One of my favorite things Ohio State has to offer its students is the mountain of activites to do outside of the classroom – student organizations of every kind, varsity sports teams and incredible music and drama performances. If you ever get bored on this campus, it’s probably because of a lack of trying. In a lot of ways, I feel like my involvement with different things on campus has shaped my college years as much as the time I spent in the classroom. To my amazement, my freshman year was almost the low point of my collegiate career as well.

Coming from a smaller high school on the west side of Cleveland, I was never exposed to anything that was as large and with so much to do as OSU. High school meant class during the day, running practice afterward, dinner and then homework.

In Columbus, though, I felt like I was doing something wrong by not trying it all, but I couldn’t clearly see how it was affecting me. Sure, my grades were low during my freshman fall quarter, but, hey, I was still adjusting, right? And I was in a tough major … and I was away from home from the first time. The excuses kept coming, even after parents and friends laid out the way for me to fix it: study more, do a little less.

There were football games, meetings, parties, more meetings, concerts and even more meetings to go to. I was salutatorian of my high school class. Certainly, I would pull out of my academic funk and get it together.

It never happened. I left my freshman year with about a thousand friends on this campus, but with a GPA I was less than proud of. That summer, I worked as a garbageman, hanging off the back of a trash truck. Needless to say, I had a lot of time to myself to think during work. I reflected a lot on my freshman year during those hours. Taking a step back, I was able to see that I wasn’t doing it the right way.

Academically, I needed to work far harder than I ever did before to keep my head above water. I would still be able to enjoy all the extra things that OSU has, but with more moderation and the satisfaction of knowing that I wouldn’t be asked to leave my major. There were road bumps along the way – such as the C- I got in Chemistry 253 – but, overall, I began to find my fit at OSU. It was hard to narrow down what I did out of the classroom, but I was able to make a more worthwhile contribution to the groups I remained a part of.

OSU is a big place, which I think is a great thing. I’d guess a lot of students here have some kind of moment where they begin to see their role a little more clearly and start defining themselves. Some might not even know that it happened: as it might just be a culmination of different experiences that push a person in the right direction. For me, it took time on a garbage truck to sort it out.

As you move through your years at OSU, I’d encourage each of you to take time to reflect on that moment when you really understood what it is you want from your collegiate experience. OSU means something different to every person here, and I think that it is important to figure out what it means to you. For some people, it takes a quarter, for some it takes two, for some it takes a year. In my case, I know that I was able to get more out of OSU once I understood how to get there.

Socrates claimed, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” While I wouldn’t go that far, I think that a little inward, Buckeye reflection can certainly be a good thing.

Scott Wendell is a senior in chemical engineering. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].