Describe your involvement with this organization.

During my first year, some of my friends were headed out of the dorm and I asked where they were going, and they told me that they were wanting to get a volunteer spot at the Hospital, so I joined them, not realizing the impact that my service would have on myself and others for the rest of my life. For my Service Project this year, I volunteered at the Surgical Intensive Care Unit in Doan Hall at the Wexner Medical Center. I was in charge of guiding families back to see their loved ones who were suffering from critical injuries. Also, I was the first face new families would see when entering the SICU waiting room. So, I had to greet everyone with a giant smile and then provide them hospital information and give answers to FAQ’s that new families had. New families had never been back in the actual unit, so it was also my job to walk them back to see their newly moved in love one that was in one of the four units in the SICU. I worked there for four semesters and then finally had to resign late in this semester because of a newly received internship.

Describe what you gained as a result of this experience.

What I gained as a result from my experience here is that you have to keep a smile on your fave even when the saddest moments occur, and you have to keep a positive attitude. The Surgical Intensive Care unit can be an extremely intense place, patients in the SICU die almost every day, and with those patients who tragically don’t make it, there are families with them who are devastated. As a volunteer, we had to help comfort the families in their time of suffering and provide support to them and also give them a private room to grieve in. What I learned from this, is that I honestly couldn’t be a Doctor, or Surgeon, or nurse, or P.A. The amount of saddest and pain that occurs in hospitals is too much for me to handle. I’m generally a happy and inspiring person, but I know that working in such an intense environment would eventually wear me down and make me sad too. Through this, I gained a significant respect for people who dedicate their lives to caring for others and having to deal with such pain. Mostly, I gained a sense of direction in my own life, because what I originally thought I wanted in life, turned out to not be what I wanted at all.

Describe positive changes to the community as a result of your service experience.

As a result of my service experience, the community had a positive change through several ways. One way was that the families appreciated us because we were always a reliable source of information and guidance when they didn’t know what to do or where to go. The families also appreciate us because we are there to give tissues and a quiet place to grieve if they have lost their loved one. The nurses and physicians appreciated us too because we made their jobs easier so they dont have to constantly deal with the phone ringing for people to continuously bother them with FAQ’s that we could answer and also letting them back into the units. Without us, the nurses would have to help the families find their way and as a nurse who has to care for a patient or two, that is a huge relief to them.

Describe a person with whom you interacted that made a strong impression on you, positive or negative.

The person who made the strongest impact on me while I volunteered their was another Volunteer named Zach. Zach was in a severe car crash during high school and lost his leg and has severe scarring on his arm. He almost died and they had to perform several surgeries on him to save his life. Through this, Zach gained a passion for Hospitals and physicians and the health field. Zach is the most inspiring person I’ve met. He always was happy and excited to be there. Since he was so close to death, Zach gained an appreciation for life that I had never considered before. The most impressive thing I’ve ever seen was that Zach would always be so compassionate and caring for the families in the SICU because he knew how much pain and struggling they were going through. He made me realize that I have to always keep a positive attitude throughout life because you never know when you could die, so you need to make the most of it while you’re alive.

Complete the following sentence: “Because of this service experience, I am__________”

Because of this Service Experience, I am grateful for everything the the health field does for people who need it.

Informational interview with Kyle Burns, Director of Aftermarket Production and Inventory Control at Pneumatic Scale Angelus.

Why did you select this individual to interview?

I interviewed Kyle Burns because he is a family friend from our local Church in Barberton, OH. When I switched my major to Mechanical Engineering, I realized I needed to shadow someone for a day and interview them to see if I could bare working that job for the rest of my life. Specifically, Kyle is a great person to interview because he had worked at the company for almost fourteen years at Pneumatic Scale Angelus and has worked his way up to a director position. Kyle has gone through the whole process of going to college, doing a co-op, landing a full time position, then working his way up to the top of the ladder in the company, which he has worked so hard to achieve. Kyle was able to allow me to shadow and interview different members of the company who also worked under him in different roles for the company. This made Kyle ideal to use for my informational interview.

Describe the major responsibilities associated with their current role. 

Specifically now, Kyle oversees several different operations and manages smaller projects. However, originally, Kyle was a project manager who was in charge of specific projects, (however, we can’t talk about them because of company policy). While I was with Kyle for the day at Pneumatic Scale Angelus, he let me also talk to and follow Mike, who was a Mechanical Engineer who worked on the production floor, and his job was to trouble shoot any problem that any of the other engineers were having. Mike was also in charge of checking plans and timelines of projects in a different department than Kyle.

Discuss how the person prepared for this role, and if they provided you with any advice as what you might be able to do to prepare for a similar career.

Kyle prepared for his role by working hard in college and joining clubs that related to his field of work that he wished to be a part of. Kyle said that there is no short cut for hard work, and to achieve greatness you have to work for it. It took him 14 years to work his way up in the company and a lot of hard work and long hours. His success was work all the work in the long run. Besides joining clubs, he told me that it is important that I soon find a co-op or an internship that relates to my field because companies really look for that when seeing applicants for full time positions. The most important advice Kyle gave me was that I have to keep my goals in mind every day, and write them down somewhere that I see them everyday, and use that as motivation to work hard everyday and never stop. He told me that once you stop working hard one day, then you start finding excuses to slow down and not work hard the next day, and before you know it, your dreams are out of reach because you made excuses and quit working hard, when all you have to do is stay on top of things and continue to work to the best of your ability.

Summarize any insights from the interview that might be helpful in your academic or career preparation.

For preparing myself for my future career, I feel that I have started in the right direction. Currently, I’ve become president of an innovation and Entrepreneurship club at O.S.U. which is focused on mechanical product design and production, and also have a strong internship with a company that can help me achieve another internship in my major. However, from my interview with Kyle, I realized that I must soon transition to an internship within my major and get involved with another club that relates to Mechanical Engineering, while still achieving respectable grades that would make someone would want to hire me.  Most importantly though, I realized that my grades are the most important and that without that higher GPA, then it will be harder to get a job, especially with such tough competition in the Mechanical Engineering field.