Month: November 2017

G.O.A.L.S

A tree doesn’t start out big or beautiful. It takes time for it to grow, and sometimes it takes longer then what we expect. But if we nurture it and give it love and determination, it will grow to be amazing. Each of our goals work like a tree. They are made up of different but equally important aspects. Just like this, the scholars G.O.A.L.S. are also made up of different aspects that are all equally important to each other. Goals around the world are composed of smaller goals, that lead to the main one, following the same pattern, the scholars G.O.A.L.S. are made up of smaller goals that guide towards the bigger one. G.O.A.L.S. is made up of: Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement. Out of these aspects, there are two that I believe are the most important. I believe this because from them, the rest of the G.O.A.L.S factors can come out of or they are greatly affected by them. These two factors are, Global Awareness and Service Engagement.

I’ve always seen service engagement as something very important. Ever since I was young, I always enjoyed helping everyone around me, in which ever way I could. I also remember that every time I helped, I learned something, and I’ve always kept what I learned each time. We would go and help a convent with their plants. To that same convent, my family and I would donate clothes or toys for them to give to poor children. During first to sixth grade, my school used to give food to a poor old lady that lived in a neighborhood close by to our school. We would sometimes make food for her, or we would buy her sandwiches from a Subway that was close by. She would always show us a smile when we did that. Little by little, through these acts of kindness, we learned her story. One time I also got to go and clean the beach with my mom, for a program we joined. Throughout high school, I kept doing community work for my school. Some weekends we would go to the school, and helped clean, or we would plant small tress (etc.). At one moment, I began tutoring a little deaf girl. I helped a main teacher (in charge of the tutoring) with what the little girl had for homework. I would play with her, make her laugh, until eventually I got her trust, and understanding her was easier. Now at OSU, I get to show a STEM experiment, to children from k12, that may not have every opportunity that we’ve had. Like that, we nurtured their future. Each time I helped to do any of those things, I would learn a new story that the person I helped told me, or that I simply gained by observing. All of this encompasses Service engagement, these are what make Service engagement a means to understanding people in the world better, empathy. This is an extremely important tool for solving the world’s problems.

Global awareness is everywhere we look. It can be seen in TV, events for different societies in groups, etc. My global awareness grew when I helped the convent, because I got to talk to people that don’t live like everyone else; I gained a new perspective. When I cleaned the beach one time, I learned that trash is beginning to be dumped more around the world, and it is urgent that we try our best to not let it happen; I gained new knowledge of the worlds situation and what society is doing to try and help it. When I tutored the little deaf girl, I had to think differently for me to understand someone who goes through several different obstacles every day. Once, I got the opportunity to travel to Europe too. It was amazing to see everyone speaking in another language than the ones I was used too (they spoke Portuguese). After a while, I observed more and more that our differences, were what made us alike. That trip made me reflect a lot on our world, and how it was doing. I gained a new way of thinking because of all those experiences. Like this I will join both factors and say, that they both compliment each other, and inside them you can also find the other factors of G.O.A.L.S. Original inquiry can be seen when, because of wanting to help the worlds community regarding a problem, we join an outreach program or an investigation to try and resolve it. We might even meet people that offer us opportunities to do research with them. I’ve seen this in Current, a marine biology club, that I am a member of at OSU. We recently got the opportunity to participate in a fresh water jellyfish research that will take place next semester. Leadership can be seen developing by the more global awareness that we gain, and the more service engagement were part of. Because it will allow us more opinions and understanding to better talk with people or help resolve a bad problem with and open and just mind. The last one would be academic enrichment. With no doubt this will be gained, by facing the many challenges that mechanical engineering courses, internships and co-ops bring. But with them, my knowledge towards resolving a renewable energy research that I started in high school, may be finished and resolved.

In this way, Service engagement and Global awareness will help me throughout the years. They will allow me to understand the people around me better, and they will allow me to see the world differently, for me to be able to help it together with others. When I help a community, they will help me grow in empathy. They will help me grow in perspectives when I help a community that is unusual to me,when I do research or participate in an internship for NASA. If for example I travel abroad and study the culture of the place I travel to. As I gain these experiences, those two factors will give me the tools to, as an engineer, reach my goals of being able to help everyone in the best way possible. Not alone, but as my best self with others around me. That’s how a tree grows tall, not alone but with its surroundings and its experience.

10/20/2017

A lot of opportunities come along when you least expected them. Sometimes, that’s how you find some of your best experiences. That is how I found an outreach opportunity where we got to spend time with kids through K12 in a community library. I found this outreach opportunity, while reading through a list of outreach activities that my STEM EE Scholars program offered us. As soon as I found it I emailed the person in charge. I knew at the second that she replied to me, that I had made a good decision in going to the activity.  I didn’t exactly know who were the other students who were going to be part of the library team. What I had known was that other three students were coming, and the organizer of the outreach, Betty Lise Anderson, was going to give us a ride to the library. Even though I was scared of not knowing anyone, I trusted my courage and passion for the activity, and went on forward deciding to give my best.

The first part of my experience started when I was searching for the place where we were, meeting to leave for the library. The meeting place was under “Dreese Laboratory”, the basements. It was the electronics lab. While I was walking to it, I passed by various labs located in the basement. My curiosity increased by a million, and it made me want to know what they did in the labs, and how I could be part of them if they did interest me. Every sign I passed, I read intensely, until I reached the electronics lab. There each of us met. We were three girls, the teacher (Betty), and a boy. On our way to the library, we got to know each other, and broke our comfort zone, in order to be able to be more comfortable with each other. We learned that each of us had very different goals. Like for example, some wanted to go into medical school,others wanted to be engineers, etc. But what we learned during the activity was that, because each of us had different goals, we each had different important qualities in order to be able to do the activity the most fun with the kids. When we got to the library, I finally noticed the name, “Parsons Branch Library”. There we went inside an activity room, and we prepared to show the kids that were in the library, a stem-based experiment. The experiment was an electrical engineering one. I had never seen it before, but I was super excited to show it to the kids. It was such a cool way to show how if current passes through a coil, it transforms it into a magnet. The experiment is known as the “Jumping Jack”. When each of us had learned how the experiments worked, and how to explain it to each kid, the k12 children in the library entered. However not everyone of them entered at first, and at that moment, one of us spontaneously showed us a new side and amazing qualities. He got so excited and started to cheer the kids into the room. His passion showed through his voice and face. He transmitted a new experience into us, and with those actions, showed us to not be scared of showing what we loved and our passion. Like that, each of us started encouraging the kids, and we began showing the k12 kids the experiment. By the end of the experiment, every single one of the kids, that ranged from second grade to even a college kid, was having fun with their “jumping jacks”!. If you looked at some of them, their eyes shined because of how happy they were, that they had made something so cool. Some of them went to show their friends playing in the computer, and then their friends came and did the experiment too. Others made another to give to their parents. They enjoyed it so much, that curiosity sparks arouse, and they started asking us different questions. The questions ranged from how it worked, what we were studying, or some of them even wanted to explain to us how they thought the experiment worked. At the end of the experiment, we allowed all of them to take the experiment they made home, and that made them even more happy. That feeling is what let me know, that this was going to be remembered as one of the best unforeseen experiences in my life.

I took so many things from this experience, that I can’t mention them all in just this artifact. But I can mention a few. I learned that in order to face a situation, we might not all be the same, but those differences are what allow us to all work together to accomplish a common goal. Second, even though we might have done a small activity or experiment with these kids, the way they were because of that is worth doing a million more like that. Because even the smallest acts of kindness can change the life of someone forever. Third, in order to teach the experiment to the kids (k12), we had to think in a different way in which the experiment would be easier to understand.  In other words, thinking in other perspectives (point of views) sometimes can make you learn something. Lastly, I learned that I don’t have to be scared of showing how passionate or happy I am about something, because sometimes that exact thing that I am scared of doing, can encourage others.

This unexpected experience led me to meet new friends and amazing children that inspire me. I even made a promise to a little girl. I promised her, and the other children, that we would be back next month. With that, a smile stayed on their faces, and we left back to campus, talking about new ideas we had in mind for them, and what the future hold for many other opportunities. So I say this to everyone, “When you least expect it, you will be met with an inspiring experience. And you will be so inspired, that you will want to fly”.