FSU Honors Newsletter October 2017

ISSUE #6 October 2018

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

HONORS

Photo by Summer Schantz

OCTOBER 2017

ISSUE #6

TABLE OF CONTENTS The official newsletter for the FSU Honors Program

From the Director's Desk p. 3

Ask Sybill p.14

Advisor's Corner p. 4

Creative Submissions: Noelle Raezer, Miranda Marshall, Meagan Martinez, and Kathryn Manning p. 16-19

Alumni Spotlight: Scott Goley p. 7 Student Spotlight: Matthew Israel p. 9 Student Endeavors: Jack Shelgren & Nina Sotolongo p.10 Dormroom Recipe: Campfire-free S'mores p. 13 Follow Us On Social Media!

Facebook: Florida State University Honors Program Instagram: @fsuhonors Twitter: @fsu_honors

The links are clickable throughout the publication!

UPCOMING EVENTS

October 24

HITM Meeting in HSF Great Hall at 5 P.M.

November 2 Light the Night, Langford Green at 6 P.M.

November 7 HSA Monthly Breakfast at 9 A.M.

From the director's Desk with Dr. Kearley Honors Students, Greetings to everyone! Hopefully the semester has been treating you well and you are fully engaged in your courses and extracurricular activities. I know everyone is excited for the football game this weekend but we have other excellent sports teams as well. For example, if you have not been to a women’s volleyball match, you should get to Tully Gym this Friday or Sunday. Our team is typically highly rated and the excitement of the matches is always unbeatable.

Another top ranked team is women’s soccer and they play at home Thursday night and Sunday afternoon.

My wife and I completed “the circuit” two weekends ago when we witnessed a swimming and diving meet. In our 12 years at FSU, we have now attended at least one event for every varsity sports team. We are devoted fans of the women’s basketball team (rarely do we miss a game) but we try to attend as many FSU sports as possible. Does anyone have ideas as to our next quest?

Now maybe we should try to attend every club sport? I know some of you are involved with club sports so please stop by and tell me when your games or matches are and maybe my wife and I will be there!

Best, Dr. Mark Kearley HSA Director

Adviser's Corner

Adviser's Corner

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S C O T T G O L E Y

Scott Goley, graduate of the class of 2015, currently works with Advanced Recovery Systems as a Business, Process, and Data Analyst. During his time at Florida State University, he majored in Psychology, and received a minor in Statistics. As a student here, Goley recalls a lesson learned from his Chemistry 1 Honors professor that “re-framed the idea of learning completely” for him. The professor explained “the person with the wrong answer learns more than the person with the right answer. The person with the

g o l e y

wrong answer learns about what they know, what they don't know, and even whether the way they have been attempting to learn works. All of that is much more valuable information than confirming that you have the right answer, whether or not you understand it.”

While attending FSU, Goley was involved with the Catholic Student Union and IM sports. Post-graduation, he worked as an Equity Analyst with Deutsche Bank, which was a job he acquired through a contact made during the Seminole Career Fair Super Day. He currently resides in Winter Park, FL and works for a vertically integrated substance abuse and addiction rehabilitation company, as their primary Business Analyst and Business Intelligence Developer.

If Goley could offer advice to current Honors students, he would say, “Don't be afraid of failure. Failure is, in fact, one of the best learning opportunities, and everyone who appears to be successful has been through failure and learned as much as they can from those failures. Even with luck, prolonged success is impossible without the insight necessarily derived by some amount of failures along the way. I no longer believe that a person should wish for a life without failures - rather I wish that every person focuses their attention on learning as much as they can from every failure they experience.“

Alumni Spotlight

MATTHEW ISRAEL Student Spotlight

Matthew Israel is a Sophomore Mechanical Engineering Major who spent his summer vacation in the Bahamas.

Instead of enjoying the beach or exploring the island, however, Matthew opted to spend his time out on the Atlantic Ocean, conducting fisheries research at the Cape Eleuthera Institute on the remote island of Eleuthera.

His central project on Dr. Travis Van Leeuwen’s research team was the engineering and installation of the first deep-water, sub-surface, research fish aggregation device designed to attract pelagic sharks and offshore gamefish for tagging and movement studies. The work was very important because Bahamian livelihood and economy are closely tied to the sea.

The team also conducted blood sampling on bonefish to identify hormone levels and determine what abiotic factors contribute to spawning behavior, performed recapture and respirometry testing with stone crabs to pinpoint the amount of additional energy it takes to regenerate a claw. Their final main project involved plastics research directed at understanding whether fish are accumulating microplastics in their flesh and if the resulting toxicity concentration is harmful to humans.

Matt says of the experience, “All projects were directed at the demonstrated need to protect and conserve our marine resources. A greater understanding of our oceans allows for improved decision making regarding fisheries management and how we interact with our coastal ecosystems. It was truly an honor to work at the Cape Eleuthera Institute and I am extremely grateful to FSU for enabling me to follow my passion.”

Student Endeavors Celebrating Student Achievements

Jack Shelgren, a senior Entrepreneurship major, founded the clothing brand “Hooligans” two years ago. Recently, he has stepped out of the clothing industry by developing a new software company aimed at the aging-in place problem. The product, "Panacea", will consist of two components: the wearable and the software.

The wearable component will track health data such as heart rate, EKG, etc. and upload it to the software component. The data will be aggregated over time and presented in easy-to-understand reports. The wearable component also has the capabilities to remind the user of scheduled items such as appointments, medication and nutrition needs, and even has an alert system in case of emergencies. Jack plans to launch Panacea to the marketplace by Summer 2018 while he pursues his MBA at FSU.

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S H E L G R E N

NINA SOTOLONGO Through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) this September, Nina Sotolongo was able to join a research team in the Department of Education in which she examines the reduction of problem behaviors in children with deaf blindness in a single-case study. Repetitive nonfunctional behaviors, known as stereotypy (includes mouthing items, self-hitting, forceful contact with objects or surfaces nearby,) are commonly seen in students with deaf blindness and the goal of this project is to find strategies to possibly reduce such behaviors. Nina's assistantship’s responsibilities include coding videos of the participant engaging with leisure items for positive or negative stereotypy, object manipulation, object preference and functional analysis.

Nina says of her opportunity: "The experience has been incredibly rewarding; knowing that our time and work may help children with disabilities live more normal, functional day-to-day lives is a wonderful and priceless feeling."

DORM ROOM STYLE

CAMPFIRE S'MORES INGREDIENTS: Ritz Crackers Dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips Mini marshmallows

INSTRUCTIONS: 1. First, take a Ritz cracker and place 3 mini marshmallows on top of it.

2. Next, place four (or more, we won't judge!) chocolate chips on top of the Ritz cracker as well. It works best with one upside in the middle of the marshmallows and three topside up in between the marshmallows.

3. Then, place the Ritz cracker on a paper towel or a microwave-safe plate and microwave it for 15 seconds.

4. Once the marshmallows and chocolate chips are deliciously melty, press a second Ritz cracker on top of your beautiful creation.

5. Make more and enjoy your campfire-free s'mores with some friends!

Via Something Swanky

Ask Sybill ADVICE AND TEA LEAVES

Dear Sybill, In terms of getting into graduate school, is it more important to have a strong GPA or extracurricular activities? Does having a job while being a full time student look good on resumes?

Best, Anonymous Hi Anonymous, Whether a strong GPA or extracurricular activities will weigh heavily when applying to graduate school will depend on the program you are applying. For example, medical schools will be looking that you passed key classes such as Organic Chemistry or Biology. Other programs, however, will be looking for more work experience such as internships. Mostly, graduate schools are looking for well-rounded students that excel both socially and academically.

As for the job, it can show that you have balance on your resume. If you need a job during school to support yourself financially, then definitely keep it. The most important thing is to be able to sell the skills you've learned from your job. For example, even if you're working at in the Service Industry, you can sell this experience by focusing on your abilities with time management, customer service, and teamwork.

The best piece of advice I can offer would be to stay organized while applying to graduate schools. A wonderful suggestion is to make an Excel sheet to keep track of the different institutions you're applying to and their requirements, whether you've applied or not, important details for you (distance from home, cost, etc.) and key contacts for that program.

If there is a specific graduate program you're looking at, feel free to send me the program and I will look specifically at that program's preferences! For now, I hope this helped.

Sincerely, Sybill

ART BY

NOELLE RAEZER

ARTWORK BY:

MIRANDA MARSHALL

@mirandamarshallart @mirandamarshallart

Miranda paints all of her work by hand with acrylic, on stretched canvas and canvas panel. Most of her work is centered around the environment and music, with a number of pieces featuring the instruments she plays including the piano, guitar, bass, ukulele, and saxophone Her other works can be found on her social media pages.

BLOCKED WINDOWS Meagan Martinez At a gas station with my windows rolled down and the scent of fuel enveloping every inch of my car, I feel comfort.

The familiar smell of gasoline has always felt nostalgic to me, especially in times of panic.

Disaster is a possibility and this place has never felt more like home.

If I close my eyes I am six again, staring up at the popcorn roof with my sister breathing softly next to me, the warmth of her sleeping body radiating across the mattress we share in the middle of the living room.

We were not allowed to look outside the bathroom window, the only one without a shutter blocking the the fury of the storm from the curiosity of two bored little girls.

We resorted to playing board games and watching Phantom of the Opera on my dad’s clunky portable DVD player to cure our boredom. To this day I still associate “The Angel of Music” with dimly lit rooms and the smell of canned tomato soup.

Right now I am older by twelve whole years but the gut-wrenching emotions feel just the same.

As my friends and I run across the city in search of water and “nonperishables” I can’t help but feel some sort of guilt.

The moment I leave the waves and sweltering sun of Miami is the moment things go wrong.

My Environmental Science textbook mentions the effects of climate change; how massive hurricanes will become more and more common as the years go on.

The words are concrete and bold, written alongside a photo of New Orleans.

What used to be a neighborhood is now a pile of mismatched materials: wood, metal, empty water bottles, dirt.

My city didn’t look like that.

Six-year-old me would have never guessed that the same storm that gave us a week off from school would give some people an end to their lives.

I hadn’t thought about it until now, but I guess there aren’t many twelve-yearold girls named ‘Katrina’.

Photography by

KATHRYN MANNING

Photo By Blakely Baker

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: KAYLA ROJICS CONTENT EDITORS: ELLIS DAUGHERTY AND JORDAN BLOCK