Year in Review (2018-2019)

Reflection on the G.O.A.L.S

 

The 2018-2019 school year has been one ripe with challenges for me as a person. A mixture of difficult course work, an unprecedentedly strong performance in extracurricular activities, and relationships with friends, colleagues, etc. have made this school year a particularly developmental one. Inevitably, I have come to develop new skills and find new outlets for the Honors and Scholars GOALS throughout this school year as a result.

 

What I have done most to develop my global awareness resides primarily in course work. I came into college with a large amount of interest in international affairs and I have taken classes which have allowed me to better understand the rest of the world. So far at Ohio State, I have taken classes like “Flattening the World” which focus on the underlying relationships between the United States and developing countries; “Politics in the Developing World” which identifies the reasons that some countries have become better off than others; and “Post Conflict Reconstruction” which finds solutions to resolve the issues preventing developing countries from catching up to more developed nations like our own. I feel as though these classes have greatly illuminated my understanding of the world and the cultures that reside within it. Through my course work, I have gained a new appreciation for global diversity which I plan to continue to emphasize by taking more foreign affairs and international studies focused classes in the future.

 

I have furthered my original inquiry through my involvement in the Ohio State Mock Trial team. This extracurricular activity has taught me a lot about both research and the creative process. In my typical role as an attorney on the team, I am required to research the United States legal system and rules of evidence to best structure a case in order to achieve the desired verdict from my fictional jury. This requires intense reading of the case files as well as a thorough understanding of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which have greatly pushed my research capabilities. In terms of the creative process, Mock Trial has occasionally required me to act as a witness rather than be an attorney. In those cases, I am often asked to develop costumes, accents, and even a character backstory for the role that I am playing. As a result, Mock Trial becomes a performance, in which I am acting similarly to a role in the theatre. Mock Trial at Ohio State has furthered my research skills as well as my ability to think creatively, and those skills will be furthered simply by continuing my involvement with the team.

 

In my time at OSU, I have also developed a commitment to academic enrichment. My Honors Contract thoroughly demonstrates my commitment to said enrichment. As my contract shows, I plan to take several courses relating to the United States foreign policy as well as classes like “Supreme Court Decision Making.” Considering my goals in life are to become an excellent attorney and perhaps one day a politician involved in the state department, I see these selected courses bringing me one step closer to the academic excellence I will need to achieve in order to reach those goals. Even outside of my major course work, I have taken classes for General Education like “Intro to Microeconomics” and “Civil Rights Black Power” because an understanding of both economics and minority rights can be essential in the political world. Ultimately, my Honors Contract displays a commitment to excellence and to broadening my understanding of political science and history in a way which will propel me towards success in the future.

 

The main activity with which I am involved is the aforementioned Mock Trial. This activity has been instrumental in my development as a leader. At the beginning of last year, I was asked to captain my specific section of the Mock Trial team, which meant I was responsible for overseeing competitors and ensuring that the important work was done and trial ready. Now that I am competing as a member of the A team, I don’t have the requisite experience to be the captain of the team but have functionally improved as a leader by taking charge of the team’s demonstrative creation and being responsible for the team having effective and cost effective demonstratives. On top of that, I have frequently been called in to work with members of the C team or to help other competitors with their content. These people relying on me, to perform tasks or help in any way possible has forced me to expand my understanding of what it means to be a leader and to increase my development of leadership skill. Again, this development will only continue with my years on the team.

 

To be fair, I have not gotten around to performing an abundant amount of volunteer work in the past year because of my busy skill, but I have still helped whenever possible. Specifically, I volunteer to teach free tennis lessons to children in my hometown when not at school, and when at school, I have occasionally assisted with the judging or coaching of speech and debate competitors. This voluntary work has allowed me to engage with some high school students in the community and attempt to give back through a program which helped me greatly in my time at high school. I plan in the future to participate in more service projects assisting the needy as well as to increase my involvement with the local speech and debate teams.

Year in Review

This year has been a pretty large challenge for me as a person. In all honesty, I came into college expecting a cake walk because of how much intense work I took on in high school, and in terms of workload, I am not presented with an overwhelming amount thus far. However, where I have been presented a serious challenge in college thus far is the difficulty of the classes themselves. Taking challenging classes has thus far been very humbling for me and has taught me several lessons about how I need to put my utmost effort into all of my studies in order to ensure that I don’t fall behind and begin to struggle by the time grad school applications roll around. However, I have experienced significant growth as a leader as well. You’ll probably hear a lot about Mock Trial this year, but that is for good reason. Especially because thus far, Mock Trial has required that I put a lot of effort into developing my leadership skills, Specifically, I was made the captain of the D team during my time there and as such, I was required to lead my team leading into our first tournament. As one of the only students on my team with adequate Mock Trial experience, it was up to me to help students write cross examinations, review rules of evidence, and practice objections that my team mates should be prepared for. In turn, I was greatly challenged in order to stand up and take an effective role as a leader. Thus far, college has been a challenging experience, but one in which I have been humbled and have made it a step closer to my dreams of being a politician, so I have enjoyed every minute of it.

G.O.A.L.S.

Global Awareness: I plan on working toward the goal of global awareness by taking as many courses that expose me to diversity and culture that exist worldwide. Coming from a background in International Extemporaneous Speaking, international affairs are incredibly important to me, and as such, I plan to take a freshman seminar about international development, as well as a few international relations courses that expose me to more about international culture. On top of that, my experience in Russian class will like lead me to join the Russian club at OSU and as such, increase my global awareness even further by taking part in student organizations. In conclusion, I intend to become incredibly aware of global diversity and culture while at OSU.

 

Original Inquiry: I plan on partaking in several forms of research during my four years at OSU. In fact, as a freshman I am already attempting to join research teams with political science professors and plan on continually researching trends in American politics while I am at Ohio State. In fact, as a means of making sure I maintain a high level of original inquiry, I plan to ask every political science professor I have about their opportunities for research and inquiry programs.

 

Academic Enrichment: I chose political science because learning about the political system is incredibly important to my future plans of becoming involved with that political system and help people by repairing the flaws of the current political landscape. As such, I am excited to take any and all GE courses that provide me better opportunities to improve communication and writing skills. But I of course plan to go above and beyond in the pursuit of academic enrichment by taking honors courses whenever possible and investing much more time in political science than the required 33 hours. This is visible in the use of my academic plan as well. Therefore, I intend to supersede expectations and achieve a high level of academic excellence.

 

Leadership Development: I am planning to be involved in several student organizations. I am going to join the Russian club and others that are smaller and slightly time consuming, but my biggest passion is my position on the Ohio State mock trial team, as I plan to be a leader in this program by running for the position of president and leading by example on my team as an effective attorney who refuses to use drugs and alcohol so that I can spread a positive message to new recruits in the future. As such, I plan to use my positions in school activities as a springboard into improving my capabilities as a leader.

 

Service Engagement: I am currently interested in finding more service opportunities. To date, the most that I have done is assist friends in donation programs or charity events of that sort, but I really haven’t made any large investments in service to date and as such, I am really searching for a way to help out the Ohio State community. I would love to lead fun service projects myself, like providing children with free basic tennis lessons or perhaps holding seminars about mock trial for high school students. If possible, I want to engage in several service programs while learning at Ohio State.

Career

[“Career” is where you can collect information about your experiences and skills that will apply to your future career.  Like your resume, this is information that will evolve over time and should be continually updated.   For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Artifacts

Mock Trial Success:

Unfortunately, I myself am not in the above picture. However, this is a picture of about half of the Ohio State Mock Trial team after dominating at a tournament. This has been a major success for me personally. In the last few weeks, I managed to take 6th at the local Scarlet and Gray invitational on the D team of OSU, and was then moved up to the B team because of my successes. That being said, Mock Trial has become a huge part of my current college experience and I am loving it so far.

About Me

Hello! My name is Clay Owens. I am a first year undergraduate student at the Ohio State University. I am currently studying toward a Political Science major and am planning to attend grad school upon graduation. I am a proud member of Mock Trial @ Ohio State and one day hope myself to be a practicing attorney. I am a big fan of comic books and video games but in reality, my favorite hobby in the whole world is public speaking. I love communicating ideas, debating, and competing in activities centered around public speaking. Don’t feel afraid to ask me about Speech and Debate, Mock Trial, or even ask me to talk about something political and I will give it my best shot!