Hello my name is Jackson Long, I am in my first year at The Ohio State University.  I grew up in two different areas, one rural and one urban.  Greenville, Ohio is where my journey started which is a very small farm town.  In fifth grade I moved to Cincinnati Ohio which was a major change, but important in my development.  The move was a good experience for me expanding my knowledge of small town living to the ways of the city.  This is a turn in my journey that I have embraced and looked at as a great experience in my life outside of my schooling.  I think that it is always good to be learning and this has caused me to place much time in effort in my academic journey.

The focus that leads every aspect of my academic journey is completing my work to the best of my ability, no matter how small or large the assignment may be.  Science, mathematics, and business genres of learning truly capture my interest opposed to other subjects such as history or English. However, I do not allow myself to apply any less effort in these classes.  Putting forth maximum effort at all times is something that has been instilled in me throughout my life by many mentors and teachers.  However, the main encouragement and instruction to be my best at all times came at the start of my life with my parents and slightly later when I began preschool at DeColores Montessori in Greenville, Ohio.  These two powerful starting influences pushed me into my academic journey with a strong desire for success and a knowledge that to find this success my full determination and desire must always be present.

My yearning to succeed and willingness to dedicate myself to my education along with other aspects of my life such as sports involvement and social activity loaded my journey with a diverse range of successes.  I started my academic journey off in Montessori schooling, which I heavily credit my academic success to and  I believe it is this Montessori  foundation which will continue to help me  achieve in the academic arena. Along with the constant support of my family, the Montessori way of hard work and passion to learn made me eager to gain knowledge and achieve to my best ability.  Then in fifth grade a family move required me to transition into public schooling, an important test of my academic journey. It was frustrating to me because the environment was not nearly as rich with encouragement to learn and be your best at all times. I see this as a time where I could have let myself slack off and fall into habits of contributing effort only to subjects where I had a keen interest. However, my thirst for success kept me putting my best foot forward all the way through to my high school graduation. This led to the achievement of being accepted to The Ohio State University and joining the class of 2019.

The core interest in academics for me has always been and continues to be math and science. This led me to initially pursue a path through high school that would help launch me into a pre-dental track in college. This meant that I took many science and math courses throughout high school. However, recently I have decided to focus my undergraduate learning in the field of business, specifically taking the route to becoming a Certified Public Accountant. Yet this does not satisfy my continued interest in the sciences.  I believe STEM could possibly fill this void for me.  I think the science, technology, engineering and math in the STEM Scholars program will be a great compliment to my business major as our world quickly becomes more and more technologically advanced.

The opportunity that the STEM Scholars program provides allows me to enhance and broaden my learning in some of the areas which I find interesting and challenging.  There is no specific person that I can credit my interest in STEM to besides myself. The topics covered have always piqued my interest and seem to go well with the technical way in which I think and look at life. The development of my enthusiasm for STEM related topics has been gradual throughout the course of my education starting with basic science and math at DeColors Montessori elementary school, graduating to college level physics and calculus in high school. I look at STEM as a strong tool to continue training my brain in areas I am interested in outside of my business studies.

Top Five Strengths

The strengths assessment is a powerful analysis of personal assets.  My personal top five were analytical, competitive, restorative, achiever, and input.  While I was fairly aware of these characteristic being my areas of personal strength, it was interesting to read the written analysis the strengths test produced for each trait.  I believe it is very important for everyone to understand what traits are dominant for them.   This is very important for life in general and leads to a healthier life style.  Understanding my personal strengths allows me to, better understand what occupations I would be well suited for, effectively communicate with others, and play a leading role in all areas of my life.

Every day I see my strengths play an important part in my life.  One that especially pertains to almost every aspect of my life is “analytical.”  The “to the point” style of thinking driven by proof and logic drives my mental processing of all situations.  All throughout my academic career I have enjoyed clear and concise topics such as mathematics and the sciences which have been strongly influenced by my “analytical” strength.  This pertains to my current life in academics and overall how I approach situations in life.  I do not let my emotions dictate my actions, I make the best logical decision for the situation I am in.  Seeing that the strengths test identified “analytical” as my top strength only reinforces my future goals of becoming an accountant and financial planner.  The occupations I wish to engage in are very much analytical based jobs where practical thinking and extreme precision is of utmost necessity, fitting my strengths exceptionally well.

I see the strengths “competitive” and “achiever” working well together as compliments in my life.   Every day I encounter situations that I interpret as competition because I always want to be my best by putting forth my top effort.  I recently rushed a business fraternity and my drive and competitiveness led me to the achievement of receiving a bid to become a member.  My competitiveness is the drive that results in my success in many situations.   I do not like to do work that is anything but my best which, in turn, drives me to be an achiever in my academics among other areas of my life.  I have always known that I have a very competitive persona and that it pushes me to achieve in what I do.  So seeing “achiever” and “competitive” in the results of my strength test only supported my ideas about my future goals.  My passion to achieve and competitiveness make me willing to do what is necessary to succeed.  This especially applies to my future and specifically my professional life.  I am willing to go the extra step to do what is necessary to secure a job or promotion.  I have a passion for success, which leads to my competitive nature and successful results.

I also feel that “restorative” and “input” are   strengths of mine that work together in my life.  They are especially visible when I am working in groups both in an academic setting such as my statistics group and nonacademic settings such as my work crew at my job this past summer.  I believe it is just as important to contribute what knowledge I can as to be able to listen to others ideas and expand on them.  The “restorative” strength shows that I like to help others while ever expanding what I know.  While the “input” characteristic of my strength represents my desire to lead, teach and help others in a group effort to reach success.  These strengths support what I want to do with my life professionally.  My strength with “input” gives me the desire to guide others to monetary wellbeing when in the financial planning field.  The “restorative” characteristic is the internal drive to always be improving myself so I am better suited to help others in either my accounting or financial planning work.

While I believe it is very important to understand your strengths I believe it is equally important to know your weaknesses.  This is especially pertinent to group work because when the group has a strong understanding of their personal strengths and weaknesses, delegation of roles  can occur allowing the group to work to its maximum potential.