At the beginning of the 2016-2015 school year I will start my first experience as a Resident Advisor working in Taylor-Tower here at OSU!  I have worked with housing, as an Office Assistant, both my freshman and sophomore years, and I am excited to continue to work for housing.

I included being an RA, because it has already become one of my most transformative experiences. So far I have only been meeting with my staff, and taking a class to train me mentally for the job, but I am already very excited. I am gaining real-world skills on how to deal with, stress, anxiety, depression, anger, students leaving home, fights, social situations, and how to support my residents. These skills are skills that I will need throughout the rest of my life because I am becoming better at interacting with people, and I better understand the multitude of issues each individual might be dealing with. I will, in a sense, be ushering students into their first years of adulthood, and what could be more exciting than that! I know it will be challenging, and I will have many a sleepless night, but I am excited for my job to be building a community amongst a group of people. I know these skills will transfer greatly into the workforce, as I learn to build community for workers, deal with complex and tense situations, and learn how to bring people together!

From May to June of 2016 I will be interning with Canadian Parliament. This experience is important for me in that it is my first internship and real-world experience with my major. I have two majors, Political Science and Business. I hope to gain experience in Political Science by interning with Canadian Parliament. So far I have begun by taking two courses on Canadian Politics and Canadian Culture to prepare myself to work in Parliament. I have learned the differing mindsets of the Canadian public and much about their values. I also learned a great deal about how the Parliamentary system works, how the people are represented, what powers politicians have, and what issues are pressing for the Canadian public at the moment.

It has been a great learning experience in that I am understanding what makes Canada, Canada. Perhaps even more interesting is now I know what makes America, America. I have found, often times in my study abroad programs, that study abroad experiences teach you just as much about your home as it does about where you go to visit. I hope through this experience I will come back with a unique perspective on American politics, and hopefully I can bring my fresh perspectives into the workforce to drive change here in the U.S..

Towards the end of my freshman year I went to Toronto with my International Affairs Scholars group. This picture he shows the city of Toronto, and for me looks like what our average day looked like. I went on this trip with IA to better understand Canadian culture and immigration. Though Canada is right next door to the U.S., their culture is different in a lot of ways. Canada prides itself on multiculturalism and bringing in a wide array of citizens through immigration. Understanding how they value immigration, why, its value, how it helps Canada, and the mindset of Canadians on immigration, helps me to understand the value of living in a more inclusive and cultural society. I wanted to understand what a culture was like that was more welcoming of immigration, especially since the U.S. seems more hesitant to immigrants than in the past.

I selected this picture because it taught me a lot about how different other areas of the world can be and what we can learn from them. Canada is one of our closest neighbors, yet hardly anyone in the U.S. can tell you anything about them except they have a maple leaf on their flag. In learning about Canada I began to understand the economic value immigration can bring, and how a mindset of multiculturalism works. I began to understand the difference in approach Canada takes with its culture than the U.S. does with its. Because of how insightful this experience is, it has also become one of my favorite college experiences.