I recently concluded my self-guided project for the spring semester by recording my own cover of U2’s song, “Stay Faraway (So Close)”. My original plan for this project involved me practicing for one hour each day over Spring Break practicing on my electric guitar at home and then spending two hours over the following weekend practicing on my acoustic guitar at the university, but then that plan had to change when at first we were told that in-person classes would not resume until the end of March and then that they would not resume at all and we would need to move out of the dormitories. Thankfully for me, this only meant I had to wait an extra week before I could have access to my acoustic guitar once again. Overall, the actually guitar playing was not all that difficult, it was the synchronizing of my guitar playing and my singing that was a struggle. This was not a surprise as I have always struggled singing along to myself when playing anything more complicated than simple strumming, and thus I knew I would have to dedicate a significant amount of time to practicing. Another struggle I had was keeping myself focused for the entire duration of my practicing. I constantly found myself getting distracted by my own guitar and wanting to play other things I either already knew or had desires to quickly learn. This is not even to mention the countless other things that were also simultaneously distracting me while I was practicing. Another issue I had was not just trying to keep myself mentally one hundred percent for a full hour each day, but also keeping myself physically one hundred percent. After a while of practicing, the tips of my fingers would become quite raw and sensitive while the muscles in my fingers would become extremely tired. This meant my quality of playing would actually somewhat decrease over the course of an hour as my fingers were struggling to keep up. I managed to somewhat solve both of these problems by practicing in three 20 minute “sets” each day in order to add up to an hour each day. This way I was able to keep myself mentally motivated as 20 minutes did not feel like that long of a time while simultaneously giving my fingers and hands regular breaks in order to recover. These “sets” I felt were quite efficient and are something I hope to incorporate in some way for my capstone project for the following school year. In addition, it seemed that having regular amounts of time set on days when I had little other responsibilities to take care of was also effective. Hopefully next year, I will be able to devote significant amounts of time during the day on the weekend to my capstone project as that will be when I will feel the least stressed about my academic classes and when I will have the largest blocks of time available. All in all, I felt that I learned a great deal about self-direction over the course of this project that I will likely be able to apply in the future.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kZKFCNrpkGHMLJiU9

Attached below is a copy of my resume (updated April 2020):

Resume

For my spring project in STEM EE Scholars, I have decided to teach myself to play and sing U2’s Stay (Faraway, So Close!). I have had a passion for music for a long time, which has included multiple years of experience singing and playing guitar. This song is extremely beautiful and, in my opinion, U2’s most underrated song in addition to being one of my favorites by the band. I have not had a chance to be able to teach myself to both play and sing it at the same time since I struggle to play actual riffs on my guitar while singing. However, this project has finally provided me with the perfect opportunity to cross off one of the songs on my guitar “bucket list”. Once I am able to replace the string that I accidentally broke last semester, I feel confident that I will be able to perform the song well after 10+ hours of learning and practice.

Earlier today, I attended a diversity workshop put on by the Student Life Multicultural Center for the STEM EE Scholars program here at Ohio State. I honestly was not sure what to expect from this workshop. Being a white, heterosexual male, the discrimination that is often talked about during these workshops rarely apply directly to me. They do, unfortunately, often apply to my Hispanic younger sister back home in Tennessee. I felt the workshop was overall very productive and I learned quite a lot. I was able to identify my identity of being an out of state student as something that I think about often and sometimes makes me feel out of place. I was able to especially relate to the presenter when she gave the example of people mentioning specific towns assuming you know the entire state of Ohio. I admit I had to laugh at that example. I also learned about categories of privilege that I did not realize existed such as being fertile vs infertile. I felt that her explanation of what “privilege” meant and that it was not meant to be used in a punitive way. The presenter also explained that people who are “privileged” should not feel guilty about their “privileges” and should instead use their “privilege” to help others who are less “privileged”. Unfortunately, the presenter was not able to tell me the difference between Latinx and Hispanic for my sister, so I will likely have to do further research. Being at Ohio State, with a very diverse student population, means that diversity and inclusion affects all of us on a daily basis. People are coming from very different backgrounds and we all have to be conscious of that when interacting and working with one another. To call back to my previous example, it would be unfair of someone to assume that I had grown up in and knew enough about Ohio to talk about things in Ohio as a native just as it would be unfair for me to do the same about Tennessee. In addition, Ohio State has a significant international population meaning that we all need to be conscious of their potential cultural differences and language barriers when interacting with them. This is very different from back home where I lived in an upper middle class suburb of Nashville that was well-educated and mostly white with the exception of a significant East Asian and Indian population in my area. I think it is important for university, especially a university of large and prolific as Ohio State, to have a great focus on diversity because the university attracts a very large and diverse student population. With there being so many people, it can feel easy for one to be lost, especially when they are different from the other people they are immediately surrounded by. I know I felt lost being a non-Ohioan in my first few weeks, so I can only imagine what it is like for someone who is part of a more obvious minoritized group (i.e. LGBTQ+, international, first-generation, etc.). Overall, however, I think Ohio State does a fantastic job of making sure that everyone in its diverse population feels included.

Overall, I have loved Ohio State since the moment I arrived on campus in August; however, my immune system has felt otherwise. I was warned by one of my professors that I would be the sickest I had ever been because of all the new germs I would be exposed to. This proved to be the case as later that night, my first cold since leaving home came on less than a month into the year. After a few weeks, when I finally thought I had gotten over the cold, it came back, this time with a worse sore throat. I was back and forth about whether to go to the doctor since I was paranoid of having mono; however, this choice became quite clear the next morning when I woke up with pink eye. I tried to make an appointment at the Student Wellness Center online, but since I had never been there, the website told me I had to call in order to make an appointment. Thankfully, they were able to squeeze an appointment in for me before my Calculus quiz and Physics lab later that afternoon. After I walked over to the Wellness Center and checked in, I sat down in the waiting room and filled out the paperwork of my medical history that I would have needed in order to make an appointment online. I was then led back into a generic doctor’s office where I was to see a nurse practitioner. She was very friendly and asked me the standard questions about my my medical history. She also agreed with my instructor that I will be very sick the first semester of college. She determined that I did indeed have pink eye and prescribed some eye drops to take over the next week. I also decided to ask her about my sore throat. She took a look at my throat and determined that I did not have mono but did have a lot of mucus in my throat which was likely causing irritation. She also said I was okay to go to my Calculus test and my Physics lab later that day as long as I made sure to use hand sanitizer frequently, a bottle of which I ended up carrying around that day. Eye-drops in hand, I walked back t my dorm in order to prepare for my test and lab that afternoon. After a week of taking the eye drops and not wearing my contacts, my pink was gone, just in time for me to fly home for Fall Break. Overall, I had a very positive experience with the Student Wellness Center here at Ohio State. The only change I would potentially make is to allow for the medical history form to be filled out online as not having this filled out prevented me from being able to simply schedule an appointment online. I am unsure of the legal and ethics restrictions of this, but if it were possible, it would make going to the doctor much more convenient for first-year students like myself.

My major, Atmospheric Sciences, does not put on very many seminars throughout the year as there is an annual Severe Weather Symposium in the spring that most of their invited guests for the year speak at. The Department of Geography, the academic department that houses Ohio State’s Atmospheric Sciences Program, likewise does not put on very many seminars. I am however considering pursuing a minor in Mathematics whose respective department puts on several seminars every day. Because of this, I resolved to attend one of these seminars after my STEM Scholars survey class last Tuesday. In addition, at the last second, I convinced my friend Jacob to attend this seminar with me as well. With neither of us having ever been within Cockins Hall before, we were at first slightly lost, but then noticed a sign pointing to the classroom where the seminar was being held. I was then unsure if it was the right classroom and wanted to check on the department website to be sure, but then we saw another student enter the classroom and decided to try going in as well. When we walked in, I recognized the title of the lecture and the name of the lecturer on the projector, so I knew we were in the right place. The title of the seminar was, “Quasiperiodicity, sliding window embeddings, and the Künneth theorems,” and was given by Hitesh Gakhar of Michigan State University. Jacob and I sat in the center of the middle row and waited for the seminar to begin. There were a few symbols and subtopics that we recognized but the lecture otherwise was over our heads. I expected this as the only other attendees were a dozen of what I assumed to be grad students in the Math Department. I feel however that by the end of my potential math minor, I could attend the same lecture and enjoy it considerably as my only obstacle to enjoyment this time was my lack of upper-division knowledge of the field. In fact, having looked through some of the course descriptions of the classes I would take in order to fulfill the requirements for my math minor, I would end up learning and eventually understanding many of the subtopics that were discussed in relation to Gakhar’s research. Overall, I think this experience was good for me, even as a first-year undergraduate student in my first semester. This allowed me to see what attending a seminar was like, something I will likely do in my upper-division undergraduate years and almost certainly will be doing in graduate school. If I were to continue to attend math seminars as I progressed through my minor or atmospheric sciences seminars as I progressed through my major, I could likely make connections that would benefit me both during my time here at Ohio State and after I graduate. At the very least, it would look impressive to any of my professors or instructors that happened to see me attending or to whom I discuss or mention the seminar to.

A few weeks ago, I had my first quiz in Calculus 1. Since I had taken AP Calculus BC my junior year of high school, I already had exposure to and felt quite comfortable with the material going into the class. This confidence was strengthened by my quick understanding and completion of assignments and activities, both inside and outside the classroom. When I finally took the quiz, I finished it quickly and confidently; however, to my surprise, I only received a 75% on it. When I was looking back over the quiz, I noticed that I had not made any mistakes with actual math (with the lone exception of forgetting a negative sign in one of my answers). The reason for my losing of the two of the eight possible points on the quiz was my supposed lack of work shown when answering the questions. This greatly confused me because I felt I had shown enough work and was unsure of how my instructors wanted me to complete these problems. I was also afraid of potential losing more points on the upcoming quizzes, homework, and worst of all, the upcoming midterm in two weeks. This is why I decided to go to my T.A., Sami Sultan’s, office hours later that day after my STEM Scholars survey class. I was somewhat nervous about doing this because, like most high-achieving students in high school, I very rarely sought help from my instructors, even in times when I likely needed it. Also, since my phone has a bad battery and I had drained my portable charger, my phone died and I subsequently became paranoid of getting lost. Thankfully, I remembered having walked by the Mathematics Tower before, so I was able to quickly find it. Since I had also written down Sami’s room number during recitation class knowing I would be stopping by later, I was also able to quickly find  his office. When I got there Sami was already in the process of explaining a concept to another student, so I pulled up a chair and patiently waited until he was finished with her. He was then able to explain to me how I needed to elaborate on what rules and theorems I applied in each of the steps of solving the various limits on the quiz. This was of great help to me as I was not expected to show my work this way by my teacher when I originally took AP Calculus. I was then able to apply this newfound knowledge on my aforementioned midterm exam two weeks later and received a 95% on it, greatly improving my overall grade in the class. In hindsight, I am very glad that I sought out help and was able to prevent myself from stumbling into a pitfall by unnecessarily letting myself struggle like I did in high school. I have been told before that I have the heart of a teacher, and this experience only strengthened my desire to want to help people learn. This is why I will be continuing to contribute to the WOW outreach program here at Ohio State.

A few weeks ago, I attended the first meeting of the year for the Ohio State Meteorology Club. I first heard about this club through emails from my academic advisor and from the Department of Geography website. I then tracked down their booth at the Involvement Fair and was able to talk to some of the members and give them my contact information. I then received an email with the details of the upcoming first meeting and subsequently made plans to attend. Since I did not know many people in general at the time, especially anyone interested in meteorology, I attended the first meeting of the club by myself. I did not really know what to expect since I had never been involved in anything specifically tailored to meteorology before. The meeting was interesting as we discussed many of the potential upcoming events and the sister club, the Scarlet and Gray Forecasting Team, which I subsequently also joined. I was able to meet many people, most of them being fellow students pursuing the Atmospheric Science major, which was nice considering there are very few people on campus who have even heard of the Atmospheric Science program, let alone those who are actually a part of it. Most of the student leaders were upperclassmen in the major who knew the subject matter quite well and were comfortable socially, having known and worked with their fellow club members for a long time. This sense of camaraderie is quite comforting considering I am an out-of-state student who knew very few people at Ohio State before I got to campus. Hopefully, after a few years of attending meetings for the club and forecasting team and taking my specific atmospheric science classes, I too will be able to build this camaraderie and possibly become a leader for the club. This camaraderie is just one of the ways I believe student involvement benefits the student. As an out-of-state student, I obviously did not have very many friends coming with me to Ohio State; however, even the in-state students will eventually drift away from their high school friends in order to make new friends. I can already see this happening with some of my friends back home at the University of Tennessee who are trying just as hard to make new friends as my other friends are at other colleges and universities across the country. Another benefit of being involved in student organizations is the networking you have the opportunity to do with professionals who have the same interests as you. At the second meeting of the Meteorology Club, Dr. Hobgood of the Atmospheric Sciences program here at Ohio State was invited to talk about his knowledge of hurricanes and, at the time, the impending threat that Hurricane Dorian posed to Florida and the Bahamas. Because of this, I was able to meet and talk to a professor I will likely work with in the next several years while pursuing my degree and other research here at Ohio State. Finally, I believe that student involvement is a way to make a productive use of your free time. In college, you will likely have much more free time than you did in high school, and you will have much more freedom to decide what to do with it. Being involved in a student organization is a perfect way to make sure you don’t waste hours of your time doing unproductive or counterproductive things because as a wise person once said, “college is exactly what you make of it.”

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