Month: August 2016

Who is Mariana Ordonez Gonzales?

20160719_13312313592450_10154986371622306_8534669935499732346_n13654368_10154998268662306_6848395625073421480_nKarla Mariana Ordonez Gonzales was born in Ica, Peru where she lived there for nine years. The city she is from is about four hours away from the capital of Peru and it’s also one of the most advanced cities in Peru. She grew up with her mom’s side of the family, which consisted of 20 first cousins and five aunts and uncles. She grew up in a really tight knit family so it was a hard transition when she moved to the United States of America and had no close family by her. But because of the loneliness she felt without close family by her except for her mom and dad she was really serious about school and ending up on top of her class. Mariana really knuckled down in school so she could get ahead of her classmates leading her to doing post-secondary school so she graduated high school with 40 credit college hours and fifth in her class. Also because of her hard work in high school she was able to get into the Ohio State University with a full-tuition scholarship for four years (Land Grant Scholarship).

Mariana is now a first year student at the Ohio State University who is majoring in Biology and is on the pre-medicine track. She hopes to get into the Ohio State medical school after she gets her bachelors in biology and hopes to one day become a cardiovascular surgeon. In order to get involved at her new home Mariana joined the Environmental and Natural Resources Scholars program. She joined this program because she wanted to make a difference in the world no matter how small. She had heard about the issues going on around the world about how the world’s environment keeps getting worse as years go by and how it affects the health of people living in the world. She knew that in the ENR program she would get to go outside and be a part of the community as she helps clean it and maintain it a better sustainable world for people to live in. She also joined the program because growing up she didn’t have a lot of opportunities to explore the outside world and she knew there would be plenty of opportunities in the ENR program to go on hikes, kayaking, etc. Mariana is excited to take on Ohio State.

Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Columbus To-Do List Part 1

For the semester I have chosen to do the Coffee and Tea list. The thing that I’m looking forward to the most is finding a nice quiet/ relaxing place where I can drink a nice cup of coffee while studying.  While going out to coffee places around Columbus I’m also looking forward to expand my horizons besides just the library and also it would be a nice way to meet people from Columbus that don’t generally go to Ohio State either. What I hope to get out off doing the Coffee and Tea Columbus To-Do List is a better sense of navigating the COTA around Columbus. As I have noticed knowing how to use the COTA is very beneficial to get to places around Columbus for free using my BuckID and I want to take advantage of that as much as possible and doing the Columbus list is a great way to do so.

20161002_115152_hdr_1476738202078 20161002_115357_1476738202608 screenshot_2016-10-02-12-07-12_1476738201457

The first coffee shop I visited was Cup o’ Joe. At Cup o’ Joe I ordered the Buckeye coffee drink (hot), it was nice and tasty as in not too sweet or bitter but the perfect balance. The atmosphere overall was relaxing and lively. The music playing I think was classic rock which went well with the dark furniture of the store and it was played at a nice volume which made it perfect for background music. There was lots of sitting space, especially with views of the street where you could people watch/ watch the outside world as you sipped your coffee. I especially loved that they had a lot of two person tables because that way I didn’t feel rude by like taking over a whole table although there was bigger tables too though. Overall my experience was excellent and I would definitely go back and recommend it to people.

RIASEC

For the RIASEC test my results were RSE: Realistic, Social, and Enterprising. After the presentation in class what stood out to me about these three characteristics was that for realistic it meant doer, someone practical and prefers to work with their hands and likes common sense. Social it meant helper, sociable, responsible, and someone who is concerned with the welfare of others. Enterprising it meant someone who is persuasive, someone who enjoys achievement and having an influence. To me those were the descriptions that stood out the most for each category and what persuade me to pick those characteristics when it came to a career. My career exploration process at this point in my life has been concluded in my opinion. Overall when I reach my goal is to become a cardiovascular surgeon. I learned during class discussion that I want to become a cardiovascular surgeon because I get to open people up which to me is crazy but intriguing at the same time because I love to learn how the body functions and how it looks and why not focus on the body part that essentially keeps us alive, the heart. I also want to become a cardiovascular surgeon because it means that I can save lives and help people although I do know that i can’t potentially save every life, I wanna know and use my ability to make peoples lives a little better especially since I have grandparents that suffer from heart conditions and I know how much they’re doctors and surgeons do help them live their life’s a little easier as they get older. Finally I also want to become a cardiovascular surgeon because I’m a control freak, I love having control and power and being a cardiovascular surgeon or any surgeon overall gives you the control and power over someones life which can be scary to some but it’s exciting to me. According to the O*net website the careers for me based on my RIASEC code are working on the food industry, bus driver, ambulance driver, transportation, lifeguard, and manicurist. None of those careers are in line with what I want to do with my life but I have had experience working in the food industry and as a lifeguard. Which makes me think that when I was doing the RIASEC test I was probably thinking about my experiences in the work field and not what I look forward to in the work field since I haven’t had much experience with working at a hospital. Although I do have experience with the life a doctor lives because a majority of my family members are doctors and nurses one is even a neuro surgeon. The results of the careers based on my RIASEC results don’t change my plans though academically. My major at Ohio State is Biology and I don’t think I’m going to be changing it anytime soon or at all hopefully. So far I’ve liked all the classes I’ve been taking for my major except for gen eds especially when it comes to history and literature because to me they’re boring subjects an I don’t enjoy learning about them. I have thought of changing my major from biology to chemistry but since I’m pre-med either way the curriculum is almost the same and biology helps me out more because there’s a lot more anatomy classes that I can take and would count toward my degree. Anatomy classes are also my favorite because you learn about different parts of the body and sometimes it’s also hands on which can include dissections of body parts which is so exciting. So far I’ve had the pleasure to dissect frogs, worms, sharks, kidneys, eyeballs, lungs, and my absolute favorite a heart. The heart dissection I did was one of the last dissections I have done recently and it was my favorite compared to all the other ones and that’s why I decided I would like to become a cardiovascular surgeon. Although my decision on which type of surgery I want to specialize can change anytime especially through residency I think I will probably stick to cardiovascular. I can say that I picked my career too based on my interest and not on the income but thankfully the income of a surgeon is not too shabby which helps motivate me a little towards my goal but I also know working in the medical field you have to make sacrifices socially because of the long and unknown hours of work. My steps from now on is just on succeeding in getting my degree in Biology and on becoming a competitive candidate for medical school.

 

Saplings Mentor Meeting

My mentor with which I had a conversation with was Katie Gorman who is a sophomore studying Evolution and Ecology at OSU. I talked with her about the following questions: What has been your most challenging major class? What advice do you have to get through it successfully? Her answer was organic chemistry which funny enough is that I’m also taking that class at the moment. She told just to be patient with it and set good studying techniques, also not to wait until the last minute to study for the exam. The best way to get through tough classes is to apply yourself and not quit when a subject is hard or you are having a hard time understanding and to not be afraid to go to my professors or TA’s for help. How have you chosen to get involved on campus? She mentioned that she had joined a leadership group her freshman year and now she is a mentor for ENR Scholars. What advice do you have for making the most of the ENR program? She told to get involved as much as I could. She told me to do all the events and service hours I could but not to just stick to the ENR planned events but to also go out there and search for events that were related to the meaning of being an ENR scholar. Also to not force myself to listen about topics that I wasn’t very interested in, she said to go out there and get involved in the topics that I liked the most about ENR and to become passionate and active about them. What do you plan to do with your major after graduation? She hopes to go on to graduate school and obtain a PhD so she can do research for conservation efforts as a career. What advice do you wish someone gave you your freshman year? She told me that she had wished someone had told her her freshman year that college is not just about expanding your knowledge about your passion but also a time to get to know who you really are and to develop yourself. She told me that college is the time to find yourself and focus on your well being and not on just making the grades.

Her advice meant a lot to me because she is someone that I already feel like I can look up to. Even though she is not much older than me she has already went through her first year and knows some of the things that are bound to happen to every freshman, the good/ the bad/ etc. One of the main things that I learned from our conversation is that I have to learn how to be patient with myself and with life. Meaning that I can’t always know the outcomes to everything that I decide to do and to just go with the flow in some situations because everything will be okay in the end. I’m gonna take this advice very seriously because I’m always stressing about my grades but I’m always fine at the end and it just makes it harder to concentrate and do well when you’re concerned all the time. I’m also going to take her advice on concentrating on myself from now on. I had notice that after she told me to think about myself and my well-being that I had in fact not taken well care of myself because I was so concerned with getting good grades and keeping my scholarship. Now I have started to pay more attention to my needs and my beliefs and values and I think overall that I’m doing better. I have noticed that now I’m more focused because I have set all of my priorities straight and I have also started to learn how to manage my time better when it comes to doing school work, work, and socializing with friends. I’m excited for the rest of the year because now I know how to “kinda” handle myself and I know what is important to myself and not. Life is about new experiences and college is going to be a big part of it and with Katie and Lizzy by my side I know that I’ll be just fine.

 

About Me

[Your “About Me” is an introduction and should provide insight into who you are as a person and a learner.  This should include a picture of you that is appropriate in a professional/academic context. This information should be continually updated.  For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio.  Delete these instructions and add your own post.]