Diversity

Social diversity is a weird thing for me.

I attended a diversity event though my STEM EE program and out of the many questions she asked of us, one question stood out above all others. She asked “what identity groups do you most think about?” The answer should have been simple enough. My Indian heritage has been, and continues to be, a huge influence in my life. I was raised through Hindu beliefs, spoke two languages before I knew English, went to the Indian temple every week, visited a lot of Indian families and attended a lot of Indian events. Being Indian was a big part of me but I never really thought about what it meant to be Indian. What came to mind the instance she asked the question was being a male. Not about the struggles of being a male but the struggles others probably face not being male. I have been asked by multiple female friends to walk them home at night or walk them to their cars because of a safety concern. I always happily oblige but it becomes ever increasingly evident that I do not have to face this challenge. There is just a certain level of safety that I feel walking around that people who are not males do not have the privilege of knowing. Talking to strangers, joining random conversations, joining random games, and many more situations are so easy for me to join in on because I do not worry about safety threats. Every time I walk someone home or see one of my friends walking someone home, I realize how scary the world is for others and it is very worrying. I really enjoyed this event. The woman who gave the lecture was very aware of her privileges and her challenges in life. She talked about how it is perfectly natural to feel bad and to feel like a lot of the things in your life were just handed to you if you did not have to go through the same obstacles others did.

One of the things that I believe she explained amazingly was the way people of privilege should look at people who do not have the same privileges. She explained that privilege is not something to feel bad about, rather, it should be taken advantage of. Privilege does not mean one person is better than another person, it means that a person with privilege might not have to experience or even consider an obstacle that others might have to. She then proceeded to tell us that people of privilege are in a unique situation where they can defend people who do not have the same privilege that they do by actively making the world a better place. They can make sure that they are positively influencing their community and making sure that whatever obstacles they face do not define the person. One of my friends talked about how he felt bad that he did not experience any of those obstacles in life and that even though he worked hard to get where he is, he still feels like things were handed to him on a silver platter. I really enjoyed the event and my major takeaway from it is that not everyone has privileges but it is always important to be aware of what privileges that one has and to be appreciative of those while also supporting those who do not have those privileges.

Campus Resource

There are a lot of resources on campus and even though the most used resources at the college are the academic resources, it’s important to acknowledge the non-academic campus resources. One key resources that I have relied on recently is OSU’s Student Health Center.

I have visited the Student Health Center, pictured above, two times so far this year. Once was for my vaccination document – I needed to turn in a physical document describing all the vaccines I had taken and that I was up to date on Ohio State’s vaccination requirements. The second time I went was for a more severe incident. While working on an assignment for a different class and casually talking with my friends at a table tennis table, I was hit with a heavy sided paddle straight to my forehead. I did not make much of the incident in that moment but by the shocked and horrified expressions on everyone else’s faces, I could tell something was wrong. I put my hand on the part of my head which, although was hurting everywhere, was hurting a little more than the rest of my head only to find a pool of blood completely covering my hand. I do not know if I was in shock at the moment, was being affected by the minor concussion I just received or if I generally thought it was funny that an incident like that led to such a big problem. All I know was that the horrified faces all around transitioned to sadness and worry as multiple people started yelling at me to go to the bathroom because at this point, blood was trailing down my face like water in a shower, and I was dripping it everywhere. It was at this moment that I should have called an ambulance or gone to urgent care. I was previously working on an assignment which was worth a lot of points and I knew that I could not afford to lose time on so when this unfortunate situation arose, I tried to get back to my studies. I put Neosporin on the wound followed by a bandaid in hopes that I could resume the work that I was so desperate to get done. I finished it a couple hours later, still somewhat in shock, and went to bed right after the assignment at 4 AM. I put an extra blanket under my pillow so as to alleviate the headaches that were caused. The following evening, I went to Ohio State’s Student Health Center and got help almost immediately. After talking with the doctor, he believed that I was in a terrible condition in multiple ways. Physically, I had just lost a lot of blood the day before and I knew that I was not feeling great at the moment because of it. He also let me know a myriad of things: I was in an unhealthy situation before the incident, it was too late for me to get stitches so I should have gone to urgent care, and that I may be suffering from headaches on the back of my head due to the stress that I put on myself due to my course load. I really loved being able to be more personal with the doctor here than I usually am at the hospital in my home town. He let me know that I was not eating enough, sleeping enough, drinking enough and was putting too much stress on myself with my work load. He proceeded to give me info on how to help with each of my problems and let me know that I could come back to see him again if I had any more problems. I even got my flu shot while I was there. The Student Health Center is undervalued resource among the students and I am very glad that I was able to talk to a professional who actually cared about my condition and followed through by checking up on me.

Academic Support

I’m pretty fortunate that I came to The Ohio State University because whenever I need help on something, I have so many people I can rely on. Take, for example, that I badly required help in physics earlier this week. The first thing I did was ask my physics Teacher’s Assistant what his office hours are and when they provide free physics tutoring. He told me his specific office hours as well as where to get additional physics help. One of the places I could get it was inside the residential halls, specifically Scott Hall and Houck Hall. Scott Hall Room 249 and Houck Hall study room provided extra outside help from peers who were determined to help if it was needed. Personally, I wanted try this first because it is a little less formal and I can ask a peer with less pressure than I can a professor or a teacher’s assistant.

So I went to Alpheus Smith Laboratory of Physics where faculty who worked in the physics department tutored from 4-6 every week day. I have a bad habit of  asking way too many questions, some of which have no prevalence to getting the answer, but I like to know why things are the way they are instead of just how things are. I walked into the building with no clue as to where to go. I walked around for about 15 minute until I came upon a sign in the corner of one of the bulletins that said “Tutoring Room 116”. It was odd to see such an important sign on such a crowded bulletin board with no significance shown to it. When I walked in, there were no signs anywhere near the door except a small sign on it, which was also somewhat shocking. As I walked in, there were students sitting everywhere but no one was talking to anyone else and no one gave any attention to me so I was not really sure who was in charge or who was the tutor. When I tapped on someone’s shoulder to ask where the tutor was, I was met with quick disappointment when I was told that the only time they tutored was between 4-6pm every week day. One of the problems was that my Fundamentals of Engineering 1181 class took place from 5-6 so half the time was not available to me. I arrived pretty early before it started so I was able to get help pretty successfully. When the tutor explained how to do problems that involved inclined planes, and the changing from static friction to kinetic friction and vise versa, it made more sense than anything my lecturer had ever explained. Unfortunately, I probably will not be returning to Smith Lab for physics tutoring because it is a big time commitment and I use spaces in my class schedule to work on other classes and to replenish my energy after an especially exhausting class. This experience was not bad in any sense of the word and made me realize that I should probably go get some help in it more often than not. I plan on attending more physics tutoring sessions at the Houck House study room from 7-9pm where I can ask countless questions and they can clearly explain to me what each idea means and how it relates to the situation. All in all, I really enjoyed being tutored and I plan to return many times for the rest of my academic career in all my subjects.