Month: May 2016

Year in Review

This year was a good one for me. I finally felt fully comfortable and confident as a student at Ohio State. On a personal level, I have lived on my own for two years now and can actually cook a decent meal and I know how to pay taxes! I ran my second half marathon on a chilly morning, and learned how to climb a rock wall. I got closer with my friends, most of whom I met through my International Affairs Scholars’s program.

But academically and career-wise, my growth has been even more pronounced. This year started with a trip to India, which convinced me that I really enjoy traveling and learning about religion, and that I can handle 100+ degree Fahrenheit temperatures. I got myself a year ahead in 7 weeks in Arabic, with a summer intensive program.  I took some amazing political science classes, and became confident enough to speak up more in class and actually go to office hours to get to know my professors. I approached a few of my professors about research, something that I hope to assist with next fall and to start my own next spring.

I started my strategic communications major and learned how to write in AP Style, which opens up a lot of internship doors at PR firms or media outlets. I wrote not one but two 1000 word papers in Arabic, and read a handful of novels written by Arab feminists. After a long and stressful wait, I won funding to study Arabic in Morocco for eight weeks abroad, an experience that I look forward to with equal parts excitement and nervousness. I read grant proposals with several hundred other women at the Women’s Fund of Central Ohio, and I job shadowed a brilliant lawyer at an oral argument. I discovered that I like Ohio Politics and working in the legislature, but that I LOVE teaching citizenship classes to immigrants and refugees who are seeking naturalization. I enjoyed teaching so much that it has made me consider applying for a Fulbright to teach English abroad, and to pursue a career in higher education and teach people for a living.

 

The Iran Project

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Thanks to an invitation from political science department chair Professor Rick Hermann to CCWA, a club in which I participate, I was able to go and listen to two foreign policy experts, Jessica Tuchman Matthews, and Richard Nephew speak about the Iran Deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Jessica is a senior fellow for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, and Richard worked in the White House and was a negotiator during the Iran talks. He now works for the Brookings Institute.  This event was in a conference room in the Student Union, so it was very intimate and we were able to ask these experts a lot of questions.

 

This event was fascinating to me because both of the speakers have had career paths that I hope to duplicate some day. Additionally, I have done a lot of class projects and papers involving Iran, even acting as the Iranian president during a simulation game in Dr. Hermann’s Strategies of War and Peace class. I learned a lot about Iran’s domestic politics, and the implications of the JCPOA on both Iran and the rest of the world. The smallness of the event also gave me some extra time at the end to network and introduce myself to the speakers.

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Abby Wambach and Megan Rapinoe Event

The Ohio Union Activities Board hosts soccer World Cup champions Abby Wambach and Megan Rapinoe in the Ohio Union at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, on Monday March 28, 2016. (Andrew Bruening/Ohio State University Office of Student Life)

The Ohio Union Activities Board hosts soccer World Cup champions Abby Wambach and Megan Rapinoe in the Ohio Union at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, on Monday March 28, 2016. (Andrew Bruening/Ohio State University Office of Student Life)

 

On March 28, 2016, I went to a talk with two of my personal heroes and decorated athletes Abby Wambach and Megan Rapinoe. These two have won world cups and Olympic gold medals, and have inspired a generation of girls like me to play soccer, proving to us that we can be just as tough, if not tougher as the boys. They spoke about soccer, but also about gender equality in the game. The women’s team is paid significantly less than the men’s team, although the women’s team has a much better record. The men’s team is actually paid more for losing than the women’s team is for winning. Since these two players also happened to identify with the LGBTQ community, they also spoke about what it was like to be an ‘out’ athlete.

I loved this event because I played soccer for twelve years as a kid and followed the Women’s National Team religiously. If Abby Wambach scored a goal with her head, I would make my parents go in the backyard and kick me balls to practice heading into the goal. I wore their jerseys and wanted to be just like them some day. However, a few concussions later, I was off the soccer track. While I had always been a feminist, it was not until I came to school that I really accepted this identity and understood its meaning. Listening to Abby Wambach and Megan Rapine talk about the inequalities in soccer, I realized that they too were so much more than just athletes. They were not only fighting for female athletes, but for all women. Even though soccer is not as big of a part of my life anymore, I still look up to these women for using their pedestals to call for equal pay and show girls that it is important to be a feminist.

Dinner at President Drake’s House

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This year I had the honor of meeting President Drake and his wife at a dinner honoring recipients of Undergraduate National Scholarships and Fellowships. The two of them were beyond gracious and friendly and interesting to speak with. I was able to go to this dinner because I was the recipient of a critical language scholarship (CLS) from the U.S. Department of State. The CLS provides a generous stipend for students to study languages deemed critical to national security. I am going to be studying Arabic in Tangier, Morocco for eight weeks this summer.

Receiving this scholarship had been my goal since I started studying Arabic my first semester of college. I had applied for it in November of 2015 and got news in March of 2016, so it required a lot of patience and uncertainty on my part. Traveling without friends or family and living in a Moroccan home for two months will be far outside of my comfort zone, but also hugely beneficial not only to my Arabic abilities and cultural knowledge, but to my personal growth, adaptability and independence.