I chose to interview Thomas Miller. He is a first year here at OSU. He is studying aeronautical engineering, and hopes to work for NASA one day. He told me that one day he wants to be apart of sending the first people to Mars. This goal was very specific but I could it to be awesome, that he has a clear idea of what he wants to do at much a young age.
We talked about where he came from, which was Parma, Ohio. After hearing about his high school, I realized that him and I came from a similar school. One that focused on football, sports and excellence over a student who was excelling academically. I found this to be very interesting and made us connect in a way that we never realized we would. He continued on and talked about how he was the only boy of four children. He said growing up he always felt sheltered and like he had three more moms than everyone else. He talked about he was super excited to be out on his own, to become himself, and truly find himself, whatever that ended up being.
When I asked him, why he chose Ohio State, his answer was very simple, “Why wouldn’t I want to go to Ohio State? It’s the perfect school.” I was able to agree with this simple statement however I wanted a little more information, asking what exactly is so perfect about this school? He then went into more detail, “Well, OSU is about 2 hours away from my house, that’s 2 hours too far, by 2 hours too close. OSU made me feel at home when I came for a college visit, I felt like I was able to be apart of a something amazing, whatever I decided that to be. The football, actually all the sports, it’s a D1 school, who doesn’t love a good sporting event? But my final reason would be is, this is the place I’ve always dreamed of coming to, since way before I even understood what college was. I’ve been an Buckeyes fan forever, and I just knew I wanted to become a Buckeye one day, and I never gave up till I got that admissions letter, and that’s when I knew this was going to be my new home.”
Talking with Thomas made me realized that everyone is similar in a way that you will never realize until you decided to take the time to learn about that person. I found this conversation to be very beneficial and it made me understand him on a more in-depth way. I left the conversation realizing that I knew more about him that most people take the time to learn. After this conversation, I have a new level of appreciation for those conversations where things get a little bit deeper than we like, because that means the conversation is important and has meaning, unlike the superficial conversations we have on the daily that have little to no meaning. I really appreciated this conversation and will strive to have more conversations like it in the future.