Year in Review

Back in the fall of 2015, I entered Ohio State as a young freshman, with absolutely no idea what I was doing. I remember that the first event that I attended in college was a ropes course with the STEM EE scholars. This surprise event set the tone for the rest of the semester and my Freshman year at OSU. Throughout my first year at OSU, I believe that I have grown immensely, in both academic knowledge and as a young adult. Through the events and programs put on by the STEM EE group, I have learned lots of valuable life skills such as better studying techniques and how to engage children in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

When I entered OSU, I was quite ignorant of most of college life. I didn’t know how to schedule my time wisely, I didn’t know what to do with my time, and I struggled to find out where everything was located on campus. Coming out of my senior year of high school, I had been coasting through school and the academic challenges associated with college were a tough shift that I was forced to deal with. I was afraid to get help and tried to do everything on my own. Also, I feel that I was a much more selfish person and did most things for personal gain rather than donate my time for others.

This all changed with the STEM scholars program. Through STEM, I learned that it is okay to get help when you struggle in class and that you are not alone. That was probably the biggest lesson that I was taught when I came to OSU. With a new pool of the world’s top students, the standards of excellence were raised much higher. The friendship and advice that I was gifted with in living in the STEM scholars cohort is something that I will always benefit from.

Another way that STEM helped me was through opportunities of outreach in the community. Through STEM events, I was able to interact with the youth community and engage them in cool scientific experiments that hopefully left a positive impact on their views of STEM fields. This engaged me as a leader and I feel that I now have  better communication skills than I previously had.

The STEM class was also very helpful for me. The cool topics discussed in the material opened my eyes to the amazing ways that STEM fields are applied to the real world and every day jobs. My academic knowledge has been expanded by the STEM class. One of the most helpful things that we did in class was take a strengths test and then learn about what the evaluation of our various strengths means for our daily lives. We learned how to focus on our strengths and improve them rather than wasting time trying to better the things that we are not as skilled at. Throughout my experiences in STEM, I feel that I have matured both as a student as well as a member of the community.

G.O.A.L.S.

Throughout my experiences in the STEM Scholars program this past year, I have gained an understanding of G.O.A.L.S. and their importance in the enrichment of our academic experience. Although all five apply to me, I believe that Original Inquiry and Leadership Development are the most important for me as I move forward in my academic career. I am currently in pursuit of an Industrial and Systems Engineering major with an Entrepreneurship minor.

This has led me to place an importance on Original Inquiry in my studies. I hope to one day own a company and to get where I want to be, I need to focus on original and thoughtful ideas that can lead to a business. I have a dream of developing technology that will improve the lives of people living in third world countries. While I have dreams of using Original Inquiry in the future, it can be used throughout my time at Ohio State as well. For one, many engineering classes require a degree of creativity in projects as well as new and innovative thought lines in solving problems. Thus, Original Inquiry will help my academic career. In addition, as a member of the philanthropy board of my fraternity, I am constantly searching for new and fun activities that we can develop to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club of America.

Leadership development is another area that I want to strive to become better at. Throughout the world, whether in business or your personal life, there are many situations in which you have to take charge of a situation and lead a team of people, whether it be a few or hundreds. I know that I currently have a bit of a weakness in this category currently, specifically in the speech department. Presenting ideas and information in front of large audiences is a struggle for me and I am currently looking for ways to improve my skills as a public speaker. This will help me with presentations but also improve my general speaking skills and engagements with others such as employers when in job interviews. I can also tie this back into my dream career, as company presidents have to be able to speak well and lead their workers. Another aspect of leadership that I feel I need improvement in is with understanding others. It is a daunting and difficult task to find the most efficient ways to work with individuals. From my experience in team scenarios, I often find myself unable to see things from other people’s perspectives and thus I do not understand their struggles. This often creates miscommunication in team work which is something that cannot happen in important projects.

Throughout the rest of my life, both in academics and beyond, I am going to strive to better myself as a person, specifically with Original Inquiry and Leadership. Honing my ability to use both of these qualities will prove useful in the future, no matter where I journey to in life.

Artifact #1

https://prezi.com/4d4grdljqoyv/copy-of-symposium-presentation-template-with-caption-spaces/

This piece is my final copy of my symposium project for English 1110.01. Throughout the class we developed the critical reading and writing skills required to complete the assignment. In the assignment, we took our knowledge gained from writing an Analytical Research Paper and formulated the information into a power point presentation for our peers to view. This was a wonderful learning experience for me. I learned how to take huge sums of information and pull out the important facts in a way that seamlessly told the story of my project. This was a fun experience for me.

Resume

Jack Riess

riess.9@buckeyemail.osu.edu | 304 Bay View Rd, Bay Village, OH 44140 | 440-503-7798

OBJECTIVE

Engineering internship opportunity for May – August, 2017 utilizing technical and practical skills involved in mechanical and industrial engineering.

 

EDUCATION

The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio GPA (4.00 scale): 3.173

B.S. Mechanical Engineering, May 2019

S.T.E.M. Scholars program

 

QUALIFICATIONS

Basic knowledge of MATLAB

Advanced knowledge of Autodesk AutoCAD and Inventor

Basic knowledge of Solid Works

 

ACADEMIC ENGINEERING PROJECTS

Train MATLAB Project, November-December, 2015

Constructed code to control a train set as a four member team

Utilized MATLAB software

Advanced Energy Vehicle Project, January-May, 2016

Applied engineering principles to produce an efficient vehicle to run on a track

Utilized MATLAB and Solid Works software

 

ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS

Active member, OSU Club Tennis Team 2015-pesent

Active member, OSU Running Club 2015-present

Personal hobbies include basic woodworking construction, soccer, tennis, and Ultimate Frisbee

 

WORK EXPERIENCE
Pat Catans Craft Store

Cashier and Stocker (June-November, 2014, part-time)

Restocked inventory and worked cash register when necessary

Worked 12 hours a week

Bay Village Rec Department

Tennis Instructor (June, 2015-present, part-time)

Work 20 hours a week during the months May-August

Teach lessons to children and adults ages 5-50

Welcome to my Honors & Scholars e-Portfolio

Welcome to my blog! My name is Jack Riess and I am a first year student at The Ohio State University. This is where I will be posting information about experiences I encounter along my educational journey as well as biographical information about myself. I am involved in the STEM Scholars Program here at Ohio State and we involve ourselves in a range of activities that aim to support and educate the youth of the Columbus community about science, technology, engineering, and math. Throughout my academic career so far, I have engaged in many clubs and activities that promote the wellness of the community such as The Green Team which led activities to clean up the environment. Although I am enrolled in engineering, I plan to expand my skills into the business sector with business management and entrepreneurship.

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 information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. 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 information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. 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.]

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 information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Artifacts

[Artifacts are the items you consider to be representative of your academic interests and achievements. For each entry, include both an artifact and a detailed annotation.  An annotation is a reflective description of the artifact that attempts to communicate its significance.  For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

About Me

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Hello everyone, my name is Jack Thomas Riess and I am a freshman at The Ohio State University. I was born and raised a buckeye in Bay Village, Ohio, a small town twenty five minutes west of Cleveland on Lake Erie. Over the years, I developed a connection with the lake as a place of peace and comfort that I could venture to in times of trouble and stress. One such time that I utilized this occurred sophomore year when I encountered a strange medical issue.

Two years after discovering a small lump near my right cheekbone, I was diagnosed with Mucoepidermoid Carcinoma, a cancer of the salivary gland. This event was tansformative in my life as I realized that I had been taking my life for granted. Big life changing events often seem cliche in nature but I can truly say that my perspective of life took a sharp turn for the better. I began working harder in school and in my activities as well as taking time to get away from my hectic life and find peace by the lake and throughout nature.

High school was a period of immense growth for me. Going in, I thought I could continue the pattern of doing minimal work and magically doing well on exams. Sadly, this was a bad plan and my first semester of high school was a very rocky one. From there, it took a lot of hard work over the next three and a half years to recover my grades in order to get accepted into colleges. My struggle for grades returned the first semester of junior year with Honors Pre-Calculus. With a teacher who couldn’t communicate the material and soccer season in full force, I had to throw my dignity aside and reach out for help. I found my freshman math teacher and we met every Tuesday for the entire semester and I ended up doing well in the class. This was an important experience for me because it taught me that its okay to get assistance in life and that sometimes things are too difficult to do alone.

People often ask why I want to be an engineer and I never have a concrete answer for them. My interest in engineering began as a child where I spent hundreds of hours quietly building with legos. My interests expanded when I helped my dad built a tree house in my back yard. I thought it was so cool to take something from a piece of paper and turn it into a physical object. High school was very helpful in making my decision to pursue a career with engineering. Beginning my freshman year I enrolled in architectural engineering as a class and learned how to design three dimensional buildings in Revit AutoCAD software. After shadowing an architectural firm and deciding that path was not for me, I looked further into engineering. I took drafting classes where I used AutoCAD to replicate and create modules. Throughout these classes I thrived in problem solving activities and creating drawings, which cemented my love for engineering. With support from my family and a lot of hard work, I was accepted into The Ohio State University where I plan on expanding my knowledge and love for engineering and design.