Service Engagement

Through the International Affairs Scholars program, I have been involved in many short-term service projects. These have included things such as a canned food drive and writing letters to veterans and active-duty military personnel during the holidays. These experiences have been great, but I strive to complete a long-term service project in the future. As I make plans for my third year of college, I am seeking a project that I can get involved in heavily and make a real difference in my community. Right now, I am exploring opportunities volunteering with a local animal shelter or nursing home. I think that either of these would be excellent for my personal growth and allow me to give back to the Columbus community for a longer period of time.

Leadership Development

Sophomore year has brought about a lot of development in my leadership experience. First, I am on the Leadership Council for the International Affairs Scholars program (a sort of executive board, if you will). As one of the 11 members on the council, I was responsible for driving the course of the program and creating the scholars experience of about 200 undergraduate students. In addition to being a member of the council, I was one of two co-chairs for the Global Citizenship team, which paired 2nd years to be mentors for the 1st years. My co-chair and I were in charge of matching about 80 2nd years with 60 1st years and then holding them accountable for the requirements we set forth for them.

In addition to being on the Leadership Council, I was also an OWL-Coordinator for move-in day at the beginning of autumn semester. After going through intensive leadership training for 2 days, I was given my own “flock” of OWLs (Ohio State Welcome Leaders). I was responsible for training them and, since 13 of my 15 OWLs were freshman, introducing them to the university. I was the first face that they saw for OSU and I made sure to make the most of that. For more details about this position, please see the post entitled “Artifacts: OWL-C.”

I recently found out that I have been selected to be a Resident Advisor for the 2016-2017 school year. I’m ecstatic to be taking on this new leadership role. I think that it will greatly add to my personal development and allow me to challenge myself by being a leader in a new setting that is very different from the positions I’ve held thus far. For more about the future of my RA position, please see the post entitled “Artifacts: Becoming a Resident Advisor.”

Because of all of these leadership experiences, I have learned a lot more about myself. I am a strong and charismatic leader, but also have the ability to encourage the ideas of others and make everyone safe and included. Not many people that I have come across handle this balance of being firm and friendly in quite the same way as me, since everyone has different leadership styles. I have the unique ability to be as caring as a mother and as authoritative as needed depending on the situation.

Academic Enrichment

I have learned so much about myself through the courses that I took this year. At the beginning of autumn semester, I was accepted into the Public Affairs Journalism major but I thought that I wanted to be an editor at a publishing house. This was a confusing time. It only got more confusing when I realized that I wasn’t enjoying my journalism courses because they were too specific to job training and I knew that I didn’t want to be a reporter. I became frustrated autumn semester.

In spring semester, I signed up for Intro to Literary Publishing, which is what I thought I wanted to do. However, I quickly came to realize that while I enjoyed the rigor of the class, it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Because I took such tough journalism courses and then spread out to a publishing course, I realized that my future path really lay with graduate school, most likely law school. If not for the intensity of these classes, I would not have been able to come to that conclusion about my future career.

However, I would like to make a note of the fact that even though these courses were creatively exhausting and extremely intensive, I never gave up on the courses themselves. Yes, I learned wonderful lessons about who I am, but I also knew that my grades mattered to me. Despite the changes that I’ve gone though this year, I am proud to say that I have been on the Dean’s List every semester of my college career and expect nothing less from myself in the future.

Original Inquiry

While I have not participated in research this year, I have created original content for The Lantern in my journalism courses. I believe that the stories that I have been able to tell and the information that I have provided the student body and my fellow classmates is valuable and original.

In this way, journalism has been my own form of original inquiry. I have asked questions that others often overlook, sought out new information, and listened attentively to people tell their stories so that I could record it and share it with the rest of the world. The newsroom has been my laboratory as I learned the ins and outs of how to write a good story and how to get subjects to trust me with their personal stories.

The lessons that I have learned in these courses has allowed me to expand and begin to ask my own questions and explore human nature in a deeper way than ever before.

Global Awareness

This year in International Affairs Scholars has really increased my global awareness. While all of our events are globally focused and encompass many issues, some have really stood out to me. First, I got the chance to learn about the Syrian refugee crisis from the ground up. A History department faculty member came in to teach us about the beginnings of the issue from a historical perspective. Then, we had another faculty member from the Political Science department talk more in-depth about how the refugee crisis has been handled by different countries, such as the U.S. and Canada.

All of this talk about the Syrian refugee crisis finally culminated for me during the IA trip to Toronto, Canada. We had the pleasure of hearing from the Special Assistant to the Premier of Ontario for Syrian refugees, who elaborated on how Canada was able to take in 25,000 refugees in just a few months. His perspective was so informative and I really enjoyed hearing him speak about his direct influence in such a large issue that I had learned about for the past semester.

Also, traveling to Toronto itself really raised my global awareness as well. It was my first trip outside of the U.S. and I learned so much by being there for just a few days. I definitely plan on traveling abroad more in the future and this was a great way for me to dip my toe in the water, so to speak.