1. Think about your gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, special abilities or disabilities, age, socioeconomic status, religion, birth order and any other influences that come to mind.  How have these factors influenced your personality and learning preferences?

I am a male, Indian, straight, 21, middle class, Hindu student. I have a younger brother, so I was usually the guinea pig when it came to a lot of things such as applying for a 4 year university since my parents are from India. I never really thought about how these things influenced my personality or learning preferences until the first time I did this activity. Here are some of the things I realized:

1. Being Indian, you don't think you have a lot of career choices. It is a stereotype, but it is also true that most of the Indian people I know are either engineers or doctors. I am terrible at calculus so I knew I wouldn't want to do engineering but I did like to help people so I came to college thinking I wanted to be a eye doctor. Now that I think about it, the only reason I made that decision was because I wanted to please my parents with that choice and because doctors get paid well. When I was looking around at other majors, for the longest time I thought I had to pick something in the school of rehabilitation sciences. After getting into the Health Information and Management Systems program as well as the Athletic Training program, I realized nah I am a better fit for business. 

Other ethnicity can pick whatever they want and while Indian Americans can also, sometimes I feel like we are pigeon holed to believing we dont. I'm glad I realized my true passions earlier than later. 

2. When I think about it, the other factors of my personality don't really influence me. They can be used to describe me but I don't act differently because I am a male or Hindu and I don't learn things differently because I am straight or from a middle class family. I can understand how it may effect other people, but it isn't something I pay much attention to.


Write your own personal mission statement. What is your purpose in life? What values are important to you ? What do you want to be? What attributes and capabilities are important to you?

I want to live a life that is measured by the impact I leave for others. I want to work in a job that has a meaningful contribution to society and will put me in a position to positively be a role model for others. I am majoring in finance, but I dont want to spend my entire career working for a bank or on Wall Street. I want to help and lead a company that helps others, such as one in the healthcare industry. Eventually I want to use my experiences to bring me back to Ohio State to continue to help more lives.