One extremely positive experience for me during my early moments at The Ohio State University has been participating in and leading the intramural flag football team. This team competes in the All-scholars league and is affiliated with STEM Exploration and Engagement. As a member of this team, I have fulfilled my long-term involvement activity. Being a part of this team has been beneficial to me in many ways including developing my leadership skills and integrating myself within the STEM EE community.

Being co-captain on the STEM EE intramural flag football team has enabled me to develop and increase my leadership abilities. For example, as co-captain, I am responsible for motivating the team to perform well and teaching and helping other teammates who have not played organized football before. In addition to leadership development, my experience on this team has helped me connect with fellow STEM EE scholars on a social level which has greatly increased my network of friends and colleagues here at Ohio State. Overall, my experience on the STEM EE intramural flag football team is one that will surely enhance my future relationships in and out of the classroom.

This past month I have been heavily involved with the WOW program.  WOW stands for Wonders of Our World and it is an immersive program that engages elementary school kids with the wonders of science.  We travel to and volunteer at elementary schools where we work with the students on multiple different science experiments. These experiments that we do really impact the students’ passion for science because they are much more excited to do these fun experiments than they would be doing a boring worksheet.

As well as having a positive impact on the students that I visit, the WOW program has also benefited me tremendously.  For example, this program has definitely improved my leadership skills as I am instructing my small groups of students through the completion of each experiment.  In addition to fulfilling the Leadership aspect of the G.O.A.L.S., the WOW program also enables me to engage in Service outreach.  This service outreach is very enriching to me because I am volunteering at inner-city, low-budget schools that can greatly benefit from positive reinforcement of the wonders of science.  In sum, this experience has really given my life and my academic career a “WOW” factor.