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End of Year Review

This year has been quite the change. I’ve really enjoyed most of my classes. I take away small things here and there like “friends don’t let friends plant bamboo.” I’ll never forget that. I think learning in one of the enr lectures that we are the ones with the power to change things at OSU was pretty impactful. It encouraged me to look into more ways to get involved and make an impact on campus. 

     With classes, I actually felt like I was less overworked than in highschool. In high school, I put so much pressure on myself to get As on everything, so that it would look good to colleges, but now that I’m in college, it feels like I can give myself a little more leeway. One B isn’t the end of the world and because of this I’m just much less stressed and I think it helps me study more. 

I think the biggest change was socially. I’m  used to seeing the same people in every class pretty much and knowing almost everyone. I’ve realized I really have to work at maintaining relationships with people by establishing routines with them. It also feels like most classes are not conducive to meeting people, so that pushed me to get more involved in clubs. My favorite is the student growing collaborative because I love the people and I feel like I learn a lot. We watch documentaries on agriculture and how it pertains to the environment. I did a seed saving workshop with them where we actually got to take seeds home and it was really cool to learn about because seed saving is so important to preserving crop diversity and thus food security. They did a compost tea workshop and a host of other fun, social events. Also, every time my friend Bekah and I walk into a meeting, the president greets us with “hey queens” and it’s just very welcoming.  I think my favorite memory would have to be one of the first weeks of school, Anthony, Bryan, Anna, and I all went to a silent disco and stayed out late talking and it was just really nice. 

    It has also been a big adjustment switching to online learning. I feel really overwhelmed and tired all the time. Normally, I would have a speech like once a month, but I’ve had one each week for the last three weeks and I have another this week. I’m kind of just confused why my communications teacher chose this. I also have midterms a week before I have finals and my calendar is honestly scary. I’m also very disappointed because I was so excited to go to Ecuador this summer and work on a forest restoration project in the Amazon and now I can’t go. However, I’ve figured out a fun alternative. I am now going to be working at a chestnut farm in Ashland once school is over. It’s much closer to home and my best friend is doing it with me, so it’s not a total loss. I’ve noticed in college and I think it stems from my high school experience, I feel that if I’m not working at/or towards something, I’m falling behind. I feel a lot better now that I have something to look forward too, but I really miss breakfasts with Bekah and Morril events with Bryan. However, I’ll keep working and striving towards my goals. 

         Next year, I am looking forward to having more experience under my belt, seeing my friends, and learning what I came to learn about.

Next year, I am looking forward to having more experience under my belt, seeing my friends, and learning what I came to learn about.

My Personal Leadership Style

     The enneagram test said my personal leadership style was that of an investigator (the intense, cerebral type) meaning I am perceptive, innovative, secretive, and isolated. I think that most of the traits are pretty general and everyone’s a little bit of all of them. Even so, I don’t think this one is very fitting. I do enjoy my alone time, but it’s not something I enjoy in a work setting. I feel like, while I do value efficiency and live by the words “work smarter, not harder,” I also enjoy goofing off a little and have made a lot of friends through working at various jobs in the service industry. I think I am very efficient during the follower phase of a position because I’m a people pleaser but, when it comes to being a leader, I think I tend to care more about the people I’m training and making sure they’re comfortable and understanding what I’m teaching rather than getting things done quickly. I think I have different roles based upon my position. 

              For example, when I first started working at my first job(Panera), I felt a little isolated because a lot of the people had already  formed friendships and weren’t particularly interested in talking to new people(except for Michael, forever my favorite coworker). I remember my first day on the job, the person training me essentially had me do half of the work(simple stuff like vacuuming and washing tables) while she did the other half, so that we would get done as quickly as possible. During close, she ended up trading me to the girl on bakery who wanted to close faster for a cookie, so I learned about ¼ of what I needed to know in order to close dining room and probably around ¼ of what I need to know to close on bakery as well. While efficient, that is a horrible way to train people and the next time I worked, we were understaffed, so I had to close alone and I felt bad having to ask how to do things. Once I got more comfortable working at Panera, I became a trainer and new people came that I got to be that person to reach out to them  and actually form friendships and you best believe I made sure my trainees knew everything they needed to. Essentially, I think I may qualify as an investigator during the follower phase, but, in leadership positions, I think I would qualify more as a helper. 

    However, in terms of my growth at OSU, I suppose I might as well give research a try as the investigator leadership style seems appropriate for lab work and research

Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

G.O.A.L.S.

Columbus To-Do list part one

I have chosen to  pursue the Nature and Outdoor Recreation list. I am most excited to go to Topiary park as I grew up in Columbus and it’s one of the few parks I haven’t been too. I also heard it was based off a famous, French, post impressionist painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande JatteToday.” It is a work by  Georges Seurat. For my first park,  I went to Goodale park as part of a planned event for the Enr scholars.  Goodale Park is a quiet, quaint spot that seems to revolve around a pond in the center including a large fountain with two elephants on top.

For being so small, it had a surprising amount of wildlife. I was able to sketch while watching geese and ducks swim by. Apparently both entire flocks got into a fight while I was too focused on sketching to notice, but I found the atmosphere  quite peaceful and calming. It was perfect to unwind and duly needed after a week of midterms. The highlight was probably seeing a blue herring from five feet away as it was incredibly comfortable with people. I would recommend Goodale to a friend. It was pleasant.

 

 

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 guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Columbus To Do List Part Two

My favorite part about Columbus is it offers all of the benefits and activities of living in a city while also including the smallest, most obscure but beautiful pockets of nature. For me, Hayden Falls epitomizes these pockets of nature. To me, it is not only the smallest and most obscure, but also the most beautiful. Having grown up in Columbus, I’ve done or seen most of the things on the Columbus to do lists. It was less a matter of choosing what to do and more a matter of choosing what was worth coming back to. Hayden Falls lies along Hayden Run Road. It consists of a small parking lot from which you take wooden stairs down to a wooden path. This path is surrounded by trees and the atmosphere changes immediately making you feel like you’re in a jungle of sorts, a jungle of deciduous trees that is. The entire pathway only makes for less than a five minute walk leading up to a small waterfall. It’s crazy how it accomplishes this feeling while only a few trees away on the left is the Scioto River s mere few feet from a bridge leading to a culmination of residential houses and fast food restaurants. On the right, immediately. Next to the parking lot, are even more housing developments. One could never be able to tell such a whimsical place lied in between.
Now you might be thinking that whimsical is a bit of a dramatic word to place on what is usually an underwhelming experience and you’d be correct. However, as much as I have always enjoyed Hayden Falls, it’s all about timing to truly experience it. I used to run their every Monday when I ran cross country with my running buddy. We knew we weren’t supposed to but for every long run we would run over 3 miles through housing developments, apartment complexes, and commercial stores to spend around 10 minutes at the falls and just take it in. I really enjoyed this, but I didn’t see Hayden Falls as any more special than any of the other waterfalls I have seen around Ohio. It was not until the summer before my senior year that I truly understood its beauty. It had been raining intensely the night before, but the morning was bright and sunny and I needed to get my long run in before work. As I would be starting from my home as opposed to the school, it would be an even longer trip than usual, but I did not want to run that far for nothing. I thought I’d pay a casual visit and I was surprised by how different it looked. As soon as I reached the parking lot I could tell something was different. The water had reached just under the podium that used to be feet above it. What was once still water was now full of moving  rapidly. The sight and sound of rushing water is oddly really freeing. I had barely gotten a few feet from the stairs when I could feel a slight mist in the air intensifying as I got closer and closer to the waterfall. There’s something so oddly freeing about standing in the mist. Maybe it was the fact I had just run over 3 miles in the grueling heat, but I felt the strangest joy. I felt free. The mist had transformed my surroundings. The bridge/platform itself was darkened and all the trees were glistening. It pained me to leave and it paid me that no one else got to experience it, but honestly I think walking the platform alone surrounded by all those trees kind of added to the experience.
Every time from that point on that we had an intense rain, I  tried to convince my friends/family to go to the waterfall with me and experience it for themselves. Most of them have been to Hayden Falls before and didn’t get the hype which I get, but was annoying. For this assignment, I took my dad to Hayden Falls after a hard rain. It wasn’t as impressive as the first time. I couldn’t feel the mist until around 10-15ft. away. It still felt great though and my father was so enthused by the running water, I’m surprised we even made it to the waterfall. It still felt just the same up close and I was so happy.  I’m happy I got to share the experience with my dad. Unfortunately the mist didn’t fare well for his camera quality, but it was still a great time. This experience has led me to want to explore more parks In cbus after rain. I would definitely recommend to anyone that has ever or will ever be in Columbus after a rainy day.  This experience taught me to appreciate Columbus’s bizarre weather because how else can you experience a giant waterfall on a sunny day. I have decided to add an image of what the waterfall normally looks like for context:

About Me

I am an environmental scholars student at Ohio State University. Although I am originally form Denmark, I grew up in the Columbus area. In school, I always preferred hands on learning experience. However, I think I have also learned a lot just from documentaries and other combinations of auditory and visual teachings.
I have always been interested in agriculture, the community garden in my neighborhood being my favorite summer hotspot. Going into high school, I grew more interested in the sciences, particularly sustainable development. I was able to intern for an organic farm for ‘Project Aquastar’ at St.Stephens Center. The initiative of the small farm was to provide cheap, organic produce to the surrounding community and help end the surrounding food desert. I was able to learn about farm management, hydroponics Systems, and raising chickens. The following year I interned at a nature reserve called Spruce Run and was exposed to a number of environmental professions.
For me, environmentalism goes hand in hand with ethics. The more I learn, the more I want to live sustainably whether that’s planting trees, shopping second hand or reducing the amount of resources used. I decided to major in Sustainable Plant Systems, so I can work with plants for the rest of my life and hopefully help steer the agricultural field in a more sustainable direction. My goal in school is less to get the best grades possible, but more so make sure I absorb the information I need/want to fulfill my goals in the future. I want to be an agronomist in the future, but also be equipped with the skills to be able to run my own greenhouse. I’m a huge lover of the outdoors whether that means protecting it or leisure activities such as kayaking or hiking.