G.O.A.L.S. Reflection

Global Awareness

Out of all the GOALS, global awareness is the one in which I’m involved most right now. I live in the International House learning community and am involved with the English Conversation Partners (ECP) Program. Because of my involvement in these two programs, I’ve been exposed to so many different cultures throughout the semester. It’s been good preparation for my future plans teaching ESL for in South Korea before I start graduate school, traveling and interpreting/translating. (I know, South Korea comes out of nowhere for a French major.) I want to see the world and experience its cultures. Needless to say, I don’t plan to halt my person globalization anytime soon—I even want go on to interpret for the United Nations.

Original Inquiry

As far as original inquiry goes, I have a pretty good start this semester by being a research assistant in a French-Linguistics study. I hope to continue this by being involved in data analysis next semester. I am also contemplating developing an honors thesis my junior and senior year, possibly connecting historical linguistics and the romance languages. Outside of my majors, I am currently taking challenging GE’s whose topics I’ve never learned about or even considered as an academic area. I plan to continue to challenge myself with these courses and research involvement throughout the next four years.

Academic Enrichment

Choosing to major in linguistics and French was a combination of desire to continue my previous studies and wanting to learn about as many languages as I could. Linguistics was a field I’d known before, but I only had a broad idea about what linguists did, so when I found out OSU had a major in linguistics, that immediately caught my attention. Though it wasn’t the ultimate factor in choosing to become a Buckeye, it was influential in my decision. Meanwhile, choosing to minor in history comes partially from having unused credit from previous courses. It also gives me a reason to take more history classes. (Have I mentioned that I’m a nerd?) In general, courses from my majors, minor, and GE requirements demonstrate my commitment to learning and expanding my perspective of the world. Most are focused on global issues and/or cultural ideas and support my desire to learn more about culture and language.

Leadership Development

Though I don’t consider myself a natural leader, I’ve noticed my leadership skills rapidly develop this semester. I participate in ECP as a facilitator, where I have met a wonderful group of people and have been exposed to new cultures. I’ve had to coordinate everyone’s schedule and plan events that we’d all enjoy, which was surprisingly fun. It wasn’t stressful like I thought it’d be, and I’ve also been able to explore and discover parts of Columbus I wouldn’t have otherwise. Along with this, reaching out to my RAs and floor-mates in order to bring myself out of my comfort zone and get to know more people is probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in so far in college. I mention this not only because it was recommended by my RA, but because most of the people on my floor seemed, at first, to be really shy until I started a conversation. Once the conversation started, connections were made, and now I have a new, diverse, and awesome network of people. Now that I’ve written it, I can see how this is a quality of a leader. A leader takes the initiative to start a conversation, instead of waiting for someone else to start it.

Service Engagement

After writing about the other four GOALS, I realize the one I’m lacking in most is my service engagement. I also realize that I have seven more semesters to become involved in service activities around campus. I have looked into service organizations like Circle K and Committee of 88, but I failed at following up with them. I attended some information sessions and even a few meetings, but that’s where my relationship with service ended this semester. That is why next semester I plan to become more involved with one of these organizations—service has been one of the things I enjoyed doing most, and I want to continue it.