G.O.A.L.S.

The University Honors & Scholars Center at The Ohio State University serves high-ability, motivated undergraduate students. While embracing diversity in both ideas and people, the Center fosters purposeful learning communities that enhance students’ academic and social experiences. The Center facilitates impactful, rigorous, and unique opportunities that further student success and involvement in our G.O.A.L.S.: Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement.

G.O.A.L.S.

The Ohio State’s Honors & Scholars Program has five aspects they want all members to incorporate into their every day lives here at the university. These five aspects are supposed to keep all us on a path to achieve great success in our college lives, and they are supposed to give us the greatest experience we can have at OSU. The five aspects are Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement. We could also say they are the G.O.A.L.S. of OSU, and here is how they have helped me create my path of success.

Global Awareness: Over the summer of 2014, I traveled to Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech Republic. While there I realized how amazing the outside world really is and how many people are not able to visit another country in their lifetime. I have taken 5 years of French and I am completely in love with the language, with OSU’s great study abroad program I would love to go over to France and experience their culture more. Having global awareness is able to give a much greater understanding of how many different types of people are in the world, and how many things exist that we would have never thought to imagine.

Original Inquiry: While trying to plan the classes I want to complete for my Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology, I came across numerous courses that are advanced research courses. For most of them, I will have to take two other classes to be able to get into that course and because of this, I will only be able to take a few of them. But after taking those few I will have a much greater expanse of knowledge on those specific topic than just taking an introductory level class would give me. Also, some of those prerequisites will give me the ability to be a research assistant in a lab such a neuroscience, that I could not work in if not for that class. Original Inquiry is a great way to further studies in a specific area that doesn’t even have to relate to your major, making you much more diverse in the long run.

Academic Enrichment: Being a part of the university’s honors program, there are many more opportunities that open up class-wise that give a much better academic experience. In an honors classroom the setting is much smaller and more personalized so even if the course is harder than the non-honors course, it is cancelled out by the more discussion and closer relationship that can be formed with the professor. Academic Enrichment allows students to learn on a much more personal level and have a much greater enhancement of their knowledge.

Leadership Development: At OSU, there are many different clubs and organizations where students can get involved. In these organizations, when students get involved early there are many different ways they can go up the chain and become a president, vice president, or other officer of the club. Leadership development gives students a chance to become great leaders and learn how to work well with others, which is a great skill to have when entering the workforce and trying to get hired by companies.

Service Engagement: There are many different opportunities of service here on campus, and this aspect of the Honors and Scholars Program is the most important one to me. Giving back to the community that endlessly gives to you is one of the best feelings in the world. BuckeyThon is one of the greatest acts of service you can engage in here on campus, by dancing for 12 hours and raising money you can help numerous children in need of medical have the funds to get that care. Service engagement is a great way to really give back to the community, and it also opens up the eyes of individuals to see how great they really have it, and this makes the world a much better place to live in.