Year 2 in Review

Global Awareness
Along with being a member of the Honors Program, I am also a part of the International Affairs Scholars Program, where I have gotten to learn about and engage with various different cultures and areas of global studies that given me a more global and open-minded perspective. I have been able to attend various discussions through my Scholars Program, such as leaning about the LGBTQ+ movement in Russia or global food insecurity. I am also a member of the Collegiate Council on World Affairs, where I am a member of the Model United Nations team and have travelled to conferences around the country to debate global issues and learn about diplomacy and politics through debate. Through these activities, I have been able to learn about various geopolitical issues and learn about other cultures from a non-American perspective that has helped me become more open-minded and open to seeking solutions to these issues that are often unable to be resolved due to narrow-minded perspectives from those living in western, developed nations.

Original Inquiry
I am involved in as a research assistant in the Department of Economics and the Neuroeconomics Lab at Ohio State, where I have helped collect and analyze data for research projects. With Professor Bruce Weinberg of the OSU Economics Department, I am working on a research project about Gender Income Disparities in Higher Education, and I have also worked on a project researching COVID reopening policies across different US states and counties. I am also involved in research with Professor Ian Krajbich at the OSU Neuroeconomics Lab, where I am working on a project studying dictator games, which are a subset of Game Theory. Through engaging in these research opportunities, I have been able to discover various fields within economics. I have found interests within Game Theory and Labor Economics that have allowed me to visualize a future career in academia and I have learned about the process of research and publication. After graduating from Ohio State, I would like to obtain a Ph.D. in Economics and become an Economics Professor someday.

Academic Enrichment
I am an Economics and Mathematics major with a minor in Russian language. I am studying Economics because I have always been interested in learning about how individuals and business make decisions and learning about how the economic policies of governments impact the everyday lives of people. I want to study these concepts more as a researcher and professor, so I also added a Math major to improve my understanding of the quantitative aspects of Economics that are heavily rooted in advanced mathematical concepts.
My Honors General Education courses have been incredibly interesting and provided me with a great deal of relevant and interesting knowledge I wouldn’t have gained otherwise. For my historical study requirement, I am taking History 3706: US Business & Environment, where I have learned a lot about the environmental impact of various large businesses. As an Economics major who wants to research businesses and the decisions of consumers in the future, learning about the environmental choices that businesses make and situations in which they leave their consumers, has been very relevant and interesting to me. Learning about economics from a historical perspective has also been fascinating because I can better understand the qualitative and social aspects of economic decisions, rather than the quantitative theory my Economics courses are based on.
My decision to add a Russian minor came from my enjoyment of my General Education courses through the Slavic department. I took a Russian literature course on the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, who is a stellar author. I enjoyed reading The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov, which are both dense novels I most likely would not have been able to understand and read on my own without the support of a class discussion and professor, who is an expert on the subject material and context. I look forward to taking more courses as an undergraduate to help me develop a well-rounded perspective on the world and help me learn about new areas of study that I may potentially develop a new interest in.

Leadership Development
I hold various leadership positions within student organizations on campus. I am the Deputy Director of Academic Affairs in the Undergraduate Student Government(USG), where I lead projects on issues to promote academic equity for Ohio State’s student body. One of my main projects this semester is establishing a Textbook Exchange Network at Ohio State, where we can create a space for OSU students to sell used textbooks to each other and make the textbook purchasing process for affordable for students. My engagement in this leadership roles has helped me get out of my comfort zone as I have often set up meetings with university administrators to discuss policy ideas and next steps, where I am held fully accountable for my thoughts and am expected to think on my feet. University administrators are not always entirely optimistic about USG policy ideas, but through clear communication and well-developed plans, I have worked to follow through on my ideas.
I am also the Professional Development Chair for the International Affairs Scholars Program, where I organize events for IA Scholars to attend that will introduce them to different careers and provide them with skills necessary to obtain internships and future job opportunities. An event I organized and moderated last semester was a virtual alumni panel featuring International Affairs Scholars alumni, who had all embarked on very diverse career paths ranging from being a Harvard Law School Student, a Columbia Medical School student or working for the federal government in Washington, DC. For this event, I had to personally find and reach out to alumni, since my Scholars program had no established alumni base and I had to effectively communicate and organize a time for the panel that would work for all the panelists, which taught me how to organize events and keep to a schedule.
Being involved in leadership roles has helped me become more assertive in achieving my goals as I have taken initiative in many of my roles to organize events or policy ideas.

Service Engagement
I have been involved in Service Engagement in the Columbus community through International Affairs Scholars and the Collegiate Council on World Affairs(CCWA). With Scholars, I have engaged in various service projects. One of them was during the Martin Luther Jr. Day of Service in 2020, where I volunteered All That, which is a Columbus-based organization that mentors at-risk teens to help them gain academic success in high school, and beyond. My responsibility involved cleaning up the center so that students would have a clean space to succeed in. I felt glad to be able to help a local organization that had benefitted that Columbus community so greatly.
Through the Collegiate Council on World Affairs, I have helped raise funds for BuckeyeThon and participated in the marathon as a team member to help kids survive pediatric cancer. I have also worked to raise funds for various international causes such as the Black Lives Matter movement though the Okra Foundation and to help Nigerians protesting SARS regulations in Nigeria by fundraising for organizations such as the Nigerian Diaspora Against SARS and Assata Collective. I hope to continue engaging in service opportunities in the future with CCWA as the Director of Fundraising next year, where it will be my responsibility to find causes to create fundraisers and generate donations for. I also hope to further engage in in-person service opportunities as the pandemic comes to an end, so that I can better impact the local Columbus community directly.