Buckeye Bound (2/29)

I was really excited to represent the best scholars program (IA!) at the Buckeye Bound Informational Event for perspective Ohio State students and looked forward to meeting potential future members of IA. At Buckeye Bound, there were nearly 3 separate rounds of informational sessions where the director of Honors & Scholars discussed the overall responsibilities and benefits of being part of a Scholars Program. After this presentation, prospective students and their families explored all the different scholars program if they were still choosing between Scholars Programs to apply for, or would go talk to the station for the Scholars program they had already been accepted to.

There were not many perspective students who came to the IA Station, but whenever a student approached us, since there were 5 of us at the IA Station, we did a good job of covering any questions or concerns they may have had about Ohio State or the IA Scholars Program, whether it was the program requirement, roommates, living in Smith-Steeb, or college in general. I hope we were able to convince students who were deciding on Ohio State to become Buckeyes and join IA! It was hard for me to imagine that only a year ago, I was in these students’ shoes, deciding where I wanted to go to Ohio State and if I wanted to be part of IA. Last year, Ohio State was definitely not my top choice school, so I was not entirely excited about starting in the fall, but after coming to Ohio State and becoming a part of IA, I really couldn’t imagine having a better first-year college experience anywhere else. Now as a member of the IA LC next year, I hope to be able to better connect to future 1st years in IA and make their experience in the program as great as mine!

Chinese-American Student Association Chinese New Year Celebration

The Chinese New Year is one of the most important holidays in Asian culture. To celebrate the new Year of the Pig, the Chinese-American Student Association (CASA) at OSU organized a celebration for the Chinese Lunar New Year, which included various performance from Asian-American student organizations across campus. My favorite performances included, a fusion orchestra which included both traditional orchestral instruments such as the violin and cello, along with traditional Asian stringed instruments that I had never seen before, which sounded beautiful together. There was also a performance of a Wushu Group on campus, which is a martial art that combines elements of dance, making it a non-contact martial art that I had also never seen before. I was very glad that I got to further explore the diversity of the student body at Ohio State through attending this Chinese New Year celebration and learn about Asian culture and the importance of the Lunar New Year to people in Asia.

Slavic Department Film Series: Children of the State

The Slavic Department displays various Slavic films throughout the semester. The Russian documentary Children of the State was about a topic I was completely unfamiliar with, Russian orphans and how they were impacted by the Dima Yakovlev Law passed by the Russian Duma. The Dima Yakovlev Law was passed in December 2012, named after Dima Yakovlev, a Russian child adopted by an American family who was killed while left in a car. His death was used as the primary motivation to ban foreigners from adopting Russia children because Russian lawmakers believed Russian children should stay in Russia, where they were safe and tied to their culture.

However, this documentary revealed that Russian orphans who were adopted by foreigners were typically physically or mentally disabled and adoption gave these children a much better opportunity to develop socially and mentally. Various Russian orphanages were shown, were large groups of children were handled by relatively few adults, with little opportunity of a personal upbringing, where they could express their own thoughts and feelings. The documentary centered around an American family who were eager to adopt a Russian girl with Down Syndrome but were unable to do so even after they visited her because of the passing of the Dima Yakovlev Law. The family was incredibly excited to adopt this girl and give her a better life, feeling that even after one visit that they were bettering her life as she was talking to them, even though her caretakers at the orphanage said she couldn’t talk.

I was very fascinated by this documentary as I’ve always known that adopting kids from abroad was a difficult process for Americans, but I never exactly knew how difficult this process actually was. I think this documentary was very important in showing how the Dima Yakovlev law has impacted lives around the world and in showing the perspective of both those who were for the law and those who were against. I am in Russian Literature this semester and this opportunity was presented to me as I was in that course and could gain extra credit for my class. As I’ve learned more about Russian culture this semester through my Russian Literature class and through the documentary I watched, I’ve become very fascinated by Russian culture. In fact, I am actually now beginning to learn the Russian language next semester, along with taking a Russian course on Anna Karenina, which counts towards my General Education requirements. Since I am taking so many Russian courses, I may pursue a minor in Russian, which will certainly be an interesting combination with my existing majors, Economics and Mathematics.

The New York Times: The Conversation Before the Conversation

Although I wasn’t able to see the Democratic Debate at Otterbein University, I was able to be part of the exciting environment at Otterbein before the debate at an event hosted by the New York Times. At this event, prominent New York Times journalists from The Times’s Politics Desk discussed the importance of the democratic debates and what the candidates in these debates needed to address to gain supporters and appease their existing voter base. One comment that struck me was from Times journalist Lisa Lerer who claimed that despite the importance the media may put on the Democratic Debates, stellar performances at these debates were not historically indicative of the likelihood of the candidate winning the nomination, which slowly made sense to me as I realized that a variety of factors beyond debate performances shape the likability of a presidential candidate. I truly enjoyed going to this event because as someone who is always reading the news, I was excited to be directly engaging with one of my personal favorite media outlets, The New York Times and learn about the perspectives of experienced political reporters who analyzed the debates.

09/03/19: The Bioethics Behind Human-Chimpanzee Hybrids

As an Economics and Math major, bioethics is not exactly relevant to my field of study. So, when I walked into the first meeting of the Bioethics Society at OSU, I knew nothing about topic of discussion at the Bioethics Society meeting, which was the bioethics behind Human-Chimpanzee Hybrids. Attending this meeting taught me about a topic I would have perhaps known nothing about otherwise. Very recently, China has begun working on human-chimpanzee hybrids to create chimeras. Chimeras form when human embryonic stem cells are added to the embryo of another species (in this case, a chimpanzee), that would provide organs for human transplantation. Chimpanzees are being used because they are genetically very close to humans, therefore these organs would be very similar to human organs. We were not given a lot of information on this topic, as for most of the meeting, we primarily discussed whether what these Chinese scientists are doing is ethical. At the heart of this discussion lied the consideration if whether these chimeras were actually human and what the definition of being human truly was. Through these discussions, I learned that people have different morals and what is ethical to me may not be ethical to them and vice versa. Since China is the nation behind these human-chimpanzee chimeras, this relates to International Affairs, as people in the United States mostly sees these hybrids to be immoral and don’t condone such experiments, but in China, human lives and organs are seemed to be more prioritized which is why these chimeras have been created. The diversity in the thoughts and morals of individuals from different nations is what makes International Affairs a complex and unique area of study to explore.