Sophomore Year: A Reflection

Global Awareness

During my first semester of my freshman year,  I took what I considered to be a monumental risk. I enrolled for a study abroad program through the Honors program that gave me the opportunity to travel to London over winter break, along with taking a class during my fall semester where I could learn about the history of the city. Throughout my experience in that class and on my study abroad trip, my view on different cultures has broadened. I come from a family of travelers, and getting to experience a trip with my peers where we were allowed free time to engage with the city and its people made the event even more special. This trip gave me a small taste of what a study abroad in college looks like, and I plan to try and fit another one into my undergraduate career in the next few years.

As an Indian woman, I have also made a conscious effort to try and reach out to different cultural groups on campus. I attend many Indian American Association events since many of my peers are a part of the group, and I love watching my friends do traditional dancing as a part of the Fusion and Genesis dance teams. I would love to become a part of one of these clubs in the future in order to keep my ties with my culture as strong as they were before I came to college.

Original Inquiry

Ever since I arrived at Ohio State, I knew I wanted to take part in undergraduate research. My freshman year I had the opportunity to be a research assistant for the Worry and Attention lab that was in the Psychology building. The study I worked on examined the correlation between worry and attention, specifically relations among worry, attentional control, personality and social functioning. As a research assistant, I got the chance to work with participants during the study, as well as analyzing heart rate data and videos when I wasn’t running the study.

This semester I am working at the Stress and Health Lab in the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research, where I am involved in two separate studies. Our first study analyzes how cardiovascular fitness affects the immune response in breast cancer patients and if this is related to age or mental health. We do this by using a typhoid vaccine to stimulate changes in the immune system and study the body responses. Our other study tests how chemotherapy possibly affects the way a breast cancer patient’s body metabolizes a high-fat meal by having the participant ingest such a meal and then examining their triglyceride levels, immune responses, heart rate, and blood pressure. During both studies I take the times that blood is drawn and questionnaires are started by the patient, and I get their vitals every hour or so. This is definitely a different experience from my freshman year and I love broadening my knowledge of what research can be in psychology. I would love to present at the Denman next year with the research that I am doing on breast cancer in my lab.

Academic Enrichment

I personally feel that throughout my time at Ohio State, I have taken some truly difficult courses. As a pre-med student, a lot of the material I need to learn can be quite challenging. By managing to balance my schedule with these classes and my major and minor classes, I feel I have not only shown academic enrichment, but perseverance. To be honest, I am a perfectionist, and seeing myself getting bogged down with difficult classes and, at times, failure in these classes, makes it hard to keep going. However, I honestly am extremely proud with the progress I have made and the hard classes I have taken. If there is a class I am particularly interested in, I make it a personal goal to go out of my way and take the Honors version of the class in order to truly get the full academic experience.

I try and make every class selection, even my GE selections, relevant to my likes or my future aspirations. A lot of the GEs I have taken so far have been interconnected with several psychology concepts or even with concepts I’ve learned in my pre-med classes. For those sections where I can’t interconnect concepts with my major or minor, like History or Visual and Performing Arts, I try and take a class that I am most interested in. I don’t believe in taking classes that seem the most easy, or classes where I can just get an easy A. As a student of the Honors program, I am here to truly enrich my knowledge, and I want to take classes that will interest me, and maybe even expose me to an unknown passion.

Leadership Development

I have gotten the opportunity to take on many leadership positions this year since I joined the Ohio Union Activities Board last semester. First of all, my experience in OUAB has by far been the best part of my time at Ohio State so far. The people there truly make me feel like I have found my home, and I look forward to meetings all week so that I can interact with them. The feeling of putting on an event that makes my classmates happy and excited is so rewarding. Through my membership in the Comedy Committee, I have gotten the chance to project lead Open Mic Night and will be project leading an event with Joel McHale coming up in April. I also was selected to be a Diversity and Inclusion Ambassador for my committee, and recently was elected Diversity and Inclusion co-chair. OUAB provides me with opportunities to strengthen my leadership skills every day. I get to learn how to delegate, how to lead without being overbearing, and how to interact with authority figures. I am hoping to run for an executive position next year. These experiences help me with concepts that I will need to apply in my future endeavors. Learning how to interact with others and speak in front of crowds is a big part of being  a doctor, as well as taking criticism from authority figures. These are things I get experience with in OUAB, and I know these skills will pay off in the future.

Service Engagement

This past semester I participated in sorority recruitment, which was definitely a huge personal decision for me. However, since joining Alpha Chi Omega, a sorority full of inspirational, passionate women who are dedicated to raising awareness of domestic violence, I have never felt more at home. Joining AXO gave me an opportunity to participate more in service events, which I had never put much time into before. Whether it is making inspirational canvases to deliver to victims of domestic or psychological violence, or selling cookie dough on High Street to raise money for our philanthropy, CHOICES, I am able to participate in different events to help a cause that I am so passionate about. Psychological abuse is something that can influence mental illness, and as a future psychiatrist I am strongly against emotional abuse and the harms it can have. Since I am given a chance to spread awareness for this issue which isn’t often talked about, it feels like a personal mission for me to do so. I also was a part of Buckeyethon this past year, which gave me another great cause to be supportive of as a future doctor. All of these service opportunities give me a chance to give back to marginalized or less fortunate communities, and giving back is what I feel truly influences my growth.