My First Semester at OSU

Over the course of these first few months at OSU I have gotten involved with many things ranging from BEGO’s executive board to quidditch and I have loved it all. It’s hard to believe I once had any reservations about coming here. Before entering college I was worried about going to such a big campus and making and doing well in classes but after a semester here those fears have mostly disappeared. Making friends come quick with all the new people I was meeting through the different clubs I joined and with proper effort my classes were not as much of a struggle as I originally thought, although time management is still something I am working to perfect. Now my biggest concern is passing my finals. This semester has been so much fun with all the activities I participated in from my clubs to my scholars community. The humanities scholars community helped me engage in and learn about language, the arts, culture, and many other aspects of the humanities while meeting people with similar interests as me. Participating in activities like the gender blender, community meetings, and mentor group outings has helped me gain a better understanding of humanity as a whole and how I can help better it by getting involved. Throughout the next few years I look forward to continue being an active member of the humanities scholars community and hopefully my class schedule will allow me to attend more discussions and outings. One type of activity that I wished I could have made and hopefully can attend next year is the social justice discussions. With all that’s going on in the world and all the conflicts occurring domestically I think it is really important to discuss such issues if we want to fix them and as someone who wants to help with that I would love to be able to go to one of these events and learn more about what I can do.

My Top 5 Strengths

My stop five strengths were Strategic, Competition, Intellection, Input, and Achiever.  Cohesively they make me a hard-working and curious individual who loves learning and accomplishing tasks. Having Strategic as a strength means I can quickly evaluate a situation and all its possible outcomes so that I can easily select the best solution by thinking through the problem in a unique way. This strength will help me solve problems quickly in academics by utilizing the creativity it gives me during problem solving and it helps me remember things by making up acronyms for usual facts. Since I can find the “right” way to things quickly I often take on leadership positions and use my creativity to help plan things just as I’ve been doing on executive board of BEGO.

Being an Achiever means that I strive for accomplishment. This will help in academics because I constantly want to get things done and do them well. I like staying busy which is why I’ve joined various clubs on campus. Since I enjoy achieving things, I tend to make friends with other people who are driven since they get things done. This will help push me in the future to continually accomplish something each day, no matter how small. Having Input as a strength makes me very curious about the world around me. I’m always trying to soak things in and am amazed at the smallest things.  In academics this will help me because I constantly store things, even seemly irrelevant facts, to be used for later and to build upon my knowledge. I love interacting with other people who are just as fascinated with the world and talk with them because it further builds to my collection of facts.

Intellection creates a need to learn more. It also makes me very introspective and sometimes antisocial since I like to take time alone to think through things and what they mean. This can help me in academics because I always want to know more and therefore focus on learning and asking questions until I have an answer. Over time this will help me learn more about myself and the world through my inquiry and reflection. Competition makes me compare my progress with others and incites a desire in me to win. In academics this pushes me to be at the top of the class which helps me work harder. In life I motivate others with this strength and we make each other better. In the future, competition will constantly make me strive to be the best and accomplish a lot.

My First Week at OSU

Overall the first week of my college career has been a positive one filled with lots of changes and thankfully many friends to share in the experience. I moved in early on Thursday as part of the OWL program and was immediately bombarded with countless icebreakers in the coordinators’ attempt to get us to talk to each other. Some familiar faces were established as the day rolled on and games continued to flow but it was not until the second day that I really had a chance to have a meaningful conversation with people and create a small group of friends. I also got to meet my roommate just in time for move-in the next day. While the day was long and the effort certainly tiring, I loved helping everyone move in Saturday. I got to meet a lot more people and learn my way around Baker East and the rest of South campus and I have yet to get majorly lost on the university grounds.

My group of friends quickly expanded as ice cream socials and late night talks ensued. Welcome Week was certainly an experience to be remembered as the amount of free sunglasses, t-shirts, and food I was bombarded with went beyond the realm of reason, but of course that did not stop me from grabbing as many free things as I could. When classes started I was definitely a bit nervous. We were all told coming into OSU that it was expected for us to put in two to three hours of work for every one hour spent inside the classroom and even more with science classes, so needless to say the difficulty of the classes and the amount of effort they required scared me coming onto campus. However things have run smoothly so far and the plethora of opportunities and the sense of freedom from being away from home offer many chances to get involved at OSU: the 1,200 booths at the involvement fair attest to that. I have already joined the Quidditch club and I enjoy every minute of our practices. This sense of endless possibilities is what I am most excited about. The university is one of the largest in the country, with impeccable programs for every major, all while being centered in one of the largest and most diverse cities in the nation: there are an infinite amount of ways to be inspired and get involved. Going forward that is exactly what I look to do. I want to participate in resident life and continue making new friends as I make the most of the next four years.