Global Awareness: To develop my global awareness, I have taken several history and anthropology courses that focus on global events, such as World War I. In addition, I will be spending this summer in Germany through a scholarship from the DAAD RISE program. I believe that spending several months living outside of the United States will significantly increase my awareness and understanding of other cultures. While in Germany, I plan to travel and explore as much of Europe as I can to further increase my global awareness.
Original Inquiry: I have spend the past year doing research on nanomaterials for Dr. Johnston-Halperin. Last summer I got a scholarship from the physics department which enabled me to focus on research for the entire summer, which was an incredibly valuable experience. I plan to continue this work while I am enrolled at OSU and complete an undergraduate thesis. In addition, the RISE program which I mentioned earlier provides funding for students to pursue research in Germany. Therefore, I will also be spending this summer improving my research skills.
Academic Enrichment: For academic enrichment, I am pursuing a major in physics and considering adding a history minor if my scheduling permits it. Since I have a large number of college credits from two years of dual enrollment in high school, I am planning to take more advanced courses than required by the physics degree. This rigorous physics coursework should help to prepare me for getting a PhD in physics, which is my current future plan. In addition, I am focusing on upper level and honors courses to fulfill my GE requirements. This means that I should have completed around 80 hours of upper level course work by the time I finish my degree, clearly demonstrating academic enrichment.
Leadership Development: In Dr. Johnston-Halperin’s lab, I spent this semester training and supervising two new students. This meant that I was taking on a leadership role within the lab as I had to determine what parts of our project the new students needed to work on. I also had to assist them with any problems with lab procedures, make sure that they were doing high quality work, and ensure that they enjoyed the work. Since I would like to be a professor in the future, this experience with managing others within a lab was extremely valuable since it is likely something I will be doing in the future.
Service Engagement: For my freshman year and part of this year, I was involved in a student organization that worked to build a community garden in an area of Columbus with low food security. The aim of this group was to teach people about growing their own food and improve the community’s access to high quality, nutritious food. Next year, I am interested in joining a campus LGBT service club that works to help the Columbus LGBT community. In particular, this group volunteers at Equitas Health, an extremely LGBT friendly clinic. I would like to help Equitas, as their services have been invaluable to me in the process of my own gender transition.