Posts

GOALS

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Global Awareness

In order to keep myself well-informed of global issues, I read several news publications. Additionally, I have started reading non-fiction books about certain issues that interest me, such as the Syrian Refugee Crisis. I am planning on doing some sort of abroad experience, whether through a class or through Buckeye Serve. However, I have not decided what that will be. Additionally, me and a friend have started talking about creating a club specifically aimed at spreading knowledge of certain issues and fundraising towards a certain charity that benefits that said issue. As of right now, it is only a plan.

Original Enquiry

I have been working in a research lab under Dr. Candice Askwith since January of 2017. Prior to coming into lab, I had struggled with analytical thinking and quick decision making. However, I have seen these characteristics grow the longer I stay in lab. I am beginning work on my first independent project this summer, which is very exciting. I am looking forward to presenting at any venue, particularly the Denman, and contribute to the growing field of Neuroscience.

Academic Enrichment

Of course, the pre-medical tracks chosen are reflective of my interests to be a doctor. I chose Computational Neuroscience because it deals specifically with such an unknown territory: the brain. There are so many things we don’t know, and this is especially evident as we try to develop Artificial Intelligence. Additionally, I am choosing the minor in Economics, which is a very different field from my major. However, I took Microeconomics 2001.03H as a GE, and found that I really loved looking at the world through a Business mindset. I think it is really important for me to gain this knowledge as it may open new avenues for me in the future.

Leadership Development

I am involved in many activities, and in all of them I am aiming on executing a vision I have. For example, in Universal Health Aid: Columbus, I founded a publication that focuses on increasing public health knowledge around the community. The more I grow professionally, the more ideas I get and the more confidence I gain in executing these ideas. I am also involved as a Neuroscience Ambassador, where I am not only a leader of a small group but a leader in front of hundreds of students. As a member of ICAN, I go to high schools and teach/inspire hundreds of students about the brain. Leadership is important because if I want to work towards being a surgeon, I will need to learn how to manage my own team.

Service Engagement

Every week, I volunteer at Grant Medical Center. I have gained experience in many different positions and have had the opportunity to meet several wonderful people there. Most importantly, I have had the opportunity to directly touch every life that walks through there. Additionally, I volunteer weekly with ENCompass, where we help link families to different locations around the community so they can have access to certain needs, such as food or clothing. Finally, I volunteer through UHA Columbus at our Free Health Screenings that provide preventative care to underinsured people in Columbus.

 

Freshman Year in One Word: Mistakes

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With my first year of college finally completed, I sometimes sit back and reflect on high school. Those years can be summed up with one word: disappointment. Perhaps that is a bit harsh on myself, but I constantly wish I could just redo those years and make my time more memorable. I lose sleep over the mistakes I made, the clubs I should have joined, the different classes I should have taken. I really wanted to learn how to make fun videos, or be more educated on the complexities of worldly affairs and governmental crises. If I had done pursued these things, would I be where I am now? If I hadn’t been so socially withdrawn at the beginning of high school, would I have less anxiety and more friends? The overlying theme is that I really didn’t push myself to explore new interests or challenge myself as a person. I think with all the pressure of “what career will you have?” looming over me and the lack of proper guidance by a school counselor or other professional help, I latched onto what I was most interested in: medicine. I didn’t take any side pathways that I was also interested in because I feared that I would be wasting my time. These lost opportunities haunt me. Maybe you think I am overblowing this and believe that this is just a natural process of maturing and finding your place in the world, and you’re completely right. However, this is the type of person I am; I constantly dwell over these mistakes.

 

And I understand that I can’t change the past. I have a weird mindset and everything I do has baby steps. But I’ve been taking them for the past few years now, and freshman year I started to run. However, that was more during second semester; I had a lot of setbacks in the Autumn semester. This is quite surprising in retrospect, because I went into college more confident than before. I had all my anxiety and depression in control, I had made so many friends in senior year of high school and was looking forward to meeting more people. Additionally, I knew what track I was going for, the premed track, and I was surely going to go for it. But, not everything worked out. I think I focused so much on studying and making sure I was getting ready for medical school that I never really lived my first semester. I was constantly worrying about grades that I never went outside to do new things. My interests faded, my overall friendliness dissipated, and I lost the college experience. This all crescendoed into a disastrous first series of midterms during the Spring semester, where I had a series of panic attacks that created a wave of low test scores. It was at this point I realized I was ruining my overall attitude and, potentially, my future. I was really close with my roommates, but they were off meeting new people and trying new things that, while they may not have worked, they were at least moving forward. Meanwhile, I had regressed to where I was sophomore year of high school. I had test anxiety, my depression was surfacing daily, and I felt alone. And when I am in this state, I find myself reflecting on the past. I was wishing daily that I could go back to the beginning of high school and start it all over again.

 

At this point I decided to stop and start over. I knew in the back of my head that, yes, I may have made mistakes in the past. But that is all hindsight 20/20, and I need to make sure that I don’t feel this way about college afterwards. I started with baby steps. Take life one day at a time. Pay attention the whole time throughout lecture so I don’t have to study extensively outside of it. Talk to new people everyday. Then I started walking. I had previously thought about leaving Ohio Health Aid, a club I had joined at the beginning of the school year. But, once I really tried to get invested in the club, I got into the mission and the community. Why not stay and try and push to be more involved in it? So I did, and while I didn’t get any of the leadership positions I tried out for (rightfully so, because I botched the interview big time), I still became a larger part of the organization. I started applying for new internships, new volunteering positions. I created a blog, a blog that didn’t last long, but something that I at least tried. And then I began to run. I used to program, and I was starting to get into it more. Why not, instead of cellular Neuroscience, take computation Neuroscience and learn Python over the summer? I have begun to play tennis again. I am trying to write my own movie so that hopefully I can use my STEP funds for that next year. If I find something I want to look into, I do that so I know I won’t have to worry about it in the future.

 

It has been a slow process, but it’s paid off. I have become involved in so many new clubs that I can’t wait to be get started in. I am trying out new things, learning some incredible stuff outside my major so that I can expand my skill set. And my GPA ended up somehow really turning out well. I really tried to go after everything I was interested in, and I am proud to say that I don’t regret at all what I’ve done this semester. Alright, maybe some mistakes here and there, but isn’t learning from these mistakes what really shapes us?

Freshman Year Timeline

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Autumn Semester 2016

  • Accepted into Dr. Askwith’s ASICs Lab
  • Joined Encompass and Ohio Health Aid
  • Completed SEA-PHAGES Lab and Successfully Isolated Bacteriophage
  • Made Dean’s List

Spring Semester 2017

  • Appointed as Neuroscience Ambassador
  • Inducted into Mirrors Sophomore Honorary
  • Elected Selections Chair for Mirrors
  • Declared Economics Minor
  • Began Work on First Movie Script
  • Made Dean’s List

Food for Thought

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During the month of April, I spent two Saturdays volunteering at a Community Kitchen program in downtown Columbus. My incentive for volunteering here was to help spread the word of an organization I was involved in, Ohio Health Aid, around the community. Some organization members and I wore our club t-shirts in the hope that community members would notice us and perhaps come to our health screenings. However, I soon began to realize that this program will probably have more of an impact on me than I had previously thought.

 

The two Saturdays I worked, I was involved with a variety of chores around the kitchen. I would cut cucumbers, butter sandwiches, clean the floors, heat up buns, and, of course, serve the food. There was an intense pressure to get all the food made by breakfast and lunch time, and I became attracted to the hustle in the kitchen. On top of that, everyone I worked with was wonderful. I met some fellow Ohio State undergraduates, along with some highly motivated high school students and other community service volunteers. They were all focused and determined to get as much food out at the highest quality possible. Additionally the two chefs I worked with seemed incredibly involved with the community; they knew almost everyone who stopped by. The altruistic atmosphere was very engaging, and it showed in the food we were able to provide to the residents. When it came time to serve them, the gratitude in their eyes made me understand the importance of what we were doing. In fact, not many people came the first week, but that actually made the head chef happy for an interesting reason:

 

“People usually get their paychecks now. And they are probably out there buying food that they can cook. And I don’t mind that because that means they’re independent and happy.”

 

And why wouldn’t they want to cook their own food? If they have the means to, they should want to feel in control of their own lives. However, they should also be comforted by the fact that we will always be there with food to fill them up. The fear of starving is still a present one in the United States, and if we can guarantee a free and satisfying meal, that would ease the pressure on everyone involved.

 

I found something special in Community Kitchen, a place where I was surrounded by selfless and hardworking volunteers willing to make a meaningful impact on the daily lives of neighborhood residents. I hope to come back sometime in the future.

Learning to Overcome Language Barriers

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As a part of ENCompass, I have had the opportunity to volunteer at local clinics and help them find resources in the Columbus area to improve their daily life. I haven’t been able to volunteer as much as I would like, but I think that with my new position at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital (or more specifically a clinic in Columbus) , I will finally be able to do an official consultation with a family.

 

I have volunteered for two weeks now, but I haven’t had a consultation yet. However, I have learned so much about the difficulties of helping inner city residents. One of the biggest lessons I learned was about the language barrier. The majority of patients in the clinic are Mexican immigrants and Somalian refugees, most of whom are unfamiliar with the English language. When we found this out on the first day, we realized we were in for an interesting day. We had interpreters on iPads who could help us out throughout the consultation process, where we find the resources the families need, but the main difficulty was informing the patients of what we do and where we are located if they wish to see us. We could not use the iPads because it cost money every time we called an interpreter. Additionally, the interpreters at the clinic were busy with their own jobs. We could not expect them to lay everything down to help us. So, what to do?

 

We started by translating all our flyers to the languages the Somalian and Spanish patients would speak. We had some professional help with this. Additionally, we made sure to be as simple and clear as we could when talking to the patients. We made sure to highlight key words that they would recognize, like “food” and “house”. This has certainly helped, but our group still has not had many consultations, so I think there are more to do. I think we could involve the translators at the clinic, just at certain time periods. Maybe we could ask them to help every 20 minutes? I don’t know, but at least I am thinking of solutions. If it doesn’t work, we can find another solution. Additionally, I think the patients are just wary of approaching us. They are definitely not familiar with the area, and especially in this social climate, they may be scared. After all, there is a significant language barrier, and I understand their caution in approaching something new. However, I am sure that in the coming months, as our presence at the clinic becomes more familiar, they will warm up to us and allow us to help them.

 

I have also become interested in learning Spanish again. I stopped in Junior year of High School, but I really want to learn it now. It not only is incredibly important given the multicultural society we live in now, it seems fun as well. I’m glad experiences like these are making me think outside my comfort zone and showing me new reasons to try different things.

A Stroll for Epilepsy

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I volunteered at the Stroll for Epilepsy, which was a very fun but eye-opening experience. As a pre-med student, I have heard about how “what you say” to a patient is the most important thing you do as a doctor. A large part of medical school interview processes is observing how you respond in difficult situations. I was not too worried about this because I am generally a fun and sympathetic person (at least I think I am), so I never thought I would turn into a cold and calculating doctor who only thinks of his patients as lab animals.

But after this experience, I realized that there is more to a situation than just sympathy. The pain and trauma some patients have to go through is so immense that what you say is more important than how you say it. Sure, the tone in your voice can be comforting or relaxing, but I found it hard to find the right sentences that were both reassuring and understanding, without sounding fake or accidentally offensive. The hardest part was not appearing as if I understood what they were going through, because I didn’t. I wanted to be their friend, but I didn’t want to seem obligatorily nice or, worse, naively condescending. There were so many things I needed to juggle when I was talking to them, and my question didn’t help. As these families of epilepsy patients walked around the mall, there were stations, such as the one I was at, where they could get a stamp if they answered a question we asked. My question was “Is it true that there is no cure for epilepsy?” I always found it brutal when all the kids would confidently answer “Yes!” for me to crush them and say “…Well, no…” And it always broke my heart when I heard a patient answer “Nope, trust me I would know.” And, honestly, I wasn’t sure what to say to them sometimes. Usually I just said “I’m so sorry,” which honestly might have been the best thing to say in hindsight.

This experience was very important for me because it taught me that talking to patients about their medical issues is very tricky because I don’t know what they’ve been through and the pain they have gone through. And it’s hard for me because I really want to help them or at least be there for them, but me being me I am not the smoothest person to talk to, especially in such a delicate situation. So this is something that I will definitely have to practice, and something I look forward to mastering. Thank you for the experience, it was a blast, and thank you to the families who came. Support is invaluable, and I am sure it means a lot to those who you walked for.

Poverty Simulation

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Cooking doesn’t come naturally to me. Cooking a healthy meal with $7.50 worth of ingredients comes even less naturally.

In my journey to understand the daily struggles of everyday people, I joined ENCompass, a fantastic club at OSU that is opening my eyes to the health struggles in the world. I learned that many low-income families do not have enough money to buy a nutritious meal; they have to settle for greasy and cheap food, which can increase risks for medical problems. This is a large problem we as a club are trying to prevent in the local community, but today I joined a group to try and understand what it was really like to cook under these conditions. With my group of 5 people, we had to cook as nutritious and filling a meal as $7.50 can get us. $7.50 is the max amount of money SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) would give a family of 5 that receives low income.

With that money, we were able to buy two packs of pasta, two packs of hard breadsticks, tomato sauce and a couple pounds of chicken. If you think that is a lot, it’s because we got lucky. A lot of the items we bought were on a large sale, and would normally be a lot pricier. Nonetheless, we were able to cook a relatively tasty chicken pasta. You can see me mixing the chicken with the tomato sauce. I confess I had too much fun. Maybe I should cook more.screen-shot-2017-01-05-at-10-43-33-pm

However, I bring up the price of the meal because buying the food was the most difficult part of the challenge, and the part I learned the most from. The pasta was actually our second plan; we initially decided on making tacos. However, once we began gathering the ingredients, we found that food is more expensive than we thought. $3.00 for tortillas? $3.00 for salsa? It may not seem like much on its own, but when a family only has a budget of $7.50 to feed five people, all that they can buy is essentially half a taco. That is why we got lucky, because the pasta and breadsticks were both on an 80% discount! Without the discount, we would have to sacrifice one of our food items, and we were already cutting it close. I started to realize the struggles of what these families go through because while I only have to do this challenge for one day, this is their daily reality. This fact is still hard to wrap my head around, but I think with this awareness I understand that necessities such as food are items that I can’t even take for granted.

About Me

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Well hello there! My name is Ishan Rola, and I am a freshman Neuroscience major from Springboro, Ohio. I am quite a lively and ambitious person, and I came to Ohio State to expand myself academically,
professionally, and (hopefully) socially.
My career path started to focus as soon as I started 10th grade. Up until then, I had been fairly sure I was going in the engineering field. I loved my spot as a programmer on the school’s robotics team, and both my parents were engineers, so that is where I thought I would end up. However, I took Physiology and Anatomy, where I found a hidden passion for understanding how the human body worked. I found how all the different systems of the body correlated with each other just… satisfying. It was incredible. At that point I knew that I wanted to do something in the sciences, especially Neuroscience, since that was a rapidly growing field. But I still did not know if I wanted to be a researcher, or a doctor

During my senior year of high school, I began to become more knowledgeable of the multitudinous medical issues plaguing our “developed” world, even in our country. I knew that I wanted to be a force for change and help people in whatever way I could. So I decided that, yes, I wanted to be a doctor. It was a perfect match; my love for understanding the human body and my motivation to help those less fortunate to create BOOM, the perfect career path. More importantly however, I wanted to learn more about the medical challenges of our world so that someday, in the future, I will be able to create an organization that can make difference in people’s lives. That is my end goal, and this is my journey. Let’s begin.

G.O.A.L.S.

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Global Awareness: I will take classes to learn new languages and cultures. Courses containing foreign literature and movies are how I plan to learn more about different cultures. I plan on joining a variety of clubs that will increase my exposure to various areas around the world which are in medical need. I also plan on studying abroad to obtain a wider global view of the health field.
Original Inquiry: I am currently actively searching for research opportunities. I had a couple research opportunities in high school which I loved, and I plan on taking advantage of the resources here to expand my scientific and professional knowledge. I know the Neuroscience department allows a 3-course hour research project, and I plan on using that. I also am planning on using the summer for internship opportunities to gain more exposure to a professional setting. I will shadow medical professionals to learn more about the various careers I could potentially go into.
Academic Enrichment: I am majoring in Neuroscience as a way to learn more about the brain, which I love, while staying on the premed track for medical school. I am also minoring in economics to develop more financial knowledge. I am also have an interest in business, and I want to see where I want to take that. I know that finance and medicine go hand-in-hand more often than presumed. Finally, I am planning on taking several screenwriting classes to grow my artistic and creative side and increase my love for movies.
Leadership Development: I plan on helping lead a service club to help citizens around the local community. I also love teaching people stuff. I want to try and be a TA in a science lab, or tutor kids in a subject. I also want to help lead a fun club, like in movies or in dancing. This is probably the most vague GOAL I have because I want to be a leader in clubs that I currently might not know about. It will definitely change over time.
Service Engagement: What will not change is community service. As said before, I plan on leading a service club. I definitely planning on helping impoverished citizens around my community, but I want to have a service trip where I go to a needy area somewhere in the world and help them out. I also plan on serving many hours at hospitals and clinics around the community.