My year-in-review is a response to the following prompt:
"What specific experiences (honors or otherwise) in the past year have had the most impact on your academic and professional goals and trajectory? Articulate specific academic and/or professional goals for the next year."
I think this year has really been about finding the balance between long-term and short-term vision. Realizing this balance was a process that encompassed the entire school year, and realizing the significance of this has been really powerful. When I began the school year, I was very sure in my major, and I was looking to figure out the short-term/day-to-day aspect of my life that was changing so drastically my first year in college. As the semester went on, I feel like I started to doubt my choices, as I'm sure all of us do. I was getting caught up in the flow of the semester, and when I "looked up" to consider my long term goals, I wasn't sure about anything. I was unsure in my school choice, and I loved my major, but there are so many things I want to do with my life, I couldn't help but wonder if I was making the wrong choice somehow. Part of this was amplified by the fact that I essentially only chose UC for Architectural Engineering. It wouldn't have made my list if I hadn't chose this major, so with changing my major, would come changing schools. This doubt continued through the end of the semester.
The first week of winter break, I completed my first honors experience by attending Leadershape. I was going with a few of my friends, and didn't know exactly what to expect. At the end of the experience, I had become close with the majority of our nearly forty participant group. I had shared a lot of great experiences with these people, and we had the opportunity to talk about a lot of things with each other. One of the people I met had this conversation with me, and he was the first person to hear what I was thinking and why I was doubting myself, and challenge me. I finally started to think about all the people I'd met through Leadershape, the honors program, and CEAS, and realized there was nowhere else I was supposed to be.
Going into second semester, I had a renewed sense of place and purpose in Cincinnati, and it allowed me to take off. I realized I love being that person who's always busy, and I embraced it. I started working out nearly every morning, often with my friends from the honors program. I took my organizational leadership class, excited to grow closer to a new group of people in Peru over spring break. I started training to become a ROAR tour guide, and made plans to start my own radio show with Bearcast Media. I realized I liked math a lot, and decided to minor in Mathematics. I started talking with my department head about accelerated masters degrees. I relished the opportunities to build more connections, and try to find more friends. Near the end of this semester, I started taking this to the extreme. I wanted to run for a position on the executive board of ROAR tour guides, and scale up my on-campus involvement. This is great, except it makes it difficult to co-op in cities besides Cincinnati, which is something integral to my long term plans. I want to live and work in New York City, and was planning to look for a co-op there beginning next spring. I was experiencing this clash between my short and long-term visions. There was this direct correlation, where I had to choose my precedence.
I wasn't sure what to do, but luckily life provided me with an opportunity to have a good long think about it. After going home for COVID-19(the only place on the planet that I didn't want to be in fact), I thought about graduate school, co-op, and where I wanted to work, I realized that it's easy to forget to aim for big things, and slip into a decent paying job at a random company. I had the confidence in myself to think bigger than that. I figured out I can do a lot of things at once. I planned out my co-ops, and nearly everything in between as well, and am excited to return to my new home in Cincinnati, and rediscover the balance between achieving these goals and enjoying every moment along the way.
"What specific experiences (honors or otherwise) in the past year have had the most impact on your academic and professional goals and trajectory? Articulate specific academic and/or professional goals for the next year."
I think this year has really been about finding the balance between long-term and short-term vision. Realizing this balance was a process that encompassed the entire school year, and realizing the significance of this has been really powerful. When I began the school year, I was very sure in my major, and I was looking to figure out the short-term/day-to-day aspect of my life that was changing so drastically my first year in college. As the semester went on, I feel like I started to doubt my choices, as I'm sure all of us do. I was getting caught up in the flow of the semester, and when I "looked up" to consider my long term goals, I wasn't sure about anything. I was unsure in my school choice, and I loved my major, but there are so many things I want to do with my life, I couldn't help but wonder if I was making the wrong choice somehow. Part of this was amplified by the fact that I essentially only chose UC for Architectural Engineering. It wouldn't have made my list if I hadn't chose this major, so with changing my major, would come changing schools. This doubt continued through the end of the semester.
The first week of winter break, I completed my first honors experience by attending Leadershape. I was going with a few of my friends, and didn't know exactly what to expect. At the end of the experience, I had become close with the majority of our nearly forty participant group. I had shared a lot of great experiences with these people, and we had the opportunity to talk about a lot of things with each other. One of the people I met had this conversation with me, and he was the first person to hear what I was thinking and why I was doubting myself, and challenge me. I finally started to think about all the people I'd met through Leadershape, the honors program, and CEAS, and realized there was nowhere else I was supposed to be.
Going into second semester, I had a renewed sense of place and purpose in Cincinnati, and it allowed me to take off. I realized I love being that person who's always busy, and I embraced it. I started working out nearly every morning, often with my friends from the honors program. I took my organizational leadership class, excited to grow closer to a new group of people in Peru over spring break. I started training to become a ROAR tour guide, and made plans to start my own radio show with Bearcast Media. I realized I liked math a lot, and decided to minor in Mathematics. I started talking with my department head about accelerated masters degrees. I relished the opportunities to build more connections, and try to find more friends. Near the end of this semester, I started taking this to the extreme. I wanted to run for a position on the executive board of ROAR tour guides, and scale up my on-campus involvement. This is great, except it makes it difficult to co-op in cities besides Cincinnati, which is something integral to my long term plans. I want to live and work in New York City, and was planning to look for a co-op there beginning next spring. I was experiencing this clash between my short and long-term visions. There was this direct correlation, where I had to choose my precedence.
I wasn't sure what to do, but luckily life provided me with an opportunity to have a good long think about it. After going home for COVID-19(the only place on the planet that I didn't want to be in fact), I thought about graduate school, co-op, and where I wanted to work, I realized that it's easy to forget to aim for big things, and slip into a decent paying job at a random company. I had the confidence in myself to think bigger than that. I figured out I can do a lot of things at once. I planned out my co-ops, and nearly everything in between as well, and am excited to return to my new home in Cincinnati, and rediscover the balance between achieving these goals and enjoying every moment along the way.