Hello, everyone! The last time I posted a Semester in Review was (obviously) right after the Autumn Semester of 2015 ended–which you can read here. Even though it was only a few short months ago that my first semester of college ended, I feel like I have learned so much since then.

Autumn semester was mostly me just learning how to be an adult (sorta). I learned things like the value of surrounding yourself with the right people, how to take care of yourself and live away from home, how college classes are different than high school classes, how to most effectively study, the importance of agriculture globally, the importance of making the most of your college experience, etc. So, after studying abroad at the end of Autumn semester, cutting some negative influences out of my life, and refocusing myself on college and my academics, when Spring semester rolled around, I felt like I was ready to take on the world!

When I started Spring semester, I was determined. ‘Determined’ is the only word I can think to use, looking back, because the focus I had on my goals was something I had never experienced in my life before then. Maybe it just took me a while to realize that, yes, I really am in college, and, yes, it’s okay to be excited about what you’re studying and the reason you’re really there!

I had enrolled in 18 credit hours, because after withdrawing from a course my Autumn semester (because I had kind of overwhelmed myself!) I felt that I had some catching up to do. I knew that 18 credit hours would be a lot, and that I had learned my lesson about taking too many courses at one time, so I tried to strategically pick courses that would fit well together. I selected Introductory Animal Sciences and the associated lab, Appreciation of Companion and Production Animals, Freshman Research Seminar: Contemporary Animal Biology Research, Introduction to Meat Science, Agriculture Issues in Contemporary Society, and Introduction to Rural Sociology. Two of the classes I selected, Introductory Animal Sciences and Agriculture Issues in Contemporary Society, were online courses, so I thought that maybe the flexible classwork could make 18 credit hours more doable.

I also knew that I wanted to further my extracurricular involvement in clubs and leadership roles, and that I also had to start solidifying my plans for the upcoming year. It was going to be a busy semester, and I knew that.

If you read my Autumn Semester in Review, you’ll know that I traveled to Nicaragua on an agricultural study abroad program. It was the night before classes started for Spring semester that our plane landed in Columbus. The 20-some other freshman that went on the trip, the accompanying instructors, and I all gathered up our luggage, piled on a bus to take us back to campus, said our goodbyes, and then started unloading our stuff in the dorm to get ready for our first day of classes the next day! I remember my roommate staying up late that night just so she could be awake to say “hello” to me when I got back. I remember how weird it was to detach the fanny pack from my waist that I felt like I had been wearing constantly the past ten days. (Seriously, though, why can’t fanny packs be cool? They are so convenient and would prevent tons of thefts and forgotten items. Just saying!) Mostly though, I remember having a sense of purpose and determination. I felt passionate about what I was studying, grateful to be at THE Ohio State University, and ready to wake up the next morning and make this semester one where I kick butt and take names.

I am proud of what I accomplished the Spring semester. Yes, I had failed quizzes and tests. Yes, I had weeks where I felt like I was literally going to lose my mind. Yes, I had days where I felt totally “pooped” and out of motivation. But, unlike Autumn semester, I was now equipped to handle them.

I learned that I am the kind of student and person that needs to plan out her weeks. I knew that I did best when I planned what time I needed to get up, how much and when I needed to study each day, a workout time, how much time I would spend working on extracurriculars that week, and even when I could manage a night to go out that week, so that is what I did. My roommate may have teased me during the weeks when I said, “Okay, the only free time I have today between meetings is from 5:45-8:15, what do you want to do?” My friends would tease me when I said, “I have exactly thirty-five minutes for lunch before I have to workout so we have to meet at Curl by 12:10!” My mom teased me when I would say, “Okay, I can come home this weekend, but I need to spend at least 7 hours studying!” However, these are the kinds of outlines and the kind of planning that I learned that I needed to be most successful! When I felt like I was going to lose my mind, I planned everything out. When I felt “pooped”, I just relied on my pre-planned schedule and routine to guide me through. When I didn’t do well on a quiz or test, I scheduled in time with office hours, group studying, or more reading time the next week to figure out what I was missing.

Yes, I felt like 90% of my life was consumed with school and studying, which sometimes was crazy, but I also took comfort in knowing that I had it under control. This gave me some freedom to start dedicating more time to my involvement in extracurriculars. I continued my involvement in Collegiate Cattlewomen Club and finished out my year in the Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences Living-Learning Community. I also furthered my involvement in Saddle & Sirloin Club by becoming the Judging Contest Committee Chairman and furthered my involvement in the Meat Science Club by becoming part of the officer team as the College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences Student Council Representative. I also joined the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences Study Abroad Voyagers Team and got selected to join the agricultural honorary Alpha Zeta Partners.

I really enjoy being involved in clubs and organizations that mean a lot to me, but I also enjoy being parts of ones that I feel like I can make a difference in and/or that can make a difference in me. (This probably comes from my roots in the National FFA Organization, which you can read a little bit about here.) Most of the clubs that I am involved in give me an opportunity to network with people that have similar interests, with professors in my college, and with professionals in the agriculture industry. Most of the clubs I am involved in allow me to learn more about agriculture, teach others about agriculture, and advocate for agriculture. Most of the clubs I am involved in allow me an avenue to better my personal, professional, and leadership skills. I am very grateful for all of these opportunities.

Alpha Zeta Partners was one of the most exciting achievements of my Spring semester for a variety of reasons. It is an organization that champions agriculture, leadership, academics, and character, and I am very proud to have been accepted into it with other amazing young individuals. In this organization we will participate in many seminars that aim to better us as leaders, thinkers, and individuals in the field of agriculture. One of these seminars we completed during Spring semester, which focused on discovering your own personal leadership type. (You can read more about my experience in the first seminar here.) Another seminar we will participate in takes place in January and February 2017 and includes my class of AZP completing a six week study abroad program in Brazil. I was very honored to be selected for this organization and I am grateful for all the things it has done for me so far, and I can’t wait to see what my future in it brings!

Looking back on Spring semester, I realized how quick things really went. At the time, everything–from school work to clubs to going out to meeting with advisors and everything in between–was so busy it was almost hard to have a concept of time. As you may have gathered from my time management strategies I was discussing earlier, I tackled everything a week at a time. It felt like a marathon, never-ending (lists of things to do) and demanding of endurance, focus, and determination, and not that that wasn’t true, but now it feels more like a sprint looking back. It took discipline and strength, but it also took me at my best, me being efficient, me making the most out of my time. Spring Semester 2016 was undoubtedly one of hustle. However, the work was definitely worth the reward. Between all my successes in extracurriculars, my loss of 15 pounds (of the nearly 40 I gained first semester!), my 3.78 GPA for the semester (which left me with a 3.79 cumulative), my continued 4.0 major GPA, my submitted and approved Honors Curriculum Plan, my securing of employment and a plan for the summer, my learned life skills, and my reignited motivation and passion for my school, studies, and chosen career path… Spring Semester 2016 was definitely one for the record books.

Hello, everyone!

So the “Year in Review” section is supposed to be where I reflect on my past year and how I have evolved and grown as a person and student as well as my overall experience. However, college is too quick-moving to try and fit a whole year into one post, so I have decided to do “Semesters in Review”! (I will also be including summers, even if I am not at that time enrolled in any courses.)

First semester in college… It doesn’t always have to go exactly as planned, right?

Looking back on this semester, a lot of cool things happened. To just a name a few of said “cool” things… first Ohio State Football Game (let’s start with the most important things, here), first experiences in bars, first time living away from home, first college classes, first time out of the country, first time feeling genuinely challenged by my academics, and first time being fully able to make my own decisions.

Looking back on this semester, a lot of “not so cool” things happened, too. To a name a few of these… first time not having a 4.0 GPA, first time gaining any significant amount of weight, first time not getting along with the people I lived with, first failed assignments and exams, first time needing a 24-hour library (okay, the nerd in me still thinks that’s pretty cool!), and first time having to take full responsibility of the consequences of my decisions.

I started the semester with a 19 credit hour course load. “Oh yeah, I’ll be fine!”

Having never taken any advanced science classes, I decided that it would be a great idea to take the accelerated version of the first level Chemistry. “Oh yeah, I’ll be fine!”

I didn’t think my eating habits were that bad. I didn’t think I needed to work out, because I didn’t need to in high school and I was walking a lot on campus. “Oh yeah, I’ll be fine!”

I thought that requesting completely random roommates was the best idea ever and we would all love each other and be the best friends ever. “Oh yeah, I’ll be fine!”

I thought that I could prepare my lab notebook and write my lab report from the previous week all in one hour before this week’s lab, because, you know, I could get away with that stuff in high school. “Oh yeah, I’ll be fine!”

PSA for incoming first semester freshman: you will not be fine.

Listen to what you parents and advisors and older peers are telling you; listen to them when they say to take your first semester slow, to not take Chemistry lightly, to make sure that you give yourself enough time to work out, etc. Just listen! For small town girls like myself who never really found high school challenging, the transition to a big university and city like OSU and Columbus can definitely be a less than smooth one.

However, what is great about change and challenge is that they almost always yield growth, knowledge, and maturity. Yes, I may have had seven different roommates my first semester. Yes, I may have dropped down to 14 credit hours by the end of the semester. Yes, I may have not paid enough attention to my own personal health and well-being. However, it is because of my mistakes, immaturity, and lack of preparedness that I now know what I need to focus on and spend time on. I learned more from my mistakes my first semester in college than I think I have in the rest of my entire life combined. College teaches you about other people, about the world, but also about yourself.

Now, for the good stuff.

I took a Bar-B-Que Science class–which happens to be part of my major curriculum–and I can now confidently say I could probably make just about any meal you could want on a grill. I took College Algebra and I realized that I actually did learn a lot from my high school classes. I took a Chemistry class and I realized that even though I fancied myself an artistic, English-oriented kind of person, that I am perfectly capable of challenging myself and being successful in hard science courses like Chemistry. I took an English First Year Composition Honors Course and wrote the best research paper I have written to date, and I also began learning how to look at the world in different ways. I took my Survey courses and learned everything I needed to know about being an OSU student, a student in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, an Honors student, a student in the Department of Animal Sciences, and a Meat Science major. I also took a Group Studies course that prepared me for the study abroad program I would be going on at the end of the semester to Nicaragua.

Nicaragua – why are you going there?

I can’t tell you how many times I got asked that question, especially by the people from back home! It is kind of a funny thing to think about at first, that it’s my first time going out of country and that I was going to Nicaragua. After I began to explain to people, though, it began making sense. Nicaragua is the safest country in Central America, which makes it a good location for first year college students that are probably getting at least some of their trip funded by their families. Nicaragua is also the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (next to only Haiti), which makes it an opportunity for us, as American college students, to see an unfamiliar culture, and also makes it an opportunity for us as agriculture majors. Everyone that went on the program to Nicaragua had to be a freshman major in the College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences, and Nicaragua was a valuable experience for all of us because it allowed us to see the way agriculture is in the undeveloped world and outside of the US.

I have presented several times on my trip to Nicaragua, and I think that the best way to explain it is to say that it really was the grand finale in my growing up process which was my first semester of college. So far in Columbus, I had learned about how to best study, how to motivate and take care of myself, how to manage my time, how to get to my classes in shortest amount of time, how to live on my own, how to be goal-oriented and focused on my future, and how to push myself to do better and work harder when life pushes back a little. The amount I “grew up” in that first semester of college while being in Columbus was really significant, however, Nicaragua really allowed the process to complete. It was my first time flying without my parents and my first time out of country. At first, I was nervous and I was to the point where I felt like I didn’t even want to go anymore. As soon as the first plane got up in the air though, I felt this feeling of independence and absolute freedom like I had never felt before. The whole trip was like that for me–exhilarating, eye-opening, and freeing. I learned what kind of leader I am, what kind of traveler I am, what kind of role that I could personally have in global agriculture. I learned about the Nicaraguan culture, I really improved my Spanish-speaking skills, and I learned what it means to be a citizen of the world. I feel powerful, strong, and able after this trip–and after this semester in general. I feel like I have a greater appreciation for people, where they come from, and what makes them who they are. I feel that I am beginning to understand the amazing things that I can push myself to do, and how powerful uncomfortable situations truly are for me.

I always knew that I was the kind of person who did best by purposely putting myself in uncomfortable situations, by purposely making myself “suck it up” and “push through.” These new, unfamiliar situations bring out the best in me, and, at the end of the day, make me a better person overall. Whether it be taking me from a high school that had 280 people total and putting me in a college that has over 45,000 undergraduates… or taking from a hometown that was pretty mono-cultural and placing me in a hugely diverse city and then totally different country… or taking me from an academic experience that was never particularly challenging and putting me in courses that challenged me nearly everyday… or taking me away from the house and people I’ve lived with my whole life and putting me in a place I’ve never been with people I don’t know… or putting me in a circle of Nicaraguan farmers who only speak Spanish and want to know a specific answer as to what to do for their sick livestock… I have proven to myself time and time again that these are the situations that I thrive in, the situations that make me better.

I finished this semester with 3.8 GPA overall and 4.0 major GPA. I finished this semester with some amazing, brilliant, hilarious friends. I finished this semester with a renewed motivation and set of goals for myself. I finished this semester with international experience that very significantly impacted me and made me better. I finished this semester as a member of several clubs, having observed several labs, having met all kinds of people, having gone to all kinds of events, and having gained many new experiences. Most importantly, though, I finished my first semester of college with a better sense of self, with a greater desire to push, better, and challenge myself, and with the confidence to now say and say accurately, “Oh yeah, I’ll be fine!”