Fun Facts About Me

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Hello! I am a first-year student studying Health Sciences in the hopes of becoming a Physician’s Assistant socializing in surgical procedures. I have one brother who is a sophomore in high school this year. I am a member of Mount Leadership Society Scholars, and I am a Morrill Scholarship recipient. I moved to Columbus from St. Louis, Missouri. In high school I was a member of the Dance Team and my school’s Student Council for four years. In addition, I enjoyed participating in Key Club and Diversity Club. One of my biggest accomplishments senior year was assisting in the creation of a brand new Winter Dance. I enjoy community service and learning about different cultures. I raised over $10,000 in clothing donations for a resale stop benefitting a nonprofit called the Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition, and for the past three years I have traveled to Ensenada, Mexico to build a home for and underprivileged family. As well as this, I volunteer for the international exchange organization AFS, assisting at orientation camps and aiding the students with any adjustment problems they may be having. One of my favorite high school experiences was being a part of the Summit, which paired a county school with a city school in order for the students involved to learn about each other’s differences and help fight racial bias and stereotyping, which was especially important after the Ferguson controversy.

Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Career

[“Career” is where you can collect information about your experiences and skills that will apply to your future career.  Like your resume, this is information that will evolve over time and should be continually updated.   For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Summit on Diversity

Summit
I lived about 20 minutes away from Ferguson when that controversy arose a couple years ago. A few of my friends went to the various protests, and my high school got significantly stricter policies. As the Black Lives Matter movement came to light, it was easy for me to see the racial divide in everyday life. In response to this, there was a program started called the Summit, which brought together suburban schools, which had a majority white population, and city schools, who had a predominately African American population. We visited each other’s high schools and sat in for classes, and the differences were staggering. The quality of the facilities at the inner-city school were nowhere near as good as ours, they didn’t even have a track! We were able to discuss the differences in teaching as well. At my school everyone noticed that the teachers wanted to be friendly with the students and interacted lots, whereas the teachers at the city school gave them worksheets and spent the majority of the class yelling at them. One of the coolest things to do however was hear about the different opinions on several of the racial issues which were exposed throughout the country. I remember reading an article with everyone about the Oklahoma SAE chapter incident, where a video was surfaced of them singing an extremely offensive song. Instead of insisting that the boys be expelled and the chapter disbanded, it talked about how the more effective response would have been to use this as a teachable moment. Use the publicity from this to educate people about the history of African American struggles in that area and let them experience for themselves how offensive the song was. This was powerful for me because before that I had used my gut reaction of pure anger and disbelief to make the judgement that the boys should all be kicked out of the school, when really the more intelligent option would have been not to erase the memory of the incident, but publicize it in a new light, using it to add fire behind the BLM movement.