Spring Project Conclusion

The project started exactly how I had planned. I started working on the chords just blankly. I’d look at the fret placement and strum the chords. Unfortunately, that got boring fast. I then asked my friend, Alex Camp for some guidance. Alex is skilled with the guitar and ukulele. She helped me with strumming techniques and fret placement. She suggested I learn the chord progressions to easy(ish) songs as a means in learning all the chords I set out to learn. It made learning an instrument fun again and it was good to know that I was on the right path.

The next daunting assignment was to find songs with chords I was trying to learn and with easy enough chord progressions. I started with a slower song, something that would make changing chords easy. So I picked out “Sea of Love” specifically the acoustic cover by Cat Power, not the brass-based original version by Phil Phillips. That got me started. My goal was not to perfect my playing of these songs but to simply use them to better learn the chords.

This technique worked wonderfully, then spring break and quarantine happened. It was rather easy to continue my project at home. So I kept at it working my way through each chord. I wouldn’t say that I had mastered the chords, because really the difficulty is mostly in switching from chord-to-chord, but I soon had all of the chords down with reasonable comfort. My favorites being Em, G, D, and F. The most annoying to play being Bb, Bm, and B. Or the other chords that required one chord to press down on multiple frets. I had reached a beginner’s level of competence with the ukulele and I still had a few hours left on the Ten Hour Project. I had to add something new to this project.

I decided to try my hand at fingerpicking. It is rather difficult. I found the thumb the hardest, and the most painful. The song I initially picked out was above my level so I decided to write my own song. It was as easy as I wanted it to be. All frets were open, it’s slow, and I added a simple chord progression in between. I even got carried away and started making a melody. I decided that I would not count time strictly focused on writing the song as apart of the project, because I was not practicing a number chords or fingerpicking. I was just trying to figure out what chord works well after the last. That worked well and I got carried away so I started adding some percussion. Link Below:

I then decided to learn a more complicated fingerpicking song, Gustavo Santaolalla’s “The Last of Us”. The main theme is hauntingly beautiful and I found a ukulele rendition of it on YouTube. This is something I actually want to perfect, as a personal project and a continuation of this project. What I’ve learned so far linked below:

Overall I would say that this project is a success. I set out to become competent on the ukulele and to push me to learn more instruments. It brought back some of my passion for music and reminded me the thrill of learning a new instrument. The project even pushed me to finish learning the song I started on piano four years ago. I will continue practicing and becoming more proficient on the ukulele. Ten hours, actually eleven, well spent!

Spring Project Intro

When I was first introduced to the ten hour project I immediately thought of half a dozen things that I would love to learn or improve upon. So picking which one to focus on was a somewhat difficult task. I had to pick between improving on my photography, coding a simple game, learning German at a grade school level, learning sewing enough to fix things, etc… but I decided on learning to play ukulele.

Music has always played a big role in my life. I started learning piano at age five and continued off an on until fourteen. From there I focused on drum set which I had started learning at twelve. I’ve taken drum set a bit more seriously and quickly surpassed my knowledge in piano. While I still play piano from time to time (when looking for something more melodic), drums are still my preferred instrument. My only problem with drums are that they are not very portable. So a few years ago I wanted to start learning ukulele- it proved a simple solution to both the problems: I could play tonal music and learn something I could easily bring with me. So I got myself a ukulele played for about a month. Then, unfortunately, life got in the way. Now, because of the ten hour project, I will finally make the time necessary to learn some ukulele.

From my past experience learning music- I know that it is less efficient to start with learning a simple song. So my first task will be to learn common chords and keys–paying close attention to proper form and technique. So I will learn proper strumming (both up and down). But I will not be attempting fingerpicking because it is a more advanced and rather challenging skill.

Pictured below are the chords I will learn. Both pictures contain (mostly) the same chords just with different orientation.

 

                

 

After I have learned to play and partially memorized all the chords I may attempt a song if time allows- the particular one is to be determined. My main focus here is to begin the proper process of learning to play the ukulele competently. The last time I tried to learn, I had made the mistake of only learning songs with no focus on technique and only knew those few chords. I will not be making that mistake again and will begin again properly. I will begin with the key of C and move down to the key of G and so on (following the picture on the right).

With this project I hope to begin again my passion for tonal music and strengthen my ear for it. Hopefully even after this project is finished I will continue to strengthen my proficiency on ukulele and learn more challenging songs and chord progressions. Though it will never be able to replace my passion for drumming–nor do I expect to become as proficient in it as I am with drums– it will be nice to be able to more easily take music with me wherever I may go.

Alternative Thanksgiving at the MCC

Every year the Multicultural Center hosts an Alternative Thanksgiving in honor of Native American History Month. The event offers Native American/Indigenous students to celebrate with the Ohio State community as they would within their communities. The event had a few speakers and announcements followed by performances by Wolfgrass Irwin of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara nation in Northern Dakota and Lydia Green of the Ojibwe tribe in Northern Michigan.

They both danced several pieces some together and some individually. The solo pieces highlighted their different styles of dance in addition to the different styles of dress. Wolfgrass Irwin is a grass-dancer and he explained that the duty of a grass dancer is to go out into fields of tall grass and dance before a pow wow to push the grass down in order to allow for the ceremony to commence. His clothing has many strings hanging off it meant to look like grass blowing in the wind as he dances. He performed a grass dance along with what is called a Sneak Up. He explained that the Sneak Up is a depiction of a battle, war, or some other type of physical conflict. Lydia had two outfits. The first being a jingle dress. Her dress had several tubes with prayers and tobacco, one of the sacred plants, contained within. Her second dress was very colorful and she explained that it is made to look bright and like a butterfly as she dances.

After Green and Irwin finished dancing they invited the attendees to join hands for a round dance. Melissa Beard Jacob, the Intercultural Specialist and liaison to  Native American and Indigenous students in the Multicultural center, explained that the round dance is a dance of friendship and unity.

After the performances Deandre Smiles, president of the Ohio State Indigenous Community of Graduate and Professional Students and a doctoral student in geography, and Nicole Doran, president of the Native American and Indigenous Peoples Cohort and a forth-year in biology gave speeches. Smiles spoke about how their community at Ohio State may be small, but it is close knit and ever-growing. Doran spoke of how their community suffers from a lack of exposure. She said that her speech is set up to give advice to future students so as to continue on the legacy.

The evening ended with a meal that consisted of traditional indigenous foods: fry bread with wojapi, a blueberry jam, sassafras tea, venison stew, and salmon with wild rice. Everything was delicious.

To round out the night, Jacob spoke briefly mentioning that the Multicultural Center has many more events to be put on for Native American History Month in the coming weeks.

Events like Alternative Thanksgiving hosted by the Multicultural Center can help educate the Ohio State community on the different perspectives around Thanksgiving. They can help others learn more about the history and traditions of Native American/Indigenous peoples. Events like these can help others better understand the hurt around Thanksgiving and can help bring the Ohio State community together to learn and celebrate together.

Skills that apply beyond academics: Younkin Success Center

The Ohio State University offers many resources to students, most of which are offered free of charge. They cover a wide range of topics from academics to nutrition to financial and general wellness. I’ve heard about the many resources in my survey courses from peers and even from web searches. The university provides so much it can feel overwhelming to determine where to start.

At my appointment we talked about how a good way to fight feeling overwhelmed is to get organized- especially with your time. We covered a few topics but really went into depth with time management. Time management is something that I personally struggle with. That alongside a propensity to procrastinate is a very dangerous combination. We talked about three time management tools that can work together in tandem.

  1. The first is a fixed commitment calendar- it lists all the things that which you have already committed. It would contain classes, meetings, time-specific activities etc. This is a weekly calendar that you would use to highlight your free time.
  2. The second is the running list- it is a broad monthly-yearly plan that contains assignments, projects, and is used to efficiently plan ahead.
  3. Lastly, there is the daily objective list- effectively it is a to-do list. It is specific and can be used to plan breaks and assignments to be done that day.

A visual break down of the three time management tools (from left to right: Fixed Commitment Calendar, Running List, and Daily Objectives)

Other skills we worked on were focus and procrastination oriented. The technique that I have seen a lot of success with is the pomodoro technique. Italian for “tomato”, the technique focuses on taking regimented breaks after a certain time of diligent work. Each unit is 25 minutes of work and a 5 minute break. The technique has its name from mechanical wind up timers that looked much like tomatoes. In knowing that a break is coming up soon, I have found that it is easier to focus. In the past I would build my breaks around finishing assignments. Such assignments always lasted longer than I thought and I would feel mentally burned out. The technique does require a fair amount of self control which can be difficult. But, after 3-4 pomodoros one can take a longer, more relaxing break.

These skills apply not just for school but for life. Being able to organize your time properly can be the difference in success. I am currently working (slowly, but surely) to add these skills into my daily life. I have learned far more than I had hoped with going to the Younkin Success Center for my appointment. The appointment was super easy to schedule- it can be done online through their website.

The university has so many support services that I don’t believe that it is missing any. I have yet to fully immerse my in its services so I cannot say for sure. I am extremely glad that I scheduled and attended my appointment. What I have learned there is already improving my focus and time management.

STEM Seminar

The “Phylogenomics and the Procrustean Bed if the Species Tree” seminar was daunting. It was put on the the Evolution and Ecology program. Going into the seminar I knew nothing about Phlyogenomics and the last biology class I took was in freshman year of high school. I got there early to get a prime spot, one where I could see everything but far enough back where I could still hide looks of confusion. I don’t know if I was the only undergraduate student, but it definitely felt as if I was the only one who knew nothing.

That’s not to say that I got nothing from the experience, I found it very informative and Matt Hahn was a very engaging speaker. From what I could understand, he presents an intriguing argument. Basically Prof. Hahn argues that in formulating species trees there is a lot of error (made by differences in sequences among DNA samples) that resolves into inaccurate species trees. Thus inferences about trait evolution made using the species tree as a reference can be incorrect.

In the picture above, Prof. Hahn is explaining how one could differentiate the types of error in species trees.

I took four pages of typed notes, so hopefully after I take some biology classes I’ll be able to refer to them again and understand more than 20% of the material. I may have been a focused audience member, but I was not active. I didn’t speak to anyone who attended the seminar nor did I talk to Professor Hahn.

While the seminar was not specifically in the area of my major (Mechanical Engineering) it is in a field that I am interested in. I am looking into getting an Evolution and Ecology minor and part of choosing this seminar was determining if Evolution and Ecology is something I want to learn more about. Because I understood so little from the seminar I am not sure if the field is what I’m interested in. From what Idid understand it is a rather compelling field, but I think I’d like to focus on Ecology as opposed to Evolution. I did not really have any expectations going into the seminar, so I suppose I was neither disappointed nor surprised.

Being active in the academic community at any age, any year, any level of education can be incredibly enriching. The seminar definitely encouraged me to take a biology course and look deeper into getting a minor. Also, because STEM can be so interdisciplinary, going to seminars can help you understand what research is going on in other fields, and can even give inspiration to a completely unrelated thing. Going to seminars like this and interacting with the speakers can help build your network and strengthen understanding in a topic (assuming you’re familiar with it going in, that is). I think learning, in any form, is always time well spent. This experience has made me want to reach out of my comfort zone and go to more STEM seminars. Next time, however, I will look for a seminar that I know a little more about, or give myself more time to prepare.

Engineering Expo

On Monday, in order to further my academic goals, and make myself more comfortable with pitching myself as an employee/ intern, I went to the Engineering Expo. The preparation was like something that I had never done before.

It was for the Engineering Expo that I made my first resume. I asked everyone I knew for resume help: my parents and my brother all the way to my friend’s brother. I found it difficult to pitch myself as a freshman. I had only ever worked as a cashier. Most of my high school experiences and extracurriculars were not STEM related and were pretty small scale. Something that I am incredibly proud of from high school (and highlighted in my elevator pitch) was that I started American Sign Language Club, and it became so popular that ASL was added as a class the following year. I used it to highlight my leadership skills and tenacity. Something else that I highlighted was being on the Underwater Robotics Team. Being at the Expo made me incredibly glad to be on the team (more than I already was because of the comradery and learning experiences). I was able to talk about my first project for the team! Looking back now, I realize that I had forgotten about something important to add to my resume. Last year, on a team of four, we won second place in a local project-based initiative. Caring for Our Watersheds is an amazing competition where an individual/a team up to four write a proposal of a project they’d like to implement to hep the environment. Moving on in the competition means getting funding to implement the project and after a few months, present the results. A resume can always be improved upon!

The resume, however, is not all one needs. I also had to prepare the perfect professional outfit, and a convincing elevator pitch.

 

 

Arriving at the Engineering Expo was the most nerve-wracking experience. Because my last class didn’t end until 4:00 I had from then on to return to my room, change, and then walk to the union. I now see why people wear business casual all-day of career fair, it can be such a hassle to go back to change. I sped walked to the union so that I would have as much time as possible to talk to recruiters. I didn’t get up until 5:00 and that made me incredibly anxious. Yellow folder in hand and resumes inside it, I took a deep breath and began. I went to the smallest room–the cartoon room–first. It was the least overwhelming. In order to get a grasp of the room, I walked around once or twice, taking note of which employers were looking for mechanical engineers, and which seemed interesting. The first company I talked to, Korda, actually has a base in Columbus and has worked on the university. After taking that first step, it became so much easier to talk to recruiters. My elevator pitch wasn’t perfect, and I had accepted that. I went to the Engineering Expo expecting nothing, I was there solely to practice and learn form my experiences.

Knowing what I do now, I would prepare differently. I would review and review and review my resume. I would also research the companies beforehand, know with whom I am talking and figure out where my interests may lie. Lastly, I would practice my elevator pitch. The only practice I had was talking to myself on the way to the Union–which is not something I’d recommend.

 

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.

[ “G.O.A.L.S.” is a place where students write about how their planned, current, and future activities may fit into the Honors & Scholars G.O.A.L.S.: Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement. 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.

  • Global Awareness: Students cultivate and develop their appreciation for diversity and each individual’s unique differences. For example, consider course work, study abroad, involvement in cultural organizations or activities, etc.
  • Original Inquiry: Honors & Scholars students understand the research process by engaging in experiences ranging from in-class scholarly endeavors to creative inquiry projects to independent experiences with top researchers across campus and in the global community. For example, consider research, creative productions or performances, advanced course work, etc.
  • Academic Enrichment: Honors & Scholars students pursue academic excellence through rigorous curricular experiences beyond the university norm both in and out of the classroom.
  • Leadership Development: Honors & Scholars students develop leadership skills that can be demonstrated in the classroom, in the community, in their co-curricular activities, and in their future roles in society.
  • Service Engagement: Honors & Scholars students commit to service to the community.]