This past week, in order to try out the Universities free academic resources, I visited the Math and Statistics Learning Center for help with my Calculus homework. Needless to say, this experience was very weird for me. Throughout High School, I was never one to need help with my course work, let alone ask for it. When I began having problems with one of our assignments, I decided that it was the perfect opportunity to use one of the many resources provided by the campus.

Thankfully, I have my Software 1 class in the same building as the MSLC, or else I probably wouldn’t have been able to find it. It was in the basement of Cockins Hall and down a very discreet set of hallways with arrows pointing towards the assigned room for my class. Thankfully, once I got there, I was greeted by a friendly front desk assistant who led me through signing in and understanding the system. I immediately felt welcomed in the room and not at all embarrassed to be asking for help. After putting up one of the flags to signal that I had a question, a TA promptly sat next to me and began explaining the conceptual issue I was having. I was struggling with a recent concept we learned in class known as implicit differentiation, and the TA did a wonderful job of explaining the content and even helped me through extra practice problems.

Overall, it was a very helpful and engaging experience that helped me in more ways than one. While there, I witnessed the TA’s helping students in a multitude of ways. This included giving the students example problems, describing concepts in easier terms, and even a technique that resembled more leading the student to right answer with small clues rather than straight up telling them what to do. Especially for a help center focused around Math, I believe that this last technique was probably the most effective. Math is a subject very much centered around understanding what your doing, not just memorizing a set of steps to find the correct answer. The TA that helped me didn’t do this, however I was still able to find a basic grasp of the concept that I’m hoping will be built upon during recitation.

I think help seeking is something that a lot of students struggle with. Nobody wants to admit that they’re having problems, and college is no different. I especially struggle with asking for help due to always being able to work through content on my own in high school. An easier way to do this might be through private tutoring since that provides students with a less public experience that can be more catered towards their own needs. In the past, I have thought about becoming a tutor for classes such as Chemistry, Physics, and Computer Science, due to my easy grasp on concepts and I am even still considering teaching Computer Science as my back up major if CSE doesn’t end up working out. I would definitely go to the MSLC again should i ever need more help with my course work.

Hello!

The past couple of weeks, I’ve been attending an event called “Real Life” put on by Cru, a Christian organization centered around fellowship between student. I found out about it at the involvement fair during welcome week and decided to attend the following Sunday. I attended with a couple a friends and decided that I would begin attending on a regular occasion, and during the second week, Cru introduced another opportunity to get involved in an organization, Freshman Leadership Team, otherwise known as FLT.

FLT is a sub-organization of Cru that promotes leadership and welcoming qualities in first years that want to take on a role in Cru throughout their years at OSU. The first meeting was kind of awkward, and not to mention hot; the entire room was packed with freshman eager to become a part of Cru in the future! Hopefully, going to FLT will help me take on more of a leadership role in Cru in the future, most likely something along the lines of a small group leader. Also, I’m super excited to see what  relationships I can build here with peers that have similar beliefs to me. Almost every student I met at the FLT meeting was joyful and just as excited as me to begin building a community within the club that we can use to reach those outside of it.

One thing I’ve had to adjust to is Cru meeting on Sunday nights, which is when I used to finish all of my homework during my High School years. I’ve had to be intentional about my time an where my priorities lie regarding friends, school, and faith. I will also need to begin managing my work even more if FLT leads to work outside of the meetings on Thursdays.

This last meeting, at “Real Life”, Cru invited some individuals who were from “The Thompson Institute”, an organization of Christian Professors and Scholars, to come and talk to us. I plan on getting in contact with a few of the Engineering individuals there and maybe striking up a conversation on how their faith has affected their professional decisions. Hopefully, this may even lead to connections in the future regarding research and internship opportunities.

I didn’t have any particular trouble finding Cru, my only problem was choosing between Cru and one of the other 20 or so Christian organizations on campus. There were multiple other ones that I considered and a few I even attended such as H20 and Campus City Church.  They even have small groups for each dorm to build stronger relationships with those that each student will be living with for the next year. I think that the size of OSU has a hindrance on this exact portion of student organizations. Some of the clubs seem so large that it’s hard to feel like your’re actually a tangible part of the whole. That’s the reason I decided to focus on Cru; the different community I saw within it a different community that, despite the size of the organization, they truly seemed to care for each student who attended.

Hi! My name is Trey Zeiger, I’m a freshman at The Ohio State University studying Computer Science and Engineering. I was born and raised in Uniontown, Ohio, a small town between Akron and Canton built around the Hartville Marketplace. Throughout my time at Lake High School, I was always very interested in the Maths and Sciences, as well as our very promising Computer Science classes. It was in these classes that I learned my very first programming language: python. From this, the interest only grew. I caught on quickly to the programming design and thought process. During this same year is when I first joined robotics club and began to delve into RobotC. In these classes, I learned what I believe to be the basis of my interest in Computer Science, creating my own things from scratch. I continued through our Schools Computer Science program for the remaining two years and at the end of my Junior year, earned a 5 on the AP Computer Science Exam.

Apart from the Computer Science class, I was also a part of something called the GenYes program. At my High School, there is a career tech program for students grades 10-12 that was basically the IT department for the entire school. We would help students with their school laptops and take various Computer Science classes through Stark State. The company, GenYes, asks that each student log whenever they help a student/teacher, and after around 40 hours of experience, they give the student the chance to apply to become ‘GenYes Certified’, which is a way of saying that the company verifies that we are experienced enough to help people without needing to be supervised at all times. I applied to be certified, and after a video call with the CEO and other higher ups in the company, I was certified in the Fall of 2017. To my knowledge, I was the first High School Junior in Ohio to be certified and even earned the #1 spot in their ranking system for a few months during the same year.

Outside of School, I was involved in a multitude of clubs and sports, Including Varsity Academic Challenge, Varsity Lacrosse, and Rock Climbing in my free time. Rock Climbing was always my favorite of these three and continues to be a hobby and passion today. I’ve never been as good as other people in the gym, but the dynamic of working on a certain route for hours, maybe even days, before finally reaching that top rock, is one of, if not the, best feeling in the world. I believe it is this same problem solving and perseverance that fuels my passion for Engineering. It’s the same process of working, failing, and learning that I’ve come to love in Rock Climbing, and finally finishing a long project, or a long program, is the same exact feeling I get when finishing a climb.

I’m so happy to finally be here at THE Ohio State University! I was raised in a Buckeye family and coming here for school has been 18 years in the making and I hope the experience I have here will be just as life-changing as I’ve grown to believe.