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Something that I have learned in a class that has impacted me is something that I learned while in Biology 1113. This year in Biology, the beginning of every class starts with what our professor calls a “curiosity question”. These were very interesting to me because they helped to keep me engaged in class and added something to class that we did not necessarily need to know, but added a fun aspect to the class. There were some pretty good curiosity questions this year, but one that stood out to me was about UV radiation and sunburn. I learned that the UV light that you get from the sun and the UV light from tanning beds are equally as harmful and neither is good for the body. Personally, I did not know this, I thought that tanning beds were not that safe, but I thought it was safer than tanning in the sun. Sunscreen is always important to wear and to reapply when needed, especially if a person has fair skin.

I have learned a lot of things outside of the classroom this year while in college and during the crazy pandemic. Something that I believe was really interesting and fun to me was when I went to the Buckeye Classic Sale during our second instructional break. The Buckeye Classic Sale was a sale of dairy cows that the Ohio State dairy club ran and helped out at. This sale was in Circleville, Ohio, and I and three other friends were able to go to two shifts, one of which was a 12-hour shift. During the 12-hour shift, I learned a lot of things about cows and sales. I learned about all the different kinds of dairy cow breeds, including Jersey, Ayrshire, Milking Shorthorn, and Guernsey. I am now able to tell the difference between the breeds and I also learned the needs of these cows, such as feeding, watering, and cleaning. I also learned that a calf that is all by itself will be whining basically the whole night because she wanted attention and a friend, and that whining will also tend to have the other cows start mooing as well. Another thing that I learned at this sale was how an auction worked and it was very interesting and fun to listen to the auctioneer and try to keep up with how fast he was talking. I am really looking forward to this sale again next year and being able to learn even more.

One thing that I learned about myself throughout the year is that I feel less stressed when I am getting ahead on my school work. I was able to change throughout the year because of this. The first semester, I had started out being a big procrastinator and being able to do my work on time, but I always did my work towards the last minute which helped to stress me out. I was able to change and by the end of the first semester, I was trying really hard to work ahead and realized that I was not as stressed as I was before. I was able to keep this up in my second semester, and hope to continue doing this throughout my college career, in order to keep my stress levels down.

I have had so many great memories from the past year that will stay with me for a lifetime. It is very hard to pick a favorite memory from the last year, but something that I think I will always remember, and I hope continues to happen is something me and a few other friends have made a tradition. This would be going on what we call “field trips”, and this was when we would get bored or someone was curious about something, and we would go somewhere within Morrill Tower. Sometimes this would just be a walk down to the 3rd floor to look at the kitchen and entertainment room to see what we were missing out on, and sometimes we would take a trip somewhere on the elevators just to see what the other floors looked like. Although we may be a little biased, we always thought that floor 10 was the best-looking floor in terms of decorations and flyers for tower events.

I am looking forward to a lot of things next year. The most important thing that I am looking forward to is rooming with three of my best friends that I have met through ENR scholars this year. We have made so many great memories this year and I can not wait for many more. Another thing that I am looking forward to is one day not being in a pandemic and being able to attend classes in person and being able to meet professors and classmates in person. It will also be really nice not having to test for COVID as much and not having to wear a mask as much. Lastly, I am also looking forward to ENR scholars next year. I am looking forward to my second year as a scholar because I am going to be a community coordinator (the family leader) of the Challengers family. I really loved getting to know my scholars and challengers family this year and can not wait until I get to lead and meet new ENR scholars next year.

Something interesting that I learned in class was last week when we talked about personal finance during scholars class. I learned about the different types of things that go into a person’s personal finance and what specifics a person should do in certain situations. We talked about how it is a good idea for a person to get a credit card and a personal goal that everyone should have for this credit card is to keep a zero balance on it, meaning that you do not want to have to owe the bank any money. Something interesting that we talked about that I never knew, is that most savings accounts are a waste of time because they do not obtain much interest over time. A couple banks that have a good interest for savings accounts would be Discover and Alliant.

One thing that I learned about myself recently is that if I am ever feeling anxious or nervous about something like an exam or a paper, that it helps me to overcome this anxiousness if I hear a pep-talk. I have a note on the wall in front of my desk that says “You can do it”, and I look at that everyday and it helps me to calm down and understand that it is just a test and one test does not define you. Another thing that helps me is getting a pep-talk from others. If I am contemplating about doing an exam or paper, I would just reach out to my friends and they would help talk me into doing it and feeling less worried about it.

One thing that I have struggled with recently is going to sleep at a decent time. This semester I am usually going to sleep at 1am or even later. I am trying to get better at this and am trying to fix my sleep schedule so that I am not tired all day. Lastly, one thing that I have achieved this month, and this whole semester was going to every synchronous class that I have. I have been able to use alarms on my phone to help me do this and to help me keep up with times. I am going to be going to Arizona in a couple weeks for a week and it will be a challenge with the time difference to keep up with when my classes are, but it is a goal of mine to continue going to every class at its synchronized time.

I have not yet completely decided what I want to do as a career after I graduate school, but I know I want to do something with animals and be able to work outside. I eventually want to be able to travel the world and work with different kinds of animals in different countries and maybe work in a Zoo one day. Both jobs would require me to have significant experience in the animal field to apply. I have found a few different job postings that interest me and that I would be able to apply to after graduating from college. The ones I found interesting were, Animal Care Specialist, Wildlife Technician, and an Animal Keeper. The one I picked out of those, was the Animal Care Specialist. This job was very interesting to me because I will be able to apply to after graduation and I will also be able to work with animals. This job posting is in Pilot Point, Texas, which seems like a good place to work. This specific job posting is something that is recent and will be filled soon, but hopefully I will be able to find another job like this when I graduate and am looking for a full-time job.

This job posting gives a description of the job, possible job responsibilities, qualifications, and wages for the job. Some of the qualifications include preferred experience in the care, husbandry, and training of a variety of animals, being able to lift 50 pounds, being able to work inside, outside, and in all weather conditions, able to work weekends and holidays, being able to read, speak, and write English, have a valid driver’s license and the ability to work tractor-like vehicles, and have quick reflexes to be able to react to changing animal situations.

Some of the things that I will need to do during college to become better qualified for this job include: taking wildlife and animal related courses, become familiar with husbandry and maybe even become qualified for it, gain more experience in driving tractors, gators, and bigger trucks, I would like to have at least one internship dealing with animals before I graduate, preferably at a vet office or a zoo, and another thing that is not necessarily needed but would be good for me is to stay in shape by going to workout to be able to lift 50 pounds, stay on my feet all day, walk a lot, and have quick reflexes.

I still have some wildlife and animal related courses coming up for my major that I will be able to take, I can learn more about husbandry by working at farms near by and there may be a class or two that I can take, I can gain experience with driving tractors and such by asking a family friend to teach me, and I plan on attempting to get an internship/job over the summer at a vet office near my house in North Carolina and I want to eventually get an internship at the Columbus Zoo.

 

One thing interesting that I learned in class in the month of January was how the structure of DNA was discovered and who the researchers were that discovered it. These researchers were Watson, Crick, Wilkins, and Franklin, who died before being able get recognition. Watson and Crick had originally proposed a triple helix, but Rosalind Franklin told them they were wrong. Wilkins later saw Franklin’s newest photo, which she did not know about, that showed it must be a helix. The researchers used this information along with some other information that had already been discovered and concluded that DNA is a double helix. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins later were awarded the Nobel Prize for their DNA structure. Franklin had died before their award and was not given any credit for her photo that showed DNA was a helix.

Something that I learned about myself is that I really like having a more open schedule. This semester I only have one zoom class a day and it gives me a chance to either sleep in or get done early. This also gives me a chance to get other work done throughout the day without having to rush around or stay up late at night. The only thing bad about this is that it can sometimes make my asynchronous classes confusing because I do not have set times to do the work. This will probably end up being something that I will get used to in the future.

So far, I have struggled with a couple of my asynchronous classes. I have struggled with keeping up with my AEDECON class because I always forget about the lectures and having to watch the videos before doing the assignments and I always end up doing them really close to the due date. I also have another asynchronous class, English, which is not in carmen and has not started yet. Yes, you heard me right, it is two weeks into the semester and my English class has not started yet.

One thing that I achieved this month was flying on a plane for the first time ever and I was also by myself. This was very scary at first but was not all that bad. I was flying back to Ohio from North Carolina. I did not have a direct flight, so I had one flight that went from Raleigh to Charlotte that was about 30 minutes and then the second was from Charlotte to Columbus which was about an hour flight. The only thing that I was scared about was the takeoffs and landings. My second flight was a smaller plane so the turbulence on the flight was a little rough, but overall my flying experience was not bad for my first time.

At first, my adaptation to college was a little difficult. I was missing home, missing all my friends and family, and just being overwhelmed in general by college. After a while, I was able to cope with missing my family and friends because I was able to make new friends and I was also able to see my grandparents and brother a lot which really helped. I think being able to have suitemates that understood what I was going through because they were also going through some of the same stuff was able to help me through some stress. I was also able to adapt to college life with some great professors and friends who were able to help me through it and give me pointers to survive the first semester of college. I have been told that the hardest part of college is getting through your first semester because it is usually full of a bunch of general classes that you aren’t very interested in and you just have to get through them. This helped me get through the semester and adapt because I knew it would get better and it did with time because I was able to cope to online learning and all the different COVID restrictions.

Something that I really love about college life is how much freedom you have compared to living with your parents all the time. I have freedoms with my parents, but it was nice being able to go somewhere without having to tell them where I was going or why. I love being at Ohio State and being able to have friends that have a lot of the same passions as you. It was great being able to go to my friends about stuff related to college and they completely understand what you are talking about. It was nice being able to stay up all night just to have a movie night and a talk session just because college work was too stressful. Something that I struggle with college and Ohio State is not being able to see my parents everyday and being able have their comfort and pep-talks when I want to quit or when I am not motivated to do any work.

One thing that I achieved while being in college is being able to cope and adapt to the different format with college and the different environment. I was able to cope with living by myself and being able to take care of myself. I was able to achieve doing well in my classes even though it started off a little rough.

A goal that I am setting for myself for the spring semester is to get more involved in the university. I would do this by joining a club and being more involved with scholars. I also want to be able to have fun in college. This semester, I was able to have some fun, but I was always doing work and studying, and it just felt really overwhelming. Overall, it was a great semester, but my goal is to make next semester and the semester after that better than the one before.

The alumni that I interviewed was Katie Maloney. She double majored in Zoology and Psychology and did not attend any grad school. She is a former Zookeeper and now works as a Park Ranger in Pennsylvania State Parks. Her original plan was to go to school to be a veterinarian in a zoo. These plans changed when she noticed other people struggling to get into vet school and having to retake classes for vet school, she realized that this was not the life that she wanted. She decided to not do vet school and decided to try internships at the zoo and an agency called COSI, and soon found out that she really liked working with animals. The zookeeper job that she had started to work towards after graduation started to not work for her because of all the unpaid jobs and seasonal keeper jobs you needed in order to work all the way up to zookeeper. She put in for other jobs and landed with her job now as a Park Ranger. Katie noted that her favorite part of being in ENR Scholars would probably be the people in scholars, being able to have the strong friendships and she misses being able to see them every day. Scholars gave her a chance to have a break from her harder classes and be able to have fun with some friends.

I learned that to know which major or job that I will like the best, I should have multiple co-ops and internships. Doing the job is one of the only ways to know if I will want to do that for the rest of my life. I also learned that is good to have multiple different types of jobs while I am figuring out what I will want to do as a profession because it will help to know how to work with different types of people. Katie mentioned to me that it is very important to join a club or take a fun General Education course that has nothing to do with my major. She said that she did this a couple of times and it helped to get the stress and pressure off her and helped to give her a break from her major coursework. Katie also mentioned that if I did not want to go through police academy then being a Park Ranger might not be the best choice for me. I learned that I should try as many things as possible while I am in school to find what I want to do. Katie told me that there is no age limit to changing your mind, you can always change your mind and go a different path. She also suggested to find a hobby or organization to do that is unrelated with my job or specialization because I will not want to be doing the same thing every hour of every day. I also learned that when I go to interviews that I should ask questions during the interview and maybe even look up the person interviewing me or the organization to be able to ask questions about their goals and aspirations as a company. It is also a good idea to look up common questions asked in interviews and maybe even carry a notebook to write down things I want to say or ask the interviewer.

I will apply what I learned through this interview with Katie throughout my time at Ohio State. While I am still in scholars, I will try to spend as much time as I can with my scholars’ family and friends. I will try to get different types of jobs to learn how to work in different situations and with different people. This will help me to know what kinds of jobs that I will work well in and the types of people that I would work well with. I will try to get multiple internships and jobs relating to my major to see what I will enjoy and what I will want to do with my life after graduation. If I have room in my schedule, I will try to incorporate some fun classes in with my major and specialization classes. This will help to give me a break between my hard classes and help with my self-care.

Something interesting that I learned in class was during the recycling presentation. I learned that the number on the bottom of plastic bottles do not mean anything in Columbus, but if it is a bottle shaped plastic then it is recyclable. I also learned that the plastic bags that you get from grocery stores and from traditions are not recyclable through the city of Columbus recycling, but they can be taken to Target or Kroger to be recycled there. I also learned that it is not good to throw away used batteries or electronics and that you should rather take them to places that accept them to be recycled.

One thing that I learned about myself is that I feel a lot better once I get an assignment done and can cross it off my to-do list. It is almost like a burden is being lifted off my shoulders every time I get another assignment done. One thing that I struggled with was completing one of my assignments for my Environmental Science class because I felt that it was very hard to understand what exactly I needed to put in it and what should not be put in.

One thing I was able to achieve this month, and especially this last week was being able to stay on top of all my assignments. I was able to plan to get my assignments done early so that I could have the weekend to be able to watch football and just relax for a little bit. This was very important to me because this is the first game for Ohio State football since last season and it is going to be a very exciting game. It felt very relieving that I was able to get my assignments done earlier in the week. As I said before, it felt as if a burden had been lifted off my shoulders and I was able to breathe, relax, and have fun for a little bit until I have to do more work.

One interesting thing that I learned this month in class is all the different ways Ohio State is helping the environment, as well as hurting it. One thing Ohio State has done to help the environment is by having individual recycling bins in the dorm rooms, this allows students to have an easy way to recycle instead of being forced to throw their plastic bottles in the trash. Another thing they have implemented to try to help the environment is by giving food from traditions in compostable boxes. One thing that Ohio State does that is hurting the environment is always giving food out with plastic bags, even when it is not necessary.

One thing that I have learned about myself is that I work better when I am trying to stay ahead on my assignments. I have realized that when I am staying ahead of my assignments, I am able to relax a little bit and not being too stressed when trying to work and get my assignments in on time. If I stay ahead on my assignments, it gives me time to have to myself and not have as much work to do over the weekend.

Chemistry is one thing that I have been struggling with recently. I am not necessarily struggling with the work in the class, but more with the amount of work because it is taking time away from doing work for other classes. Chemistry is a hard class, but I feel as if I am always doing work for chemistry when I would rather be doing work for my other classes.

Something that I have achieved this month is being able to stay ahead on my assignments for most of my classes. I can get assignments for the week done early and be able to focus on my self-care such as getting good sleep. I have not really had to rush an assignment to get it in on time. I hope to be able to continue this because I think it has helped a lot with my stress.