Honors Experiences

About These Honors Experiences

This page serves as a collection of my honors experiences and reflections throughout my time in the University Honors Program (UHP). Here, I document my personal growth, learning outcomes, and meaningful experiences that have shaped my academic journey and professional development.

Each entry represents a moment of reflection on how my honors coursework, research, and involvement have contributed to my development as a scholar, critical thinker, and engaged community member.

I traveled to Savannah, Georgia, with UC International and the iPALS program for a trip focused on history and cultural exploration. We visited incredible places like the Wormsloe Historic Site and Bonaventure Cemetery, but the real highlight was exploring the city through a massive scavenger hunt. To win, my team had to think fast on our feet, walk miles in the rain, and split up tasks strategically to cover more ground. We ended up taking second place! Navigating the city on my own also taught me a lot about real-world skills, like managing a strict budget for local meals, including trying crab for the first time, and keeping a tight schedule.

The most unforgettable part of the trip was attending Savannah’s famous St. Patrick’s Day parade. Initially, my group planned to leave early, but the crowd's energy completely caught us by surprise. We started cheering as loud as we could, turning our corner into the most high-energy spot on the route. It was amazing to see the parade marchers feed off our energy and light up, and people even started filming us.

To me, a Global Citizen Scholar isn't just someone who travels, it’s someone who jumps into new environments with an open mind and brings positive energy to the local community. This trip showed me that actively engaging with people from different backgrounds can turn a completely foreign experience into a genuinely fun, comfortable, and unforgettable memory.

Team Scavenger Hunt

St. Patrick's Day Parade Energy

I chose these photos because they perfectly capture the two sides of this trip. The first photo shows my team during the scavenger hunt, which reminds me of how well we communicated and solved problems together under pressure. The second photo is from the St. Patrick's Day parade, capturing the exact moment we stopped being just quiet tourists and started actively sharing energy with the local community, which is what being a Global Citizen Scholar is all about.

After competing in eight different hackathons as a regular hacker, I wanted to pull back the curtain and see how things worked on the backend. I spent 76 hours over seven weeks on the organizing team for RevolutionUC, Cincinnati’s largest student-led hackathon. Working on the sponsorship side taught me how a student team manages a real professional budget and interacts with major corporations. I managed our lead tracking pipeline, cold-emailed over 35 tech companies, and learned to handle rejection by shifting my pitch to focus on mutual value rather than just asking for financial support.

During the actual event at the 1819 Innovation Hub, I spent 30 hours on the move managing logistics and troubleshooting sponsor needs in real-time. Seeing the corporate tables set up on the floor and watching hackers use the exact API keys we negotiated made the weeks of hard work completely worth it. As a computer science major, it's easy to focus only on writing clean code. This role showed me that being a Global Citizen Scholar means looking past isolated technical skills to understand the business, community, and financial frameworks that bring people together.

Watch my full video reflection here: https://youtu.be/iJnT3_kRmhY

Opening Ceremony at the 1819 Innovation Hub