Year in Review 2017/2018

              My sophomore year in review. I feel old typing that. I would say year two went pretty much according to how I drew it up. I met my academic goals throughout the year. I feel like I developed well personally, and I had a great year in BuckeyeThon. There were some definite highlights this year. I’ll never forget attending the Ohio State vs Penn State game in the fall. It was just an unexplainable night. I’ve never been so emotionally invested in a game, or felt so exhausted at the end of it. I got back to my dorm that night after the game and collapsed onto my bed. Screaming so hard took everything out of me. It was just an unbelievable game. But there was a lot of other important stuff that happened this year too. I’ll take just a little bit to recap my personal, academic and career progress this year.

              My sophomore year was definitely a smoother year for me. I didn’t have to go through the process of coming out. I already knew what my involvement in BuckeyeThon was going to look like, and I had a good living situation. I feel like my commitment to BuckeyeThon really motivated me on a personal level throughout the year. I get such a joy out of coming to the Cartoon room at the Union every Wednesday for general body meetings, and I know I’m playing my part in a movement that makes a difference. As a member of the assessments committee, I was handed a lot of responsibility in shaping the progress of the organization, and I really loved it. I took the lead in figuring out how to take attendance at our outdoor events, and I was handed a big role in tracking our fundraising programs. I feel like I also did a good job making friends outside of my class this year too. I count many current freshman as good friends, and I even played doubles in a tennis tournament with one of the freshman Eminence Fellows.

              Sophomore year within Fisher contains a broad based course load. You finish up most of the gen ed and Fisher Core requirements. It’s an interesting year because you get to be exposed to so many aspects of how businesses work, but they’re all intro classes, so you’re just skimming the surface. I did enjoy my coursework though. I think my favorite class was my Accounting classes with Marc Smith. He’s such a great professor and has so much joy in his lectures. The highlight of my year was getting into the Honors Immersion program within Fisher. It’s a two-year program with about 20 students per class which goes through the process of completing an Honors Research Thesis. I have a few ideas for my potential research thesis, and I’m really intrigued by seeing where it goes.

              This year was a definite success for me. I made personal growth, achieved academic success, and attained an internship at Emerson in their logistics department. I’m looking forward to what year three has to offer

About me

I’m Ben Schroer, and I am an incoming 3rd year student at the Ohio State University. I am an Eminence Fellow and a member of the Fisher Honors Immersion Program. I am a Logistics and Econ major within Fisher, and I will obtain a minor social psychology and personality.

My main work outside of classes revolves around my work within BuckeyeThon. BuckeyeThon is the largest student run nonprofit on campus and one of the largest Dance Marathon’s in the country. Last year BuckeyeThon raised $1.6million for the kids at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. I am a two year member of the Assessments committee within BuckeyeThon, and it’s something that has brought me a lot of fulfillment and joy. I’ve gotten to take the lead on big projects to help our organization with data collection and fundraising maximization. My goal is to become the director of my committee for my senior year.

My long term goals include graduating in the top 1% of my class and working my way up to the chief logistics officer over the course of my career.

Buckeye Community Commitment 2017

From an early age, service has always been important to me. Growing up I remember the many August days I spent helping my mom put together the hundreds of bags of school supplies we assembled for the kids at the local crisis center in my town. So when I get the chance, I always jump at the chance to give back to my local community. Buckeye Community Commitment is the twice a year service day on Ohio State’s campus, and this year I cleared invasive brush from a forest in Upper Arlington with a group of freshman from my scholarship program. My favorite thing about this experience is that it was very tangible. I loved to see the progress as we cleared the room for new trees to spring up. It was also a great problem solving experience. Caitlin, one of the freshman, and I were in there untangling branches from these brush piles that reminded me of a ball of Christmas lights. We even figured out how we could jump on a dead tree in the right spot to get it into moveable chunks. Community Commitment is a day of giving back. Something I’ve always taken a pride in doing, and something I will do long into the future.

Year in Review 2016/2017

My name is Ben Schroer, and I am a freshman Honors student and Eminence Fellow at The Ohio State University. I have not yet declared a specialization in the Fisher College of Business, but I am leaning towards specializing in either Economics or Operations. I am also considering going to law school after graduation. To provide some more background, I’m from Wapakoneta, Ohio, which is a small town of slightly less than 10,000. My hobbies include playing tennis, watching movies, and playing pool.

            Now that I’ve given you some background, let’s get started with my year in review. The first week of school at Ohio State is called Welcome Week, and that first week is when I undeniably caught the Buckeye fever. The first night all the RAs in our Bradley/Paterson/Sibert Hall complex put on a joint social event to let us meet people in the complex. I met many people that night which are now my good friends, and it helped me adapt to college life by making the dorms more personal. My number one memory from that night was getting into an intense impromptu limbo battle with other dormmates. The other thing I feel like helped me adapt to life at Ohio State was the atmosphere at football games. Our opening game was against Bowling Green State University, and I was hooked by the atmosphere. I remember sitting in the skull session and looking to my left and watching thousands in Scarlett and Gray singing the Buckeye Battle cry. I was almost moved to tears by the feeling of being part of something special. My number one lesson I took from starting college was the need to put myself out there and be open to new situations. I carried that with me as I got involved on campus.

            Service is something that’s been important to me for as long as I can remember, and it shaped my campus involvements. Getting involved in student orgs is a great way to adapt to campus, and my main involvements are with Enlighten and BuckeyeThon. I’ll start by talking about my involvement with Enlighten. As an Eminence Fellow, you start a service organization, and the project carries unique challenges. You have to bring a bunch of people together who don’t always see eye to eye, do your research, and create something special. We started off with a blank slate. My early involvement was serving as an arbiter of sorts between our research groups to keep everyone on the same page as we focused in on our final idea of a Human Trafficking related project. I met with the Presidents of the other Eminence class projects to learn from them. We ended up deciding on doing an events and awareness based project to fight the plague of human trafficking. We’re currently working on planning our events and setting summer plans, and I am excited. There’s not many times where you get to write your own story while making a difference. This is a chance I don’t want to miss.

            Another organization close to my heart is BuckeyeThon. BuckeyeThon is a 24-hour dance marathon to raise money for Nationwide Children’s Hospital Oncology/Hematology/Bone Marrow Transplant Floor. I joined BuckeyeThon partially because of the importance the hospital has played in my life. My cousin was born 3 months premature and spent many weeks there. I joined the finance branch as a general body member and found an awesome environment. I personally ended up raising $2,134 and our awesome campus rallied behind the cause to raise $1.51 million for the kids. I took part in the reveal, holding up the dollar sign, and I remember just being moved to tears at what Buckeyes can do when they rally behind each other.

            I’ll take this moment to throw in a brief word about the people you meet at college. Buckeyes come from all corners of the Earth. We come from so many backgrounds, but we’re untied in the fact that were Buckeyes through and through. It’s no coincidence that the loudest part of Carmen Ohio is near the end, “How firm thy friendship. O-hi-o.” College life won’t always go smoothly, but the people you meet really help you get through it. Coming to OSU has allowed me to come out, think about career plans I never thought about before, and be exposed to all sorts of things I never heard before.

            My first year was a college a time of finding myself. Not always picture perfect, but definitely a year for the better. My summer plans involve a lot of service work and working in the accounting department at Prograde Inc. I’m looking forward to being back in the fall where I am going to pursue a research position and continue to work on developing Enlighten through its next stages of development.

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.]