After attending an event hosted by the veterinary school, I have a better idea of what is needed to be a competitive applicant. Next semester I am planning to apply for a job at the veterinary medical center to get more veterinary experience. I also want to start volunteering at a food pantry and maybe also a pet vaccine clinic. I hope to do all of this while maintaining good grades and continuing to be involved in my student organizations and research lab. Over the summer I will be working at an outpatient clinic and studying for the GRE. Being a STEP participant, I want to use funding to apply to veterinary or animal care internships for the following summer which is also the time I will start applying to vet schools in the hopes of entering vet school right after I graduate. The near future seems hectic and busy, but I am fully committed to these things because I want to achieve my goal of getting into vet school. I hope that I’ll be able to utilize support from my professors, lab, and peers to accomplish all of this.
Review of SOCIOL 1101
This semester I took Introduction to Sociology as part of a General Education requirement. Before taking the class I did not have any idea what the field was about. However, as I took the class I found that it touched on a lot of topics in society that I am concerned about such as socioeconomic, racial, and gender inequality. The concepts were fairly simple, but it articulated clearly thoughts that I have previously had when looking at the same issues. The supplementary articles and studies that were added to some chapters really enhanced my understanding and gave more specific examples that allowed me to utilize and expand on the knowledge I got from the textbook. The most important thing that I felt the course stressed was objectivity. While examining other societies or practices that may seem strange or even immoral, I slowly came to approach them with less judgment and an emphasis on understanding the basis of those situations. I also found the big assignment, an essay analyzing the movie Zootopia, to be a fun way to apply what I had learned. Before this class I had only taken psychology, so combining my knowledge from these two subjects will give me a more comprehensive perspective on issues both on the individual and societal level.
Year in Review (SP22)
Academically, the last two semesters were pretty challenging. In the fall I took organic chemistry and physics, and this semester I took another organic chemistry class. Due to how rigorous my classes were, I have been slowly figuring out what study strategies and spaces work best for me. It did not come without setbacks, but I am more confident in my abilities and I know that I can keep up my good grades as long as I set my mind to it and keep focus. My schedule has been quite science-heavy and is projected to be the same in the future as well, so I am starting to think about what classes outside of science I might be interested in taking alongside my major and minor courses.
I was glad that in-person activities were being brought back, although I was intimidated at first going to club meetings where I initially did not know anyone. Pushing myself to attend events was outside of my comfort zone after such a long time being behind a screen, but I am happy that I challenged myself because as a result I met a lot of new people and got some amazing opportunities such as going on my spring break trip with Zoology Club.
My next academic year will definitely not be easy and it’s slightly stressful to think about how much closer I am to starting the application process for veterinary schools, but I am still excited for all that will come. I want to take it one step at a time and absorb as much as I can in both knowledge and memories.
Spring Break Trip
During spring break, I traveled with the OSU Zoology Club to North Carolina to volunteer at Possumwood Acres Wildlife Sanctuary (PAWS) and Lynnwood Park Zoo. PAWS focuses on the rescue and rehabilitation of wildlife, and I was able to work with crows, raptors, and ducks by cleaning their enclosures and/or feeding them. It was fun to learn about the animals that were housed there and to interact with wildlife that are commonly found but people normally do not have the chance to make contact with.
Lynnwood Park Zoo had a great assortment of animals, and I got to see the inner workings of a small zoo. My tasks got me up close with emus, reptiles, livestock animals, primates, and more. The picture above is an African porcupine quill that I picked up while cleaning their enclosure. Besides feeding and cleaning, we learned about other aspects of care that we got to do hands-on practice for, such as trimming hooves on a donkey. We also got to interact with guests by doing keeper talks, which involved cramming a lot of information about a particular animal and presenting it for guests to see and touch. While there, I did my first ever vaccination on a mini horse aptly named Tiny, which I personally feel is a huge milestone in my career.
This trip taught me a lot about animal care and communication, and it assured me that going down the veterinary path is something that I am enthusiastic about.
SafePoint Ohio Harm Reduction Kits (Service Engagement)
A memorable service activity I have done in SP21 was assembling safety kits for SafePoint Ohio. While I was assigned to pack tourniquets specifically, my friends were assigned to pack aluminum caps and mini cotton balls, and I learned about the importance of giving people access to safe and clean supplies while battling drug addiction. After assembling the harm reduction kits I tried to learn more about SafePoint’s philosophies and resources that help the community.
Second Semester Career Reflection
In the spring semester, I have gotten opportunities to help me further pursue a career in veterinary medicine.
After the Scholars Seminar course where we had an assignment to research some labs we would be interested in, I decided to email a lab over winter break to see if I would able to join in the spring semester. I wanted to join a research lab because I thought that it would better help me understand the process of research, which I feel is especially important to me as a STEM major and pre-veterinary student. I wanted to join the Parasite and Pathogen Ecology Lab specifically because vector-borne diseases impact animals as well as humans, which I thought would be a good opportunity to learn more about animal diseases and veterinary public health, and I was lucky to be accepted by Dr. Pesapane.
In the lab, I was exposed to a lot of new lab procedures, such as DNA extraction and PCR testing. I was able to ask questions about the lab and lab procedures and gain a better understanding of what I would be doing. Dr. Pesapane and the other team members I encountered in the lab gave me confidence in my abilities as I was trusted to help out and eventually get a small assignment without supervision. I gained new perspectives from team members, who despite being in the same lab had different backgrounds and wanted to go different paths in the future. The lab skills I gained could help me in other wet labs in the future, but for now I think there’s still a lot to learn in my current lab and I want to stay in it for the foreseeable future. Next semester, I am hoping to be able to develop my own project within the lab.
For the summer, I will be doing essentially a paid internship at a vet clinic in order to get experience for vet school. I hope that the small clinic environment of the place I am working at will be advantageous for developing skills I could use to work at a vet clinic and for networking with the veterinarians and veterinary staff.
Artifacts
The above picture is a t-shirt designed for SerenAIDe, which is a charity concert that my high school choir puts on every spring. SerenAIDe was originally organized years ago in memory of a previous choir teacher’s husband who was diagnosed with ALS, and in the following years we have been able to raise money for local families who have been affected by an ALS diagnosis. I was able to really get involved starting in my junior year after joining choir council by heading a concert committee, the same year we decided to branch out and donate to Women for Women International, an organization that supports women wartime survivors. In my senior year we planned to donate to Live for the Moment, a leukemia and lymphoma charity. As a part of both the choir council and the Tri-M Music Honor Society board, I had the added responsibility of communicating information to members of the honor society along with leading a concert committee. There was a setback of going online, but we were still able to pull off a livestream concert and raise thousands of dollars. SerenAIDe was inspiring in that it was a way to see a relatively small group coming together to support the community, and I am grateful for the opportunities that I had to contribute to it.
Year In Review (AU20)
Despite the circumstances that we are living in and the changes it brought to learning, I think I was able to get through this semester quite successfully. I expect to be ending the semester with a good GPA, which is a relief because I had heard scary things about Chem 1220. The last hurdle is finals, since I have never taken any cumulative exams in high school, but I think I am on the right track and will be ready for them. I liked the classes that I chose to take and the content that I have learned from them, especially in Psychology 1100, which is the first time I have taken a psychology course. It has gotten me to think about minoring in psychology, but honestly I am still very indecisive on whether I want to add a major and/or declare any minors. With my survey classes completed, I look forward to the classes that I have enrolled in for spring semester.
Socially, I did not meet as many people as I would have liked to, but in these times maybe having a smaller group is a more favorable situation. I would still consider this a success, though, as an out-of-state person who knew zero students prior to coming here. I was initially worried about joining student organizations, but as the semester went by I have been able to narrow down my interests and start to focus on a few groups I would really like to stick with.
I will always look back fondly on this semester, and I am excited to move forward (on campus, hopefully).
Resume
Welcome to my Honors & Scholars e-Portfolio
Welcome to my e-Portfolio! This is a place where I will be posting some of my experiences and thoughts about my college career so far. The Artifacts section is where I will post experiences that I found impactful and beneficial. The G.O.A.L.S. section will be about how I can apply Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement to my time at OSU. Finally, I will reflect on my growth in Year in Review. My aim is to show more of my goals, achievements, and thinking through this site.