After 3 years in various student organizations and attending many leadership conferences, I have filled out quite a few social identity wheels or flowers. I have not kept them over the years, but I do remember how they have had different focuses at each time period of my life. As a freshmen, I was more focused on religion and age, being 18 and living on my own without my parents, and then growing up in a very spiritual household. My upbringing was very grounded in religion and spirituality, with the emphasis on loving others guiding my life. As a sophomore, I was more focused on ethnicity and gender. Not having a strong connection with my heritage had never phased me before, but in my 2nd year at OSU I felt a desire to have a little more knowledge about where I came from, with my grandfather being from Lebanon and my mother's side of the family of German heritage. Being the only daughter in my family, the protectiveness of my parents came out as I showed desires to travel the world and try new opportunities outside of Ohio State. The difference in treatment between my brother and I just because I was a female was obvious. As a junior, I was more focused on sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. My time at Ohio State had broadened my horizons on different sexual orientations and the acceptance and respect of those. I was more aware of my own preferences and the respectful difference of others. Getting closer to my 4th and final year at Ohio State, socioeconomic status was on my mind for the career path that I wanted to go on and where I had come from. I reflected on how my parent's socioeconomic status had automatically put me in a privileged category and how was I going to respond to that privilege.
Being a 21 year old Lebanese-German Caucasian, heterosexual female from a upper middle class Christian family, where I was the second and youngest child, has affected how I view myself and the world around me greatly, as seen through just the past 3 years. It produces a personal mission statement of:
To provide wholesome, individualized nutrition education to communities around the United States, through a motto of loving people where they are at and a promotion of overall wellness and empowerment.
I loved hearing about your journey of finding which social identities and paths you took. It's so cool to me that you had different focuses each year of college and that you can clearly identify which one's you had each time. Honestly, it sounds like you've had so much experience is so many different areas that you've become very well-rounded in all of them. Your mission statement is so clear and concise - I love it. The part where say "loving people where they are at" really stuck out to me. What a beautiful vision! Thanks for sharing. :)
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