A year in review:
I have always been extremely interested in the diversity of cultures around the world. This year I have taken two Spanish courses and plan to take a third one in order to continue to develop my interest in other cultures. There is a heavy emphasis in these courses on not just learning the language, but understanding the rich and diverse cultures that exist within Spanish-speaking countries. I am also planning to take a course in Cross-Cultural Psychology to further appreciate global diversity and establish a strong foundation in being able to apply it to my future career.
As part of my Honors Biology 1114 course, we conducted independent research on fungal endophytes throughout the entirety of the semester. The experience was eye-opening to the level of patience and devotion it takes to conduct meaningful research. Although our project was small scale, we had to determine our own research question and hypothesis, do background research, follow antiseptic techniques, culture specimen, and perform various tests on our cultures. Finally, we wrote our own journal articles on the research we conducted and present our findings during a poster presentation. I highly value the experience as it gave me insight to the research process. I am also planning on working in a psychology research laboratory next academic year to further develop an appreciation for research and refine my own skills for any future research I wish to conduct.
In creating my Honors Contract, I was focused on creating a vigorous and stimulating curriculum. I am exceeding the minimum requirement of 39 upper-level credit hours by taking 41 upper-levels credit hours. One of the courses that I am looking foreword to taking is Psychology of Mood Disorders, a 5000-level class. I have designed my curriculum to cover a broad spectrum of courses to develop my interests and refine my career goals. For my major, I am taking courses covering the traditional clinical route, but also exploring other career choices with my degree by taking classes such as Health Psychology. The GE classes I took this year have enriched classes for my major, such as sociology and women’s history, as I can apply psychological understanding to the problems presented in those classes.
I am currently involved in the Psychology book club. I really enjoy it as I am given a chance to lead conversations, collaborate on ideas with peers, and meet other people who have similar interests and motivations as me. The majority of my leadership experience however is in my employment at Giant Eagle Market District. I have consistently worked 25 hours a week there for almost one year and occupy a position where I am supervising multiple coworkers in my department. I am currently training for a higher management position that I am hoping to formally transition into this summer that will further my leadership ad responsibilities within the store. I am also considering to turn my experiences with Giant Eagle into a long term career after I earn my degree in psychology within their human resources department. I highly value my time spent at Giant Eagle as it has greatly improved my leadership, collaborative, and communication skills and I am looking foreword to how my participation in this company will evolve over time.
An area that could use improvement in my personal development is my involvement with the community and serving it. I volunteered at the Licking County Humane Society for a few months over last summer, which consisted of walking dogs and cleaning cages. I loved getting to connect with animals and improve their chances of being adopted by showing them love and compassion. I would like to participate more in service engagement as the experiences are always rewarding, however it is hard to find time to do so when juggling school and work. I apply what I have learned in my social psychology and sociology classes to real world problems that I witness in my every day life in hopes that I can solve social issues and benefit society. However, I wish to continue to analyze and solve real world experiences through more hands-on service engagement and will make this goal a top priority for my personal development in the upcoming year.