For the first Explore Columbus that Lucy and I have to do we choose to go to COSI. During the first mentor/mentee retreat our group won free tickets to COSI, therefore Lucy and I thought it would be a good idea to use our free tickets before they expired and go on Saturday November 16. We were both looking forward to walking around COSI and see the different exhibits they had because neither Lucy or I had been to COSI in many, many years. My brother has a car on campus because he is a fourth year so to get to COSI I drove my brother’s car which is a luxury not many people have but if you want to go to COSI and do not have a car you are able to take the COTA buses there. Being there was so much fun! It was not super busy which definitely surprised both Lucy and I because we figured that since it was a Saturday and it was not super cold outside that there would be a lot of families and children running around. It was crowded but it was not too crowded to the point where either one of us did not have fun. There was not too many confusing things about being at COSI, the only confusing part to me was where I was supposed to park, but once I got to COSI I just had to follow the signs to the parking garage and find a spot to park the car. Once we parked the car we walked around the parking garage a little to figure out where the exit was, but eventually we found it and got into COSI. Renewing our free ticket voucher was very easy, we just had to go up to the desk where they sell the tickets and they validated my parking for a slightly less cost then it would have been without the validation and gave up a paper bracelet that we had to wear so that we could get into any exhibit we wanted too. Another confusing part for us was, there was a floor that you could only get to by one glass elevator and we could not find that elevator for so long, so finally Lucy asked one of the workers where the glass elevator was and we went to the floor that we originally could not get too.  While we were at COSI and walking around looking and interacting with all the different exhibits that they have to offer, Lucy and I discussed how her year was going so far and what her favorite and least favorite things about college were and if she has had an issues with the transition. Lucy loves college and has had no issues with the transition, she is doing super well and cannot wait for the rest of the school year and the next four years. Some of our favorite exhibits or favorite things that we interacted with at COSI included the Water area, we both loved this area because it was our favorite when we were children and going back even as college kids was very fun for both of us. It was like reliving our childhood again, we both had a fun time playing around with the water and if you have ever been to COSI you know there is a big Neptune like water area and we both had fun squirting the water guns onto that Neptune statue. Another one of our favorite exhibits included the Progress exhibit which lets you travel through time and interact with the technology from 1898. Then turn a corner and find yourself generations later – in 1962 – in that same town. It lets you see how innovation has changed the world that we live in and how much sixty-four years can change the technology of the same place. The exhibit shows you old cars, telephones, morse code, a diner, and two different US Post Offices which seemed like neither one had changed at all. Overall, COSI was such a fun experience and I am very glad that Lucy and I won the free tickets through the Mentorship retreat because if not I am not sure that we would have went.  All in all I would definitely recommend to anyone to go to COSI with friends or even your family. It is such a fun experience even for college kids and there was never a dull moment. The only problem with going to COSI could be the transportation there and back and the price, since I had a car to use and Lucy and I got free tickets we did not have those problems but if you do not have either one of those components it might be a problem. As I said before you are able to get to COSI by the COTA buses and tickets are regularly about $20 but if you are a student at OSU d-tix sells tickets for COSI for $12. I would say if you have a chance to go to COSI with friends definitely do it. 

Through my scholar’s group, Advocates of Communities and Education, I was able to meet my mentee, Lucy Marchese. Lucy and I immediately connected at the ACES speed dating event because she lived in the same room that I lived in last year. I knew that I was going to really enjoy being Lucy’s mentor for this year. Recently, Lucy and I met up at the Ohio Union for coffee to connect and to see how Lucy’s year was going so far, how her classes were, the involvement that she is currently in at OSU and through ACES and overall how college is going for her.

The questions that I decided would be the best fit to ask Lucy were the following:

1. How do you like to study? Have you found a good place for studying on campus?
2. How do you plan on getting involved on campus?
3. Why did you choose ACES?
4. What is your dream job and why?
5. What has surprised you about Ohio State since arriving on campus?

Lucy likes to study at Orton Geology lab in Orton Hall, she finds that the library at Orton is always quiet and she can get as much work as she needs done there whenever she is there. If Lucy does not study at Orton, she will either go to Thompson library or study in her dorm room. When studying Lucy likes to have an outline to study from, when she has an outline she writes the questions and answers down on a loose leaf piece of paper and breaks them up by topic. Lucy is like any other college kid and tends to procrastinate studying so usually this happens on the night before the test, but she always makes sure that she gets enough sleep the night before and drinks a lot of water before and during the test. Lucy is only involved with ACES right now but she a has a plan to find a club that goes with her major which is Integrated Language Arts/English Education. She wants to find a club that goes along with her major and work her way up through the club until she is in an important position. Lucy choose ACES because her mom pushed her to join a scholars group to get a nice dorm and priority scheduling so she looked into all the options and she found ACES and thought that it would be a the best option for her because she is a education major which is basically helping children in her community therefore ACES was the best fit for Lucy out of all the scholars groups. Lucy is enjoying her time in ACES and meeting all the people that live on her floor and even those who do not. She is very glad that her mom pushed her to be in a scholars group. I told her that ACES can bring some of the closest friends to her life and that is how I found my roommate for this year and we became best friends last year through ACES. Lucy’s dream job is to be a head editor at Penguin Random House Publishing Company. She wants this job because she loves editing text and loves to read and it seems like it’s the best of both worlds. If she cannot get this job she would love to pursue a job in some sort of English. I told her to keep an eye out for internships through Penguin Random House Publishing and maybe even go to the job fair because they might be there or a similar company will be there and an internship can get her a head start into the career that she wants. The one thing that has surprised Lucy the most about Ohio State since arriving on campus is the campus is not as big as she thought it was and I agreed with her and told her that I was surprised by the same thing when I was a freshman. The campus is not that big when you find a group of people to have fun with and generally know your way around as well.

Overall, I am very glad that I found Lucy through ACES and she is my mentee. I think that I am going to have so much fun being her mentor and getting to know her more and more throughout the year. Also, I am very excited to help her with her transition to college. So far Lucy has been successful in her transition to college and I do not see anything changing throughout the year!

One of the biggest academic interests and achievements that I have done so far in college included the ACES Film Project. Basically this project was to watch a documentary with a group of our peers and to create an oral presentation on the documentary that you had previously watched. In the scholars class, we spent a large amount of time learning and discussing the four ACES pillars which are: Positive Social Change, Advocacy, Community, and Service. This project we had to watch the film and create a PowerPoint presentation with slides that included a summary, how the film had the ACES pillars incorporated into the film, critiques, who would benefit from the film and a few others. In my group, Allison, Mckenzy and I all watched the film Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine which is a film about the brutal murder of a gay teenage in college. The movie then dove into the foundation that his family founded and everything that happened because of this homicide. This film project was an academic interest because I have always been interested in learning about murders and issues similar to that, also documentaries have always been an issue of mine. This film was made to raise awareness about Matthew Shepard but also to raise awareness about what is happening around the world to LGBTQ+ citizens in the United States. It encourages people to try and understand what people that are LGBTQ+ are going through and how their life is completely different then ours and how to not judge someone based on their sexuality. This project allowed me to learn how some LGBTQ+ people are feeling and how sometimes they are terrified that something might happen to them when they are least expecting it. I enjoy group projects because they allow me to learn about the different opinions of others and how their perspectives are different then mine.

Another event that promoted my academic interests included my week long trip in summer of 2016 to Washington D.C., this trip promoted my academic interests because ever since I was a little girl I have always been as interested as my mother who was a History major in the history of the United States. Not even just the United States, everywhere around the world I thoroughly enjoyed history no matter what I was learning about. When I was in Washington D.C. I went to many different museums and memorials but the one place that I went that impacted me the most was the day me and my friend spent at Arlington Cemetery. This was the most influential place in Washington D.C. to me because I have always been the most interested in wars in history and the military. Because that was always what I was most interested in Arlington was the place that I wanted to spend the most time at. The feeling that you get when you walk into the cemetery is something that is very hard to describe. It is a feeling of overwhelming sadness that everyone that is buried there was killed or died after or for fighting for this country. When you go to Arlington the one thing you need to see the Changing of the Guards at the tomb of the unknown soldiers because that tomb is so chilling and watching how serious the changing of the guards are during the ceremony even when they are just standing there protecting the tomb. The tomb is so somber because it represents anyone who has died in wars or who is missing because they were caught in a war. It’s basically a memorial for all POW or KIA soldiers and it gives you an overwhelming feeling of sadness and it changed my perspective on life and soldiers forever. This trip to Washington D.C. changed my view on history forever and I am so glad I got to experience this when I was old enough to finally understand the history of the city.