My top five strengths according to Strengths Finder are restorative, input, learner, responsibility and adaptability. Restorative makes me adept at dealing with problems, in terms of finding out what’s wrong and being able to fix it. Restorative also means that I spend my talents, energy, intelligence and time trying to fix myself to make myself the best that I can possibly be. Input means that I constantly crave knowledge, and I collect all kinds of information that I find fascinating. Learner means that I have a desire to constantly improve, and that the process of learning intrigues me rather than simply the end product. Responsibility means that I conduct myself in a proper and ethical manner to avoid feeling like I’ve done anything wrong, or someone who always plays by the rules. Adaptability means that I tend to go with the flow, and take things as they come, discovering my future one day at a time.

All of these can easily play a role in my everyday life. My strengths make me a quick learner, one who strives to continue on learning just because I’m fascinated by what’s going on. This is of course valuable in my life now as a student, because that’s the entire point of higher education. In my life outside of academics, these strengths are equally valuable because my strengths in responsibility and adaptability. Socially, these are good strengths to have, because they allow me to form relationships where others value the same things as I do. Once I form these relationships, my other strengths help me to be a good listener to my friends, since I crave to understand things and people, especially things I can’t understand, such as their emotions and anything else they want to talk about. While these strengths aren’t technically in the relationship forming theme of strengths, these are still valuable to have when it comes to forming relationships.

Knowing my strengths certainly supports my future goals to be a practicing veterinarian. To be a successful student by continuing into graduate or doctorate level education, you have to have the strength of lifelong learning. Having my strengths means that I love working through problems and am committed to a lifelong of learning, which is especially important in a field like medicine, where things are always changing and there are always problems to solve. Seeing these as my strengths made me believe that I could actually do what I wanted to do, since the entire process is a stressful and looming thought. Knowing that I have strengths which will be useful to me in my life long learning is a comforting thought, something to fall back on when things get hard. In this way, I can utilize my strengths for the rest of my life and career, because they are all geared towards learning for the sake of being the best veterinarian and person I could possibly be.

I’m a self proclaimed world traveler from Grafton, Massachusetts who is really terrible about talking about herself! I’m an avid sports fan, especially soccer and football, so I guess it’s good that I chose Ohio State! Sports dominated my life in high school, between playing field hockey and running track and watching games with my family. Track was my main sport, I was a hurdler, and running was how I dealt with frustration. Without track, I don’t know how I would deal with frustration, so I guess I owe a lot to track! However, traveling is my true passion. Traveling has exposed me to so many beautiful places in the world, as well as allowing me to experience cultures and people different from my own. So far in this lifetime, I’ve traveled to Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Sicily, Italy, Mexico, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Haiti, and of course nearly all of the states in the United States! Next on my list to travel to are Prague and hopefully to travel more through of Eastern Europe. My last great passion is music. What I’m listening to depends entirely on my mood, but I love almost every genre! I spent a lot of time on the weekends at the venues near home, and the people and bands there helped shape me into the person I am today. It seems strange to think that music could have influenced me to become the person I am, but I learned so much from the people singing about their own lives.

My public school experience was fairly typical. I went to a small school in my town, where my graduating class was 160 kids and my school never had more than 800 kids in it at any time. This had many perks, since I had access to one on one time with teachers and all the lab equipment and resources we could ask for, which made me super fortunate. I had always liked to be challenged, to struggle. I always pushed myself to take the hardest classes my school offered, and to do as many of those as humanly possible. While those classes were challenging in a sort of fun way, I always struggled with math. Math would make sense in the hypothetical, but once a problem was put in front of me, all bets were off. However, now that I’m moving on with my educational career, I’m glad I struggled, and continue to struggle, with something. It helped teach me how to push through things, and most importantly, when I reach the point where I need to ask for help!

I’ve always been into science, ever since I was little. My parents, especially my dad, always pushed my brother and I to question the world around us, which lead to many questions like, “How do airplanes fly?” and “Why do we have to breathe oxygen?”. When my dad grew tired of answering our questions, he would have us call our grandfather, who was also an engineer. Popeye never tired of endless and seemingly random questions, and he always wanted us to continue questioning. My dad continued to foster this need for scientific inquiry, from doing science experiments in our kitchen to buying us a circuitry kit, he wanted us to love science the way he did. He pushed me to work harder in classes, and at the time, I assumed that no grade I got would ever be good enough, but now I’m seeing that he just wanted me to keep pushing myself. My mother, on the other hand, helped me pursue my love for animals. She volunteered with me at animal shelters, pushed me to try horse back riding, which became the highlight of my week. I’ve cleaned out more cages and stalls than I like to think about, but it was an awesome experience for me, and it continued my love for animals. However, my AP Biology teacher also played a large role in me deciding that I wanted to actually go into science. I struggled with AP Biology, a lot, and Mrs. Bailey was pushing me whether I aced a test or tanked a lab, she wanted me to do better. Without her, I’m sure I would have given up on science and done something I thought was less challenging, which is definitely a decision I would have regretted. I’ve wanted to be a veterinarian since I was a little girl, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

When I began the college process, one of the particularly intriguing things about Ohio State was the scholars program. When I saw the word STEM, I was immediately intrigued. Getting to live with kids with loved science as much as me and getting to participate in activities about science outside of class? Sign me up! It ended up being one of the deciding factors in choosing Ohio State – the scholars program is an amazing opportunity, and access to experiences that otherwise would be a mystery to me. I’m so incredibly excited to be a part of an amazing group of people, and to do some amazing things over the next two years.

As a parting note, I am so incredibly excited to officially be an Ohio State Buckeye, and I can’t wait to see what this year brings me!