Honors Experiences
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STudy abroad: Chile spring 2018
During my semester in Chile I was blessed to have a variety of meaningful experiences and opportunities to see what the country has to offer. This experience not only shaped my international understanding and added another unique perspective to my world view, but also served as an introspective opportunity for me to analyze my future and what is import to me. Between language barriers and health problems that would have been far simpler to handle back home, I learned the importance of adaptability. When put in a drastically new environment, at first everything may seem incredibly different and foreign. Now I look back and realize that every day is just a sequence of choices. I see that it doesn’t matter what continent you are on or who you are paying rent to, each day brings its own set of blessings and challenges and how we react to them determines who we are. I knew very little about Chile before I arrived, and I enjoyed having a blank slate to fully take everything in. I had been planning to study abroad since well before I started college and Santiago did not disappoint!
Project mexico 2016 Summer 2016
This summer I was honored to have the experience of being a summer staff member for Project Mexico. For two months I lived in Rosarito, Mexico on a horse ranch that has been transformed into a boys’ orphanage and the home base for Project Mexico’s home-building mission. Project Mexico allows groups of volunteers to come stay at the ranch for a week and build a home for a family in need. As staff members we make sure everything goes smoothly when there are between 50 and 125 Americans staying with us in Mexico, and help and teach said volunteers throughout the building and construction aspects of the experience. It is our job to ensure volunteers have adequate living and eating situations, and that the house is built properly. Most importantly as staff members we get to spend two or three months living in Mexico instead of just 7 days. This allows us to have wonderful experiences growing closer to the boys’ who live on the ranch year-round, closer to our fellow staff members, and create countless friendships with the volunteers that come down every other week. I have wanted to be a staff member since my first week-long home-building trip in 2011 and finally being able to do so was a bit surreal at times. I encourage anyone who can to go experience Project Mexico and plan to return for as long as I can as often as I can.
Artifacts
HOnors seminar: Listen to the Music Fall 2015
Listen to The Music was an excellent learning experience that combined aspects of music history and music appreciation. Throughout the semester we studied various eras in music history, reviewed composer biographies, and analyzed aspects of musical composition and instrumentation. We also learned to take in unique aspects of music and act as active listeners. This course was designed to cater to students of all musical ability and provide insight over how a listener can appreciate all aspects of a piece rather than simply listening to it at face value. The final project of this course was an essay assignment analyzing a piece and its composer. Researching a musical piece and composer was an interesting change of pace for a research paper and one that I was very intrigued by. Not only did this class teach us historical relevance and impact of music throughout time, it also provided a new perspective on how we listen to music and changed the way we listen to all music, not just the pieces we studied in class. This class was a small and often discussion based class that gave me yet another view of the wonderful opportunities the honors program and honors seminars provide.
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ArtifactThe final paper asked us to examine a piece of music and its composer's life.
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Study abroad: spain Summer 2015
Studying abroad in Spain has been my favorite honors experience by far. Following spring semester I spent four weeks in Madrid, Spain for a study abroad language immersion program. During this program I and the other UC students participating stayed with families in Madrid and lived in their apartments. During the week we had 6 hours of class over language and culture each day, and planned excursions to local historic sites on Saturdays and holidays. Between classes, venturing out and about, and conversing with my host family I gained an immense amount of fluency despite only being there for four weeks. Beyond learning fluency and language skills, living in Europe for a month allowed me to experience to a new lifestyle. Being able to see America from another perspective was truly eye-opening. Seeing the way foreigners view the American lifestyle and the problems that are currently affecting our society. Seeing our country from an outside view is such an important perspective to experience, and so many American’s couldn’t care less. I loved everything I learned about Spanish and European culture and can’t wait to further my global knowledge and continue to travel.
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Honors Seminar: English COmposition Spring 2015
English Composition 2089 was an excellent way to both get an Honors Experience and obtain my last English requirement. Honors seminars are a great way to connect with other honors students and yet another way to reap the benefits of UC’s distinguished Honors Program. Simply filling a room with honors students elevates discussion and enhances learning drastically. English courses especially are heavily based in discussion. Being surrounded by learned and educationally experienced peers created an excellent platform for enriching discussions to occur. Aside from the level of discussion created by my peers, the curriculum and teaching style were also very enriching and educational. This course focused on advanced levels of genre analysis and literacy. Between discussions and assignments, I gained a unique understanding of how we communicate with each other and the importance of our subconsciously fine-tuned literacy in day-day life. This course pushed me to analyze things about the way we all communicate that I never would have picked up on otherwise. For example, the first essay focused on literacy in communication. I wrote about my work experience in the dementia wing of an assisted living home the previous summer. In this essay, I analyzed the literacy I formed during three short months of work. This along with the rest of the curriculum gave me a new learned perspective on literacy that I would never have formed without this experience.
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ArtifactThe first assignment of the year asked us to analyze a literacy we formed at some point in our lives. I enjoyed analyzing and writing about my work experience in an assisted living home.
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Honors 1001 fall 2014
Gateway to University Honors has been a great introduction into the wonderful opportunity presented before me that we call the University of Cincinnati Honors Program. Every day I am in awe of the achievements of my peers and I am so thankful to have been given the chance to join this excellent group of individuals. The Honors Program offers a plethora of experiences for students to take advantage of. These opportunities range from Honors seminars, to study tours, to a proposal process allowing us to get funding for an endless range of research opportunities, study abroad, or independent study the Honors Program sees it fit to fund. However, the first experience we encounter as young budding honors students is the Gateway to University Honors course. Although it is only a one credit hour class, we thoroughly discuss the experiences, opportunities, and potential in reach of a students in our positions. This course helps students understand requirements we need to accomplish, things we have the chance to partake in but also helps us learn about ourselves. A large part of this class has to do with reflection and the process in which we process what we have accomplished. Gateway to University Honors has helped, and will continue to help all of us throughout our careers here at UC and beyond!
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My passion
This assignment, as part of the Gateway to University Honors course required students to thoroughly discuss a passion they see it fit to write about. It helped us narrow down what we really value in life while also fine-tuning our abilities to reflect.
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