Author: Elizabeth

Earth Month Proposal Challenge; Food & Water

My challenge area for Earth Month is food and water. Each week I will practice a new technique that helps the earth out in addition to what I was doing the following week.

  • Week One: Meatless Fridays. I will not consume any meat on Fridays.
  • Week Two: I will carry a reusable water bottle or coffee cup everywhere I go so that I won’t have to use a disposable one. In addition, I will not be eating meat on Fridays.
  • Week Three: I will go all week as a pescatarian, so I will be able to consume fish and animal products but no meat such as pork, beef chicken, etc. I will also still carry a reusable cup and not eat any meat on Fridays (including fish).
  • Week Four: No dairy. I will not be consuming milk, cheese, or any other dairy products all week in addition still practicing pescatarianism and carrying a reusable water bottle.

Some challenges that this might pose will be restricting my diet. Most of the weeks progress towards veganism, but not entirely vegan because the last week I will still be consuming fish. Other than that I will have eliminated most animal products from my diet which is a much more sustainable diet. It might be hard to stay motivated because sometimes it’s hard to find food options on campus that support this type of lifestyle. I also think it may be hard to influence others to do the same as me.

Scholars Earth Month; Food & Water Themed Changes You Can Do To Help

My area of focus for Scholars Earth Month is food and water. I chose this focus because this has effected me me for quite some time. For the past year I have done research on diet and how it effects the environment and oneself. I have come to learn a lot about how one can alter their diet to better their health and the world. Although veganism seems the best route with the most benefits for this there are other less drastic options. I myself am a pescatarian, which is another option, along with being a vegetarian or simply reducing one’s intake of animal products. College students eat several times everyday, so it is obvious how small changes can accumulate to a large difference.

 

Things you can do to help the environment [centered around a food & water changes]

 

  1. Eat more locally grown foods
  2. Use a water filter (instead of buying disposable water bottles)
  3. Become a vegan
  4. If that’s too drastic for you… consider being a vegetarian or pescatarian
  5. Still not feeling it? The least you can do is not eat meat one day out of the week
  6. Eat more plant based foods
  7. Buy Fair Trade
  8. Turn off the water when you’re brushing your teeth
  9. Turn off the water in between washing dishes
  10. Take shorter showers
  11. Always carry a reusable water bottle with you
  12. Have extra swipes? Don’t let them go to waste, buy a homeless person a meal
  13. Only wash your laundry in full loads (bonus; this will save you money too)
  14. Start a compost pile
  15. Use less paper napkins during meals
  16. Skip taking baths, instead just shower
  17. Shower every other day (bonus; your hair will also get healthier)
  18. Ditch the paper plates and plastic silverware for meals, go reusable

 

3 resources around campus and Columbus that can help get you informed and involved:

 

  1. The Ohio State University Vegetarian & Vegan Society: For anyone trying to change their diet to decrease their impact on the environment this is a great club here at OSU to support and back up your new lifestyle. They meet biweekly and have a Facebook page so there are always updates and new events going on within the club.
  2. Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District: This organization is committed to the conversation of water in Franklin County. They offer workshops, volunteering opportunities, and advice on how you can conserve water at home and around Columbus.
  3. The North Market: This market is located in the Short North and caters to those who like to purchase fresh produce and food locally grown by individual business owners. Many food options here are organic and locally grown. Not only are you helping the environment and your health, but you’re also supporting small businesses when you shop here!

 

Websites that can help get you informed and involved:

  1. http://www.chooseveg.com/environment : for those looking to change their diet for a more sustainable lifestyle this website is great. It helps give pointers on leading a vegetarian lifestyle and is full of statistics about why becoming a veg head helps the earth. For example, raising animals for food uses 30% of the earth’s land mass. These facts will definitely help reinforce your new diet decision!
  2. http://www.50waystohelp.com : If you’re looking to make changes in small ways this website offers 50 things you can do to help out the planet. Not all of these are related to food and water, but there are a lot of water conservation tips (like only running the dishwasher for full loads) along with a few diet changes examples (like going vegetarian once a week) that can make a difference. If everyone started doing these there would be immense change.
  3. http://eartheasy.com/live_water_saving.htm : This website offers a lot of great ways to conserve water at home. It ranges from small things like shutting off the facet when you’re brushing your teeth to at home projects like checking your plumbing for leaks. A lot of these options are not only great for the planet but save you money.
  4. http://www.peta.org : Oh the infamous PETA. Despite what you may have heard from those who have only heard rumors about PETA and extremist actions, this organization is actually amazing and very dedicated to helping the earth and all those who inhabit it. This website offers a lot of animal rights information along with why being vegan or at least vegetarian helps reduce one’s impact on the environment, how it can help push the world in a right direction, and why it is beneficial to your health. The videos are quite impactful and I would only recommend watching them if you want to change your diet, otherwise you will just feel guilty anytime you eat a hamburger

Give a few of these changes a try and check out some of the resources. They are influential and show how small habits and steps you can incorporate into your daily routine, not just for a month but for a lifetime, can change the world.

Columbus To-Do List; Sea Kayaking

This semester I will be sea kayaking in the Florida Everglades and 10,000 Islands. This OAC trip will be my Columbus To-Do List experience.

This opportunity presented to me through OSU, the OAC, and ENR Scholars is obviously not something everyone gets the chance to do. I am looking forward to just about everything, as cheesy as that sounds. If I had to pick though I would definitely say that getting to sleep on a different beach every night for six days sounds pretty amazing. Also, I have heard a lot about how the team bonds on this trip, and that is something I am definitely looking forward to. Ethan talked about there being a channel that has bacteria that create a bioluminescent protein that makes the water glow. I have studied this before and I would also love to see that in person. I think I’m going to develop a lot of new skills on this trip because it is such a unique opportunity.

I really want to learn about knots, as silly as that sounds, but I believe we will being have a knots workshop. Looking at bigger picture objectives I hope that by the end of this trip I will be able to navigate and plan a trip of my own one day (to a less intense scale). Also I want to gain a deeper appreciation of the Everglades and nature in general. The Florida Everglades usually just get labeled as a swamp and disregarded as a national park. However, from what I’ve studied so far in preparation for this trip it seems to harbor a lot of beauty and diversity. I think being there first person will definitely help this mindset evolve in not just me, but everyone on the trip.

An experience I’ve already had so far in relation to the trip would be the pre-trip Brunch. Here a couple other scholars, myself, the leaders, Esther and her dog Linus chowed down on some delicious breakfast food and talked about the trip, the Everglades, the animals, and some good advice. A lot about the history of the Everglades, some “nature nuggets”, and past experiences were shared to get everyone hyped for the trip. I’m preparing for it now by getting a lot of clothing that will actually be beneficial to have during the trip and doing some research on the Everglades. The leaders said it’s much more fun when you know information on something in the Everglades and you come across it and get to share it with everyone. Also I am told to bring a journal, so I am mentally preparing myself to having to write in that every night (I use to try and journal but I always get lazy and put it off). I really can’t wait for this amazing experience and to reread this blog post and see how I’ve changed post-trip.

Sustainable Design in My Career & Interests

Most of my life I knew that I loved two things; baking and science. Baking is my hobby and science is my job. I want to own a bakery when I retire, but in the mean time, I am pursuing my interest in science and want to do research on diseases of the central nervous system. I chose two Ted Talks specific to these passions of mine, one on business owning and the other on medical advancements through sustainable design.

The first ted talk I watched was titled “Profit’s Not Always the Point”. Here a business man, Harish Manwani , talked about how his company, merely selling soap and soup, were making a difference in the world. Watching this and wanting to own my own bakery someday, I began to ask myself the same question he was asking the audience; “How will you change lives”? Now a mere bakery, selling pastries to costumers doesn’t seem like a means to change the world, but how it’s run can make all the difference. Harish preached about being responsible for the community socially and economically. Making money means nothing if you aren’t doing good. If I had to sit down and design my bakery right now, I would undoubtedly consider the earth and its people in every aspect. My bakery would socially make a difference by buying ingredients from sustainable sources, fundraising for those who are not fortunate enough to have food at their finger tips, and engaging the community in events. Environmentally, we would recycle and have a compost compile. Our plates and silverware will be reusable and the bakery itself will be made of as many refurbished and recycled materials as possible, the type of cute things you see on Pinterest. By considering the world in my business, it will have a purpose other than sales.

The other Ted Talk I watched was truly quite astonishing and inspiring. The speaker, Mark Kendall, talked about his new technology called the nanopatch. This unique way of delivering vaccines eradicates pain, makes vaccines more effective, accessible, and cheaper, increases their shelf life, eliminates the cold chain, and much more. Overall this new patch has the potential to save millions of lives every year. It also reduces the amount of energy needed to refrigerate the vaccines, no syringes would be needed to be dumped into landfills anymore, and his applicator is reusable. The take home message from Mark Kendall was the through creative thinking and challenging the routine way of going about a process, great things can be made. This nanopatch has the potential to change the world, just by a change in design in administering a vaccine. I will definitely apply this moto to my own work throughout my life. I will be working in a biomedical engineering lab over the summer and am able to be involved in creative processes like this. The environment and people will always be a consideration of mine when designing and testing technology.

These talks pushed me to consider how I can make a difference through small practices, by abandoning self interest and taking responsibility for the world around me. Sustainability is a driving factor of business in todays world, and to succeed it must be heeded to.

Service Reflection

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During one of my first classes with ENR scholars, the definition of service was contemplated among my peers and I. We learned that service is a lot more than just blindly helping an organization or cause. The difference between helping, fixing, and serving is all perspective. When you serve your community, it allows you to not think of life as a set of problems that need to be fixed, but yet an opportunity that you can be apart of. We learned that when you serve your community, you should consciously consider what you are doing and how it is beneficial. I kept these postulates in mind as I volunteered with ENR scholars this semester. This semester I worked with FLOW and the Fawcett Center. The first time I volunteered, I worked with Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed, also known as FLOW. This involved picking up trash along the Olentangy River and sites near the road that had been infested with litter like cigarette butts, plastic bags, and old construction site materials. My other experience involved removing invasive species at the Fawcett Center to help restore the indigenous species. This area near the Fawcett Center is continuously used for tailgating during football season. This is detrimental to the environment so ENR scholars is working to help better the area by removing invasive plants in the hopes that the newly restored area will be enough cause to stop tailgating here.

My service this semester addressed littering, environmental restoration, and invasive species. In the future I wish to pursue these issues. Since my service involved the environment, there are many other opportunities available to allow me to continue serving Mother Nature. In the future I can continue to help restore the Olentangy River and the land near the Fawcett Center. I can also help to raise awareness about invasive species, littering, and the importance of the Olentangy River in Columbus.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when on the first day of college I was told I would be helping restore the Olentangy with FLOW, a river and an organization I had never heard of. However, I was told there would be free food, so I just went with it. I figured that it would be some light work helping pick trash out of the river. This was pretty much completely opposite of what I expected. It was hot outside, there was a lot of trash, and actually most of the work I did wasn’t even near the river. My trash bag grew heavy as I collected more and more abandoned trash. A piece of metal in my bag kept scraping kept scraping my leg and I often had to stop to allow the lucky ones who didn’t have trash bags to deposit their trash into mine. I was growing hungry and I felt like no matter how much trash I collected, nothing was changing. However when I finished and reflected on the work I did, I felt like I had actually made a difference, it wasn’t easy but it was worthwhile.

My other experience, I was a little more prepared for. I expected that there would be a lot of physical work and that it wouldn’t be easy. This made it easier for me to comprehend even several hours outside clipping plants down made a difference, even if it seemed like there were still infinity many trees and shrubs that still needed to remove.

Throughout both these acts of service I learned that making a difference in the environment is hard work, physically and mentally. Physically it’s obvious to see why climbing an invasive tree to chop off it’s branches one by one could be demanding, but the hardest was mentally. This is because after working for several hours and still looking out on all the trash left by humans and the invasive species dominating an environment, you feel like your work was worthless. However once you look at how much you have made a difference, how many bags or trash you have collected, how much land you have cleared of invasive species; your work becomes rewarding.

If I were to do anything differently regarding my service, I would definitely bring headphones to keep my mind busy while I work and bring more people to help. Many hands lighten a load and if more people get inspired to do work within the community, the faster it goes and the bigger the impact!

Not only did I learn about environmental restoration and invasive specie removal, I learned a little about myself. I learned that I can persevere and that I am strong willed. I kept a positive attitude throughout my service to encourage others to continue working and to consider the purpose of our work. I also learned that I like helping the environment out. Next semester I hope to continue working it FLOW and the Fawcett Center. It will be rewarding to look back at these areas in a few years and see how far they have come.

Columbus To-Do List; Dessert Edition

I have a serious weakness for sweets. I also love the feeling of going out with friends to an ice cream parlor and just chatting. Knowing that, it’s pretty clear why I chose the “Ice Cream & Desserts” Columbus To-Do List”. I also figured grabbing dessert would be cheaper than buying and entire meal and more accessible than going to parks (I don’t have a car or bike). Upon choosing this list I was hoping to explore downtown Columbus more and to be able to know a few good relaxing locations I can hang out with friends while curing my sweet tooth.

I first started this journey off with Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. I had heard a lot of good things about Jeni’s and a few scary ones (yeah I’m talking about you, Listeria). Nonetheless, I headed over to Jeni’s after my ENR Short North Scavenger Hunt. I found Jeni’s on a corner in the heart of the Short North. It’s cute orange sign written in cursive and large window made the store appear very modern and comfortable. I fell in love before I had even eaten anything. I scanned over all of the unique options. I decided to go with a half scoop of torrone and half scoop of the salted peanut butter with chocolate fleks. The torrone is described as “toasted almonds, flecks of white chocolate, honey, sea salt, and grass-grazed milk”. They were both so fresh and light. Jeni’s was definitely a success. I would take my family here next time they’re in town. It’s not a typical ice cream shop experience; it’s something truly worth indulging in while in Columbus.

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The next week my buds and I walked back to the Short North. The first stop was Whit’s Custard. I wasn’t expecting much from this little ice cream shop with a few tables inside that looked like patio furniture. I scanned over their menu and found an option that had a brownie and ice cream in it, “perfect” I thought, my two favorite things. I split it with my friend and oh what a pleasant surprise. A brownie on the bottom with the vanilla ice cream on top not to mention hot fudge and a cherry to top it all off, do I need to say any more? This ice cream shop has nothing to prove because it’s products do all the talking. It is a very fun environment where you don’t have to take yourself too seriously; this is pretty evident through the tables (you can chalk on them, how cool). My other friend got a buckeye sundae that I will definitely be looking to get my hands on next time I visit. If you’re looking for a fun ice cream store and some seriously “bad for you decadent ice cream” this is the place for you. I would definitely bring a friend or two here, it is a pretty family friendly environment and seems to attract a lot of teenagers and college students.

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After Whit’s, the voyage continued to Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shop. Whit’s was pretty close to here; it only involved crossing the street and back tracking a little. As soon as I opened the door I felt like Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. There was a wide range of candies, chocolates, and soda pop. Especially pop. There was an entire fridge stocked with the weirdest flavors you could imagine. There was ranch, barbeque, even peanut butter and jelly flavored pop. I wasn’t brave enough to try these weird concoctions so I just went with getting some chocolate covered espresso beans. These are delicious if you like chocolate and coffee! My friend got a chocolate bar with potato chips inside! Apparently it was delicious, something I will be reaching for next time I head over there. The staff here was also very friendly, the guy working behind the desk helped explain some of the weird products they have and even offered us some of his chocolate rocks. He knew the next customers that walked in the door by name, giving me the impressions that there are a lot of regulars here. This store is so colorful you can’t help but walk around the entire place just staring at all the signs on the walls and picking up the interesting candy. I would definitely take a few young kids here; they would lose their mind! Hey, it’s even nice for adults too; I enjoyed myself and will definitely be returning when I’m craving a chocolate bar with potato chips in it.

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The next week my sister was visiting and I thought it would be a good idea to take her with me to my next stop, Pistacia Vera. This involved taking the #18 COTA downtown to the North Market. I had never been here before so I was a little nervous about finding it, but the bus driver helped to give us directions. Other than the creepy guy hitting on my friend, the bus was overall a nice ride down (thanks to the helpful bus driver). Once we got to the North Market I was taken aback. This place looked like a grocery store on the outside, but once inside, it was teeming with life and beautiful stands. It reminded me of the West Side Market back home in Cleveland. I instantly felt an attachment to this place. They had olive, cheese, bread, doughnut, taco, pretzel stands, and so much more. I eventually found Pistacia Vera after taking a lap around the place. They had cute little pastries that looked delicious, but I went for the salted caramel macaroon. Wow, those things are delicious! By the looks of the place, I am willing to bet that all of their products taste as good as this one. Considering I brought my sister here, who got a blueberry lemon glazed doughnut from a cute doughnut stand, I would definitely say it’s safe to recommend to family and friends! I would come back to Pistacia Vera again, but I think the North Market is the real winner here; it has so much to offer, there’s something for everyone!

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I ended this To-Do list with Greater’s Ice Cream. The name sounded a little weird to me but I had heard good things. I took an Uber down to the shop with my friends. Apon arrival I thought the place looked adorable, the inside has a classic ice cream shop type of feel. I looked at their menu; everything seemed so clean and delicious. I was a little confused as to what a “dish” was. The worker explained it to me when I asked, but I still don’t know if you are supposed to get two flavors when you get a dish or what. I decided to go with the mocha chip flavor. I never really eat coffee flavored ice cream so I was excited for this. The worker handed me a little sugar cone with some white ice cream. I didn’t think much about this until after I had tasted it and realized it was coconut ice cream with chocolate fleks but it was so delicious that I decided to just go with it. The prices here are pretty reasonable and their ice cream is great. Normally I would be upset about getting the wrong flavor, but it’s trivial because the other flavor was so good! There were a lot of families here so it’s definitely a place I would recommend taking yours. It’s good for all ages; I had a good time with my friends and would definitely make the trip back out here (except maybe next time through a cheaper way of transportation).

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This project taught me a lot about navigating through Columbus and what the city has to offer. I’m really glad that this was an assignment because it gave me the opportunity to get off campus. Being at such a huge college you could never venture into Columbus and not realize what you’re missing, because there’s always something going on at campus you would never think about leaving. Although my to-do list featured sweets and desserts I found a lot of cool clothing stores and restaurants that are definitely on my next to-do list! I learned that Columbus has a lot to offer art and community wise, along with their amazing food! Along the way I found a nice park, a cool thrift shop, and some pretty rad street art. Getting to know this city was a great experience and made me feel more mature, “hey mom, look at me, I can ride around on a bus in an unknown place and not get lost”… even though I did get lost a couple of times (but mom doesn’t have to know that). I’m happy I can navigate through the Short North and other parts of Cbus because I will definitely be going down there a lot more often. Anyone doing this list I would definitely recommend to go to all of the place I visited. They’re all so different and have great food. They bring out the culture of Columbus and are accessible for college students! Write down what you get and where you get it from, and take pictures! That’s the fun part. You will definitely be able to find me at these stores or just in the Short North in weekends to come. The next challenge; The Columbus Coffee Experience.

Career Shadowing

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Yeah, I was that kid who always said they wanted to be a doctor since kindergarten, probably even before that. I have always loved helping people and I figured people respected doctors, something I had always wanted. I knew that even the title “Dr.” would instantly make people believe you exuded intelligence. But the older I got, the more I questioned that.

I love science with out a doubt, well I love it more than I hate it, which is a start. Gen Chem isn’t my favorite, but hey, can you blame me? When I dated a guy for a while whose family had a long history of Alzheimer’s, I started reading more up on neurodegenerative diseases and realized my interest in them and how there is so much more potential work to be done in the field. Also my friend who was a year ahead of me had selected neuroscience as her major at The Ohio State University and she seemed to really like it. More and more the bricks started to lay as I paved my way to a future in neuroscience.

Now, another side tangent to my childhood. As a kid I believed I had cancer and was doomed for life. This was pretty irrational considering I was basing my findings of off my bumpy arms, which I got made fun of a lot for as a kid. I would draw diagrams in my diary how to cure cancer. Most of my pictures just included plants that one could find in the Amazon rainforest that could have extracts to place on skin to cure bumpy arms, and ultimately cancer. But, I never got diagnosed with cancer, well at least not yet anyway. So slowly but surely I shifted my attention to pathogens. It would be pretty cool to cure a world outbreak and be responsible for saving millions of lives. This basically stemmed from my thought process after I got the Swine Flue of ’09. I’m still pretty interested in pathogens today, pathogens of the brain, especially. But I could definitely see myself in a laboratory studying neurodegenerative diseases on mice for the rest of my life though (not rats, because rats have scary tails).

The battle between which doctor I want to be still reigns on inside of me. “MD” vs. “Ph.D.” is not an easy choice to make. I love people and would like to have direct contact with them, which a medical doctor would get to have, but a Ph.D. would allow me to go very in depth on a passion of mine and be able to study that until the end of my days. That’s why I decided to shadow a researcher at Case Western Reserve University over fall break. I have been to a doctor’s office thousands of times but how often can you go under ground and look at mice with electrodes glued to their heads?

It all started when my mom, being a realtor, sold a man, Dr. Capadona a house. Dr. Capadona and my mom exchanged conversation and eventually led to me touring his lab my junior year of high school. Dr. Capadona runs the grants in the biomedical engineering department at Case. The tour was great and I loved how I knew everything he was talking about (AP bio really came in handy). I decided I want to be a biomedical engineer for a while after this experience. But, we all change our minds and the second time around I was touring his lab, this past October, I knew I wanted to study neuroscience, not BME.

After getting lost a few times, I finally made it to the basement where Dr. Capadona and his graduate students work. One of his graduate students, Laura, took me around and even let me listen to live recordings of mice neurons on an EEG. This life of a graduate student didn’t seem too sparkly and exciting but I realize it’s what I need to accomplish to get where I want to go in life. Laura showed me their wet and dry labs, their operating room, the animal room, and a few other places that they encounter on a daily basis.

When Laura was explaining things to me (like how the EEG worked, etc.) I completely understood everything she was talking about. This was a great feeling that my behavioral neuroscience class was finally paying off. I have a lot left to learn about neuroscience material wise, but this shadowing experience helped show me how independent you are as a researcher in regards to your own experiments and how time consuming graduate school is.

I would definitely say that this experience helped to deepen my interest in perusing my career for a Ph. D in neuroscience. I know that it’s going to take around 10 years of my life to achieve this but I figure if I like it, it will be enjoyable. I believe this job will allow me study my passion and still have time for a family. The next steps I’m going to have to take for my career would be getting into a research lab with a professor at OSU during the fall of my sophomore year and maintaining a high GPA (basically how you get selected for graduate school). Dr. Capadona invited me to work in his research lab this summer, so let’s see where that takes me. I’ve got my sights set on neuroscience for a very long time, but I’m hoping that working in the field will help consolidate my passion.

Mentor Meeting: Breakfast with Kaitlyn

Being apart of ENR scholars means being apart of a community. At the center of this community lies Kaitlyn Santinoceto; my mentor. If you’ve ever met Kaitlyn, you know there is nothing this girl can’t do. She is full of passion and excitement. Kaitlyn was eager to share a little advice about college and the ENR scholars program itself.

Being an animal science major, Kaitlyn is no stranger to studying, like most of us. A couple of her favorite places to study include Thompson and the Agricultural Library. She describes a quaint reading room on the second floor of Thompson that not many people know about. There are small couches, a fireplace, and bookshelves, everything that one would need for a late night study session. Also on the agricultural campus, their library is full of natural light and isn’t too overwhelming. Although their hours aren’t 24/7 like most of us would like them to be, they provide comfortable spaces for studying.

Aside from schoolwork, Kaitlyn is involved of a lot of extracurricular activities, which is an understatement in every sense of the word . I asked her what her take-aways were from these groups she’s involved in and the list was immense, in a good way. I think it would be safe to say that she is passionate about CHAARG, a female motivational workout group that is campus and nationwide. Kaitlyn says that CHAARG gave her the opportunity to meet new friends and find a place in an organization. Not only has she met a lot of new people on campus through CHAARG, but she has made a lot of friends out of state that are also involved in CHAARG that share the same passion of being healthy and exercising. Aside from CHAARG, Kaitlyn is an OA for Morrill Tower. She says that her job here helped her meet a lot of new people in Morrill even though sometimes the job gets stressful. She is also involved in the Pre-Vet Club on campus. Kaitlyn says the benefit of this club is that it’s good for her major but it’s hard to balance the time to make the meetings. Her role in Buck-I-SERV, being a trip leader, has provided her with leadership skills along with the opportunity to provide community service. More of Kaitlyn’s leadership involvement also stems from being on the ENR Leadership Council board and being a mentor. Kaitlyn says her role in ENR involves a lot of planning and management. She describes this role as the real deal, not like high school clubs where the adults do all the work for you, in ENR you plan the events that the scholars want and you make it happen. STEP also provided Kaitlyn with more management skills regarding finances and workload. She has met a lot of people through STEP, including professors. Kaitlyn says that overall, networking is very important and will help you in the long run. She is still a little iffy about her major, but she is confident these connections that she has established will help guide her career path. Kaitlyn stressed that not only do these organizations provide relationships, but they’re also a good outlet from schoolwork. It’s hard in college because studying can consume you at times, but you have to remember that you’re a person too and you have to add personality to your student life.

Looking back at her ENR involvement, Kaitlyn loves anything that involves outdoor adventure. She enjoyed the camping trip again because she got to know the first years better and she likes a lot of the events she participated in last year through ENR. She recalled a rock climbing course, a ropes course, and the weekly hikes she went on. All of these events helped her become more aware of her capabilities and interests in outdoor adventure. She also really likes being apart of the LC for ENR because it gave her a new perspective on how leadership works and engaging with her peers. Overall she recommends to get involved and do the events because you won’t regret them and you could learn something about yourself, like a hidden passion you never knew you had.

Although Kaitlyn is still trying to find her way major wise, she definitely has an idea of what her dream job would be. Her interests include animals and helping people, especially children with disabilities. She says that she wants to help people through science specifically and if she could incorporate animals in that, it would be the perfect concoction of a job. Since Kaitlyn was seven years old she had her sights set on being a vet, but now she’s reconsidering that career path which is scary considering about two thirds of her life she had her future planned out and deviating from the plan is anything but comforting. Kaitlyn is currently acknowleding her other interests and exploring the waters. She talks about wanting a future to help disabled children but also working at a zoo with exotic animals. Whichever direction she chooses, she is more than qualified and I’ sure she’ll find her dream job, if not she’ll probably just create it if it doesn’t exist already.

Some last tid bits of advice Kaitlyn had to offer were about open-mindedness and setting limits. She advised, through personal experience, to be open to change and new interests. For her this involved possibly changing her career path, but it can apply to every aspect of life. Ultimately you should recognize that there are other things in the world that can make you happy other than what you are already comfortable with. Also Kaitlyn advised to not over extend oneself, which she claims to do frequently. However she said that she learned to set limits and put effort into what she cares about, so that she doesn’t have to ration her efforts. Lastly, she said to just relax when needed. School is important, but your health is more important. Kaitlyn was really helpful in providing insight and advice about college and life. I believe that everyone should take something from what she had to say because it’s applicable to anyone, especially first year ENR students!

Specific Questions Asked:

  1. What is the best place to study on campus?
  2. What benefits have you received from getting involved outside of the classroom?
  3. What ENR Scholars opportunities are you glad you participated in?
  4. What is your dream job and why?
  5. What advice do you wish someone gave you your freshman year?

About Me

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Hello all,

I am Elizabeth Mancuso. I currently am a student at The Ohio State University studying neuroscience. I am also apart of the Environment & Natural Resources Scholars Program here in Columbus. I plan to go either pre-med or towards the research side of neuroscience. I am an avid runner, vinyl collector, guitar/piano player, and baker. Despite my gymnastics background, I walk slightly to the right and am pretty clumsy (I usually deny that part to my friends, though). In my free time, when I’m not playing with my dog or at the beach, I like volunteering and exercising.  Over my high school career I racked up over 250 service hours, so naturally one would wonder if I ever had a life, but I still made time for sports (soccer, cheerleading, cross country, triathlons, and gymnastics) and jobs which have taught me a lot about working with people and tough situations. I am a visual learner and as a student throughout high school I became very good at teaching myself and studying. I hope to gain a solid research opportunity throughout college and hopefully a job. In case you’re wondering where I’m from, I spent my years in the suburbs outside of Cleveland, Ohio (which explains my devotion to their sports teams). Interestingly enough, I have lived in 11 different houses and 7 different cities, so I am comfortable with new situations and change. I love being outdoors, doing a range of things from hiking, to fishing, and boating. I have climbed Mt. Marcy twice in the past two years (the highest point in the Adirondacks) and hope for higher summits to come. If I had to do anything with my life I would love to be a doctor conducting research on neurodegenerative diseases or cancer, have a family with a couple dogs, retire early, open a bakery, and still have time to sail on Lake Erie. Growing up I have always been in tune with nature and connected to the environment. Sustainability has always been in the back of my mind (things like not leaving the water running while brushing my teeth & shutting the lights off when I leave a room), but I am excited to learn more ways that I can make a difference through ENR Scholars. Adventure has been my biggest liaison to mother nature. A few of my favorite experiences would be waterfall climbing, cliff jumping, and spelunking (cave diving). I can’t wait for bigger adventures to come while leading a clean and green lifestyle.

Go Bucks,

Elizabeth