I thought our project went super well. The only thing I could have wished from it was maybe slightly clearer instructions an requirements, but the grading was lax and it was known that expectations were unknown, so it really wasn’t a big. I think if it was going to be done again, that our project should be played for the next group, so they at least have some sort of idea what it should look like. After that, it shouldn’t be too hard for them to get it all figured out. I think having a day in class was great, and that only one class period really should be enough as long as they’re reminded at the end of a few classes before hand. Another thing I think that could be improved would be length, as I know my clip at least was probably far to long, and honestly shorter bits might be a bit better for certain topics.

I really liked Samir’s talk, and was happy to say I have at least heard about a lot of what he talked about! At least the big picture ideas, can’t say I know the details of the astrophysics. I really love hearing about how physics works, specially astrophysics, without the use of the math parts. It just leads people to come up with the most fun comparisons to real life events to get people to understand. Doing that is a skill for sure, and he did a great job. I feel like astrophysics especially benefits from this, as a lot of times, the actual numbers associated with these sorts of things are just to big for us to understand really. It’s interesting how much of an interest stars still really are to astronomers, just like the ones looking up at the sky centuries ago.

I really liked Douglas’s talk, though I guessed it’d turn to talks about marijuana  rather quickly. I just hope we as a group didn’t get him to off what you might have preferred to talk about. I thought it was interesting how much more he liked the French over the English, and just how much better he thought they were. I have to wonder if this had to do with the french governments involvement of french science and the potential drive for better medicine maybe. It’s always interesting to hear about the history of opioids, and how they used to think that not only were they safe, but that they were incredibly safe, and totally unable to cause harm. I’d love to show any of those botanists or doctors the case of our modern day.

Dr. Abler’s talk on louis pasteur was great, and I really liked that we had watched that movie on him before hand. Having that background knowledge is really great, just like with John’s talk and how he had that video series for his. For most of our talks we did have some background, mostly with the book, but I felt that movie really allowed us to talk more about an analysis of Pasteur, over going over who he was, and then getting like ten minutes of analysis at the end. I also really liked her talk of genius, as more than anything, it if anything made me conscious that we do sort of like to view a persons conditions over a sort of born talent, something I totally credit to the growth mindset idea in our education. I feel it’s also a result of us trying to make sure we take circumstances in account, for example, why it seems we all know of mostly male scientists. That’s do to their circumstances, often times unfair to other groups. This probably has us even discount some discoveries and their genius, something I felt Dr. Abler really wanted us to not do, but to recognize that, while they had a favorable situation, that they never would have gotten done what they did without a rather special mind.

I learned a great deal from the OSU History Project! Not only do I now know who the “Feline Lifesaver” is (aka: Dr. Richard Olsen), but now I also know about the first, all-female research team sent to the Arctic, the invention of the ambulance, etc. It’s crazy to think that all these historic innovations and feats were made here, at Ohio State. I’ve never really recognized how prestigious OSU really was until this project. It really puts things into perspective, prompting the realization that us undergraduate students have the potential of adding to OSU’s history.

I greatly appreciated how we were able to select on own topics; I found my research on Dr. Richard Olsen and the invention of the feline leukemia vaccine very interesting! I’m now way more knowledgeable of of how this vaccine, which I’ve been prepping for the last two summers as a veterinary assistant, actually functions within the body. In keeping with this theme of veterinary vaccines, I plan on researching Louis Pasteur and the rabies vaccine for my final project while abroad.

Lastly, I appreciated that our History of OSU project was a group effort. Although I was hesitant at first and questioned how everything would be put together, the fact that this was a group project not only made it easier to make connections/see the various overlapping within the history of OSU, but encouraged us to work together and get to know our classmates before we embark to a foreign country with them. Overall, I learned a great deal and am looking forward toward my final project.

There are several things that I learned while doing this project. The audio for my project was not as clean or clear as I would have liked it to be. This is in part due to the fact that it was a phone conversation and in part because I recorded it on my laptop. For this next project, I will record everything on my cell phone and then use my laptop for editing once I return. The editing for this project took considerably more time than I expected. I think this is mostly due to my limited experience in editing audio clips and the lack of applications I had available. Now that I have downloaded more applications for editing and know how to use them, I expect the next project to go more smoothly. For this project it is important to have a plan. This plan must include both the individual and what you want to focus on about them. For the OSU project, I selected my individual, but attempted to get all of the information about them in one project. This resulted in a long interview and a lot of information getting cut. For the next project, I still plan to have excess footage, but to focus my project on one theme to make the video more cohesive and to improve the flow. I also learned from my classmates throughout this experience. Not only did I get the opportunity to learn about different innovators at OSU, I also got ideas for how I want to organize the next project. I still plan to incorporate interviews in this project, but I like how Kelly cut her interview and put her questions in afterward. Vivek recommended recording myself paraphrasing the interviews in order to cut down those that are too long or difficult to understand. After listening to other the other projects, I also want to incorporate more background information in the beginning, instead of jumping right into the interview. I still have a little more planning to do before we leave, but after receiving feedback and listening to other projects, I feel more confident about the next project.

I was aware of some of the History of OSU from it being the 15oth anniversary, but I was unaware of some of the discoveries and advancements made here, such as the first ambulance or the 22nd amino. I really enjoyed getting to know some of the history of campus. Overall I thought everyone did a great job presenting their research. I particularly liked how history of science at OSU group had small transitions in between to give context for the next topic. It was different from ours which was just a short pause and a new person started to talk. I also liked how they were able to get all the topics to align with each other to form a cohesive story about science at OSU.

I enjoyed learning about the women who went to Antarctica. Doing the research on them and the struggles the faced was really inspiring. They did what they were told was impossible, and as a women in the STEM field, I am grateful they were able to pave the way for more women to get to Antarctica.

I found the podcast project pretty interesting. Both to do, and to listen to other peoples’ projects. The opportunity to interview Joseph Krzycki about his discovery about the 22nd amino acid was really great, and something that I probably wouldn’t have been able to experience without taking this class. I learned a lot from interview him with Tristan. Both about pyrrolysine and related subjects, and about interviewing and recording via editing the raw audio from that interview. Having to listen to it over and over to shorten our ~30 minutes of recorded audio down to ~13 minutes made me too aware, at least temporarily, of my verbal tics. In future interviews, I will likely be more conscious of that going into it and cut down on how much I say “oh cool”, “yeah”, etc. at points in the conversation where it’s not necessary.

I also learned quite a bit from other peoples’ presentations. For example, the OSU women’s expedition to the Antarctic was an interesting historical event I was not aware of. To be honest though, most of what my former conception of what Antarctic research and research stations are like comes from repeat watchings of John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982), which is probably not the most accurate depiction.

Prior to this project, I wasn’t very familiar with the history of research done at Ohio State. However, I had a lot of fun discovering interesting facts about the people and work that has influenced OSU in so many ways. This project definitely increased my appreciation for all that has been accomplished on this campus. I really enjoyed learning more about the life and achievements of Dr. Bertha Bouroncle, and I think everyone in the class did a great job of detailing the works of other researchers. Some of my favorite parts of the project was listening to the interviews conducted by students with the researchers at Ohio State. I thought that was a very unique way to learn more about achievements made at OSU. I also thought that the group that presented on the trip to Antarctica was extremely insightful and inspiring. Overall, I had a lot of fun with this project and learning more about the various accomplishments made at OSU.

I really enjoyed researching for my project as well as listening in on all of the other student’s podcast. There are some amazing scientists and discoveries that came out of Ohio state that I would have never realized unless hearing the other students’ podcasts. What really stood out to me from the project was how the ambulance started out at Ohio State. With the doctor coming up with a way to get to cardiac arrest patients quicker by actually coming to them was a genius and has completely changed the way emergency situations are handled. I also thought it was interesting the cancer vaccine for cats brings in the most profit into Ohio State, I didn’t know how big of a killer it was with cats but has significantly helped them. I also lastly liked how the other group went more in-depth about the all-girl expedition to Antarctica and how they not only have to deal with the harsh environment of the continent but also having to deal with the men that looked down on them! They tried so hard to prove a point to the Navy that they are less needy than the men, so they asked for less help when in reality they should have been able to ask for help if they needed it. Overall this was a great project and would recommend you do this next year!