My first semester has been a rollercoaster of new experiences both academically and personally. On the academic side, I had many struggles and successes. Chemistry, unfortunately, was mostly a struggle but there’s still hope for the final. A bit of advice: if you’re considering STEM, keep considering. And considering. And considering. Because if you’re anything like me, you’ll end up questioning your life choices every single day but keep at it! Just be sure of yourself. Biology on the other hand is like a breath of fresh air comparatively. Just don’t forget your ONLY homework assignment for the week. Sarah Ball is a doll who, while being incredibly intelligent, also manages to look stunning every morning at 9:35 am while the rest of us look like trash pandas who just rolled out of bed. English, oh English. A true blessing. English was the saving grace of this semester and required only what you could give. As the famous John Mulaney would say, “College is just your opinion. You raise your hand and go, ‘I think Emily Dickenson’s a lesbian.’ ‘Partial credit.’” That is both accurate and wonderful in the English world (just don’t try it with Chemistry). Personally, this semester has been one of growth and learning. You come to college thinking you have a social life at home and you realize that you’ve been very, very wrong. Until you go out four nights a week and still study for your exam, you have not truly experienced what college has to offer. And the best part? You are by no means obligated to do so. You have total freedom to stay in your bed and study or watch Netflix or just sleep for days without human interaction and that’s okay and sometimes completely necessary. Your friend group will also most likely expand as I have learned. You may go from having that BFF who knows your every thought to having six and its a bit of a culture shock. These friends make it worth it though. They’re there just to support and love and motivate you to be the best you can possibly be and its beautiful. This coming weekend my friends are celebrating my half birthday because my real one is in the summer and we can’t all be together then. Honestly, I’m so grateful for them and everything they do. With this increase in friends comes a sharp decrease in privacy as well. No matter the time of day, any one of them could stroll into your room and just sit down for hours and its fine. If you’re sad, it becomes both a good and bad thing. On one hand, company is good and distracting and therapeutic. On the other hand, however, you may one day realize that you haven’t been able to truly cry your heart out and you may end up letting it out loudly and horribly at three in the morning on a Tuesday night while your roommate is asleep across the room. This is okay. That is the moral of my first semester at OSU: It is okay. No matter what happens, it’s not the end of the world and it’s most certainly not worth the stress. If you screw up, let someone down, forget a deadline, or just feel incorrigibly sad, it’s okay. You will move on.

The humanities, like air, always surround us in our day to day lives but rarely do we truly see and acknowledge them. Over the past week, I have made an effort to focus on the people, cultures, and experiences around me as Halloween, a sometimes controversial holiday approached. To start off the week, I attended the broadway show, Aladdin. The play centers on a poor young man in a middle eastern city who falls in love with a princess. The play discusses many aspects of culture and poverty that are prevalent in said society. For example, Jasmine, the princess, is being forced to marry, potentially against her will; a tradition that still continues to be common today in modern society. Aladdin on the other hand faces poverty so horrible that he risks execution daily for even a small scrap of bread. These experiences helped me to consider how even a fairy tale can open one’s eyes to the reality of the world. This perspective enabled me to look at Halloween with an open mind and be more receptive to some of the cultural appropriation that happens every year. I was relieved to not see a plethora of traditional Native American costumes flood the streets on Halloween night. This shift in both attitude and the media gives me hope for the future. As the week continues, I hope to learn more about Dia de Los Muertos and how that can be brought into my life as a new cultural and learning experience.