Before I began my involvement with the STEM Scholars at The Ohio State University, I cannot say that I was similar to myself now. This seems obvious, as change in character is one of the most prominent aspects of developing one’s maturity. However, I say this because this change has been monumental in my life. After my first year of university, I can confidently claim that I know so much more than I did last year, or even at the start of my first year. That is, of course, not to say that I will not mature even further (well, I certainly hope so) and I look forward to any other experiences in the following years that I will take to heart.
My willingness to attempt new things has increased rather significantly this past year. As a student in a relatively new environment, I was forced to adapted in any way to fit how I had operated as a student before. I soon realized that being the same student as I was last year was probably not the best choice, and in fact, this whole year has been a series of trials and errors that have made me who I am today. While I don’t think that my demeanor as a student is impeccable, I certainly think that my failures throughout this year have made me altogether a stronger and smarter student. My openness to change most certainly stems from these failures and while I did experience an unfortunate series of events in my first year, the positive outcomes from these instances were rather satisfying.
While I did not enjoy logging the events that I attended each week, I am very glad that I had attended as many as I did. These events gave me new perspective on quite a number of topics, most of which I had no idea had much depth or expressed any initial interest to me. However, after witnessing how many topics I knew so little about and the passion that these lecturers had, I attended as many as possible to expand my horizons to not include my class topics. I remember a particular event that I attended involving the theory of math and how applicable it was to the way that our universe was formed. Not only had I thought about this at a younger age, but it was fascinating to see someone make a career based off of this topic and presenting it in such an intriguing way was really phenomenal to see. Through these events, my gratitude for such obscure topics grew and my humility grew to match the amount of lectures I had been to. I developed a new appreciation for what people loved and I certainly hope to find something that I can be half as passionate about.
Overall this year has taught me worlds of information, ranging from trying out new study habits to listening to people present on topics I know little to nothing about. As an individual, I hope to take these lessons and these pieces of information and apply them to my own life. It is my hope this will lead me along a path of becoming a better person.