For this month’s International Affairs event, I volunteered at an event focusing on AIDS recognition in an around Columbus. The event occurred on Friday the12th of April from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm, however I was only able to volunteer from 2 to 3 pm. I was not sure what to really expect before I arrived there, the event description talked about quilts and speakers that would be at the event, but did not really go too much into depth about what would happen when there. However, my experience did not involve speakers at all. I was somewhat surprised by this, I am not sure, but it seemed as though the speakers they were referring to were medical professionals that were at booths representing local health centers. For my volunteer shift, I signed up to be a security monitor. My job was to sit in a room with one of the quilts that had been made and make sure no one came in and damaged it in any way. Luckily, there were no problems I had to diffuse. Everyone was very respectful of the quilt and kept their distance when looking at it. It was a relatively short and easy volunteering experience, however I feel as though it still had an effect on me.

I was surprised by how big the quilt was. It was probably a ten by ten foot quilt of victims from in and around the Columbus area as I previously mentioned. I was not sure how to react at first when I initially saw the quilt, but once the supervisor left, I went to take a closer look. Once I was able to look at the quilt a little closer, it made me a little sad. These were people’s sons and daughters, most of which died when they were around 40 years old. None of them got to live their live to the fullest, and it kind of hit me hard when looking at the names and the faces. Additionally, you could tell that there was a lot of love put into the quilt by the family members of the different victims. It is hard to imagine what those families were going through when they would get the diagnosis, especially at a time when the medical field still could not do much for those afflicted with HIV/AIDS.

This event relates to international affairs because as I am sure we all know, HIV/AIDS is an international problem that the world needs to come together on to try to fix. Although it may not affect everyone in one way or another, I personally believe that like many other viruses, there is a cure, and the sooner we get there, the better off we will be.

Personally however, this event had a much different effect. Prior to this event, AIDS was not something I put much thought to. As a student, there are many things I would stress about before I would stress about AIDS. However, this event helped to show me that this disease can affect everyday normal people, and if I do not take things seriously, it could happen to me too.

For this month’s International Affairs event, I went to the discussion regarding climate change which was hosted in Hagerty Hall, room 180 by the Sierra Club. I went to the part II event on Wednesday, the 6th of March. I am not sure if the two events were the same, just presented twice, or if there was information that I missed from the first session. Nonetheless, I still learned a great deal from the discussion and I found it, all in all, very interesting.

During the event, the main topics of discussion were about how we are trying to make Columbus “Ready for 100”, and what steps Ohio State as a campus has taken to help minimize its carbon footprint. The ready for 100 topic we discussed was one I had not heard of before, but one that I found very intriguing. What was more interesting was when the presenter put the map of the other cities across the United States that are committed to being 100% renewable as well. I was surprised to find that my home city of Minneapolis was one of the cities that have already joined the movement. While it is a very noble goal to have a city the size of Columbus completely renewable by 2050, I am not sure that it is a feasible one, and the presenters seemed to acknowledge this throughout various parts of the presentation. One thing that I think could really help the cause would be to get the word out there that this is happening. I am not sure if I am in the minority (I very well may be); but this movement was one I had never heard of before. Some other talking points of the presentation were what buildings on campus primarily use renewable energy, and I was again surprised at how many it was. I knew my residence hall did, but I did not know that 23 other buildings on campus do as well, simply because I am not sure it is something that is talked about that often. The last talking point of the discussion, and in my opinion, the most interesting point, was the way in which we as a university still waste a large amount of energy daily. This was represented by the energy usage graph shown at the end where the reserve power on a daily basis is around 125,ooo kW, but on average I would say the graph made it seem as though we only used around 60,000 kW daily, leaving over half of the energy supply that has already been paid for, to go to waste. The only concern I had about the graph was that the data presented was from 2015 without an explanation as to why that was.

This topic relates to International Affairs in the sense that climate change is something we as human beings will have to confront worldwide, not just here in the United States. If we do not do something now, there could be catastrophic consequences not too far down the road. I found this seminar to be very informative, and it is one that I would recommend more people go to as it can help you to think about what you as an individual can do to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

For January’s International Affairs event, I went to the Coffee and Diversitea event help on Wednesday February 30th from 6:00-7:00 pm. I unfortunately was about five minutes late as I misread the starting time. I knew the date got changed but I thought the time was going to remain the same. So, I missed introductions, but fortunately still got the important message and info from the session.

The main topic of this lecture was essentially what the main exports were from different countries. It mainly focused on which countries were the highest exporters of coffee and tea, although the topics were not limited to just that. The presentation began with a few powerpoint slides giving some background information on the topic at hand, and then transitioned into a Kahoot game. This is where I learned the most about the topics covered. I personally am not a huge coffee or tea drinker, however, I found it very interesting to learn which countries were the highest exporters of these products. I found out that Ethiopia (if I remember correctly) was the first place in which coffee was grown. What was also really cool about the event was there was tea and coffee from these different countries that we were able to try so we could taste the differences between them. Not only that, but the first, second, and third place finishers on Kahoot got to choose a between different types of coffee as their prize. I was lucky enough to finish third and got to bring home a bag of Ethiopian coffee.

This event was closely tied to international affairs in the fact that we learned about the major exports from countries all over the world. What was really interesting about this event was you could tell that the major exports of different countries were tied heavily to colonialism. For example, countries that had been colonized by the British at one point or another tended to be major exporters of tea.

This event related to not only my interest in history, but also to my desire to eventually travel abroad. I have not yet been out of the country, however, I one day hope to travel to many different countries and see the different wonders of the world. Even though that is somewhat unrelated to this topic of coffee, this event helped me to understand some of the historical factors that have made these countries into what they are today, and I found that very interesting.

If this event were to be offered again, I would definitely go to it again and try to learn more. Additionally, I would recommend this event to friends as I found it very interesting and useful information for the most part. The presenters did a nice job with presenting the information, even though they admittedly did not know a whole lot about the topic. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and would be happy to go to another event similar in nature to that one. I am just glad I only showed up five to ten minutes late rather than half an hour late.

For this month’s event, Garrett Swanson and I attended the UNICEF meeting on Thursday October 4th in Mendenhall Lab, room 100. The event was hosted by Benjamin Perks and the Ohio State University UNICEF organization. I went into this event very pessimistic about it. I was not looking forward to it at all, as I never got much out of the IA events that were out on last year, but I knew I had to go to meet my requirement. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised with this event. It was not so much a meeting as it was an informational meeting or lecture.

This event was related to International Affairs in the fact that UNICEF is an organization within a the United Nations that essentially deals with the well being of children around the world. For this specific presentation, we were talking about how different traumas in a child’s life can influence said child into their adulthood. One of the things that really struck me about the presentation was a video he showed of a mother and a baby interacting. In the video, the mother would be right in front of the baby, but not give it any attention or respond to it in any way. It was crazy to me how fast the baby’s mood changed, and within a minute or so of the mom ignoring it, the baby began to cry. He later went on to explain that by interacting with your child at a young age and reacting to their actions is the best way to build the brain connections in your child and to have them be better off for the rest of their lives.

From this presentation, I learned new techniques on how children of different ages respond to different actions, such as the actions in the previously mentioned video. In addition to talking about different parenting techniques and how they can affect the development of the child, we talked about cortisol and how stress levels in children affect the development of the brain and how that will affect the child for the rest of its life. This led to the discussion of how many children have what is considered a high level of stress and how this translates to the classroom. I wish I had written this reflection more closely to the date of the actual event so I could have remembered more to have written more in this response as it was a very interesting presentation to me, but i unfortunately have forgotten most of what was discussed.

Lastly, I still do have some questions about the entire presentation. The first question I have is how do stress levels differ across different countries? For example, one of the topics we talked about was trauma experiences in children. What I would like to know is how do the cortisol levels in children of war torn countries differ from those that are not at war. Additionally, how are these different stress levels expressed by the children in said countries?

The event I went to was the Education Abroad Expo on September 4th at the Union. This event related to International Affairs because it was on the topic of international study opportunities which would inherently broaden your cultural understanding of the world. But not only does the Education Abroad event relate to International Affairs, it also relates to my Spanish courses that I plan on taking as I will discuss later.

Going to the education abroad expo was one of the most helpful events I have ever gone to in my time here at Ohio State. I had known that I wanted to do a study abroad since before I came to Ohio State, but I never really knew where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do with my time abroad. Thankfully, the education abroad expo cleared up a lot of my concerns surrounding this for me.

Following the education abroad expo, I realized I want to do a study abroad in Spain. I have been contemplating a minor in Spanish since high school, and I feel as though a study abroad in a Spanish-speaking country would go a long way in the development of my understanding of the language. The only problem with this is that I have not taken a Spanish course since my junior year in high school, so I definitely need to touch up on my language skills.

Not only was I considering a study abroad in Spain for my Spanish courses, but I was also considering it for my interest in International Business. Post graduation, I plan on becoming an information systems manager in a large company, preferably Delta Air Lines. Because of Delta’s international coverage, I believe it would be extremely beneficial to have somewhat of a background in another culture or language, especially with the growing diversity we are seeing in the Unites States.

However, with all of these positive things being said, there are still a few things I am still uncertain about. One of these things is the length of the trip. I ideally want to do a January internship or winter break, but I am still not sure whether or not this would interfere with my other classes and ultimately graduation time, therefore leaving me with the option of doing it over one of my summer breaks. This is not as ideal for me as I would preferably want to have a job over the summer, but if that is my inly option I will still gladly take it. Another thing I have concern over is being homesick. I have never been out of the country before, and the farthest away I have ever been from home is being here at Ohio State, with home being in Minnesota. Even though Ohio is somewhat far from Minnesota, it is not that hard to fly home for a weekend to see family. Spain would be a much different story, it is nowhere near as easy to fly home from Spain to visit family, let alone just leave a possible internship.

To wrap this post up, I learned a lot from the Education Abroad Expo. It helped me decide that I want to go to Spain for a possible study abroad course or maybe even a possible internship. That being said, there are still some things I am uncertain about. I have not decided how long I would like to go to Spain or even if it is a feasible option for me. In addition, I am worried about the possibility of becoming homesick as well as having to learn a totally new culture by myself. Yet, all things considered, I still believe I will try to do either a study abroad or an internship in Spain.

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