undergraduate, he wasn’t sure of what he wanted to do, he knew what his interests were, and that he enjoyed research. It wasn’t until he defended his Ph.D. that he truly found what he wanted to do, be a professor, a mentor to student and lead a lab to help students grow. He knew he wanted to be a mentor to students after he got the chance to be a professor for a short time. Experience, he said, is extremely important. It’s completely ok to not know what you want to do since the beginning. However, follow your interests, and through experience, you will get to where you need to go. Internships or co-ops are important experiences that we should all do. He especially said that after he said that because he went on a co-op, he knew that he wanted to go into grad school. Because of the co-op, he found out that he wanted to do something else.

Experiencing includes, sometimes not knowing what to do, and this calls for guidance. Everyone needs guidance at first, and everyone after a while should be let go to be independent and experience what they have been guided towards. When he was a Research Fellow at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan University, he had a great mentor, so amazing, that he guided him leading a full lab there. That was the first time Dr. Harne was in charge of the whole show in a lab. Leading the LSVR is therefor his second time running a lab, and he was completely ready to do it. Since back in Michigan he had an amazing mentor, that gave him the opportunity of running a lab. He learned a lot during his time at Michigan University, especially because, he wasn’t alone (guided), but was left to manage it independently and was guided whenever he needed help.

These experiences lead him, to the LSVR. Where he continues to do research, but a great part of his time is taken by helping students. In his research lab, he is a mentor to all his students, he has guided them, but he has also paid attention to know when the right moment is, to not be there all the time for the student and let them be independent. He is very proud of them because the students in his lab have grown and flourished on their own and achieved great things; Once they knew what they were doing.

When he was talking about this, I remembered that for a long time now, I had been worried of not being ready to go out into the world after I graduated and be able to do the many things that I dreamed about. I had feared not knowing what the right thing to do when I got into my first job. But after hearing Dr. Harne say that after he graduated, he wasn’t sure of what exactly he wanted to, but he knew what he found pleasure in, and that he was also never alone (he had a mentor), I began to think that it’s ok for me to be a little scared. However, I should know that not everyone will know the right things to do since the very first time they take toward their dreams, however, every step they take since after the 1st will be better and better until they learn how to do things right; they experience life and it’s easy and hard moments.

Another very significant thing that stood out to me during our interview was when I asked Dr. Harne something that he came across his life, since after finishing undergrad studies up to today, and that was finding a balance between life and work. He wholeheartedly believes in a balance in life. However, he really believes that at first when we begin to embark on our professional journey, we should begin in-balanced. Therefore having a greater push to helps us go towards great things and our dreams. In that way, we can grow more. Otherwise, if we begin balanced, we might not get far and reach the huge potential that we can give. He confessed to me that, because sometimes he struggled with working too much because he enjoyed helping students and research, he was learning to find a better way to balance his health, life and work this year. Because even though sometimes it is good to be passionate and work a lot, there is also a point where we need to know when to stop and take a break for our own good. So that later we can come back and do better. I related to this because sometimes I work very determinedly in order to reach a goal because I want to reach my dreams. But because of that, I sometimes put my health at risk and have gotten sick. When I realized I should have made a better decision, I’m already sick or more physically tired than I would normally feel. However recently I’ve been doing my best to keep studying and doing things passionately, being in-balanced, but also knowing when I should be balanced for my health’s sake.

This interview started based on my curiosity and wanting to know more about why Dr. Harne chose to go along a path that led to research related to the LSVR and the LSVR itself.  I was also worried and scared about a lot of things that are still to come. Such as knowing what to do during my first step out of my undergrad studies, and during my first job, and how to reach my dream. But after talking with Dr. Harne, learning about the amazing things that he has achieved and gained through his experiences, I feel better knowing that it is ok to fear what is to come but to know this: We will never be alone. There will always be people next to us that will guide us, just like how others did for them. Sometimes we might not know what we should do, and other times we might know exactly what to do. But every step we take along the way, the people we meet, and the way we decided to approach everything that comes to us, is up to us. That is why I will do my best to live an unbalanced life at first while knowing the moments when I should bring balance in. For example if I know I have a paper to write or an exam to study for, I will organize my time to do them well and put all of my hard work into them, but whenever I start to feel overwhelmed by them, I will not continue to work on them, I will take a break and bring balance in for a moment. I will also work on not being headstrong in believing that I should not be asking for help when I don’t know how to do something. Because everyone at some point in their lives, did not know how to do a lot of things, however, because they were guided and asked for help, they learned. The world is driven by helping each other out, and my experiences. Like this, I will learn through experiences (such as internships during the summer), and ask for help when I need it, knowing that it is ok to fear what is to come. Because that is how I will grow.

 

Artifacts

College is like taking the first step on the moon. Because of that, I was scared. I didn’t know how to prepare myself, if I was ready to face what was ahead, or if I would be able to make friends. What I knew was, that I would try my best, whatever came my way. Like this, I attended the Ohio State Universities Morrill Scholars Early Arrival Scholars. Because of this program, everyone in it, including me, got to arrive a couple of days early to our dorms. During those few days that we arrived early at the university, we started a mission.

The main purpose of Morrill Scholars is, to promote diversity and help everyone understand it as well. In the program, we were around 70 (if not 80). We were divided into even smaller groups (around 10 students per group), which allowed for us to get to know each other better. Each group had two peer leaders that guided us throughout the whole program. Having the whole group for the program ready, we started doing different activities to get to know each other. Like maybe sharing our stories or opinions regarding current situations. We learned to respect each other, spend time with each other, even though we might have not known each other. We created trust, and alongside this, very important tools to help diversity and our society. We did exercises where we played games as groups. During these games we would either play something to get to trust and respect each other better, or games that involved team scenarios which we had to solve (to develop team work and understanding for each other). On our last day, we all went and did community service at a park near OSU. There we helped place mulch around trees. Some of us shoveled, others moved the cart wheels, and others filled the cartwheels with mulch. We did this from around 8:00 am to around noon. The amazing thing is, that time seemed to pass a lot faster, because we were all working together, and helping each other. After that, they took us to visit COSI, and we spent our last moments together, learning at COSI while having fun.

I gained so many things from this experience, that I can’t describe it in just a few words. What I can say is, that one of the things that I most loved from this experience was, that we all treated each other like family. Each day we would have breakfast together, we would go and walk or talk after our activities ended. Because to me this means, that we want to fight for the purpose that Morrill Scholars lives for, diversity and respect for each other in the world. After those days, I gained more courage to meet everyone that I could and fight for what was rightful in the world. This experience was immensely rich in everything that it gave us. It taught us to hold on to what makes us who we are, and use that to help the world.

Thanks to the Morrill Scholars Early Program, I wasn’t scared anymore. I was using my fear as a tool to go on towards my goals. Change is something scary, because we don’t know what will come from it. That is why, we must face it by being ourselves, and taking it step by step until the change is happening in our own way.

About Me

 

Anna C. Lebrón Rodríguez is a first year student, as a Mechanical Engineering major, at the Ohio State University. She was born in Puerto Rico (San Juan), and lived there for 17 years, until she decided to become a student at OSU. During her years at OSU, Anna wishes to become involved within the university, as well as outside of it. She wishes to do that, by assisting service programs, joining organizations like: the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), the OSU Makers Club, the Archery Club or even the Taekwondo Club. In addition, she has always been interested in making discoveries (no matter how small), and undesrtanding things better. Therefore she would be very interested in being part of a reasearch related to STEM, or another area that could benefit society. Because she has always found an immense happiness in helping others, Anna wants to be part of dual bachelors/ masters program. She hopes to pursue a masters in biomedical engineering. In the future, she wishes to be able to contribute different inventions and solutions to the many problems of the world. Whether it is cleaning the planet or helping a conflict within society. Another one of her other dreams, is to be able to join NASA and become an astronaut.

Anna has always cared a lot about her family and her friends, this has influenced her visions to protect the world and everything that exists because of it. She is very passionate about music, which made her want to take guitar lessons. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her friends and family, reading, spending time with her pets, drawing surrealistic things, listening to a lot of music, and observing the world.

With this goals and visions in mind, Anna will go through her first year at OSU, learning how to get closer to reaching her dreams, and learning many things that only experience can bring her.