One of the things I was most excited about when I chose Ohio State was joining student organizations. There were so many options to choose from, I didn’t even know where to start. After the Mini Involvement Fair, I found a lot of student organizations that sounded interesting. Among these were Engineers Without Borders, Big Data Analytics, and the group I will talk about in this post, STEM Outreach. STEM Outreach sounded interesting for multiple reasons. First, it was a group that I had heard of before. Many of the 2nd year STEM Scholars I have met are either members or have tried out STEM Outreach. I had only heard good things about it. The second reason was because of what the organization does. STEM Outreach describes their purpose as, “to inspire K12 students to go into engineering or to be interested in STEM concepts, by teaching students how to build inexpensive science projects and the scientific backing for how they work” (from their organization page). I loved the idea of combining the STEM field with service, especially when it comes to helping kids. I remember loving all the STEM-like projects in grade school and I really liked the idea of helping other kids learn to love them as well.
It turned out that STEM Outreach was actually having a meeting the same night as the Mini Involvement Fair. A group of friends and I decided that we would go and check it out. This was good because I was way less nervous having a group of people to go with. When we got there, we were welcomed in and offered pizza. There were a good amount of people there but there were still seats for us. After a short presentation and icebreakers, were free to start on the project. We were tasked with building a small circuit that made a wire jump off a screw. During this time, we all got to know each other and bonded over the project. And the student leaders were super nice and helpful throughout the meeting. Overall, the meeting was a success. The best part was that we got to keep the projects we made! These are the projects we made at the last two meetings. The second one is the circuit mentioned above, and the first one is a flashlight that week made at the second meeting.
The first week or so, I found it difficult to find organizations I had interest in. For one, I have really late classes this semester, and many meetings take place during my physics lectures. After the Mini Involvement Fair, however, I found a few organizations that I didn’t know about that I would be interested in. STEM Outreach turned out to be a great choice. It will also be easy to fit this organization into my schedule. Meetings are bi-weekly on Wednesdays which works well and the events happen frequently enough that I can fit those in too. I think that being a member of this organization will be good for me in many ways. Obviously, I will be meeting new people and have something to occupy my time, but I will also be helping people while doing it.