Giving More Than What Is Expected by Erin

Giving More Than What Is Expected by Erin - March 2021 Scholarship Essay

It seems like such an easy question, but when it comes to academics it is hard to choose one person that I see as my academic role model. While all of my family members were very successful in their academic studies, it is hard for me to say that any of them are my role models because the path that they chose is so different from where I see my future career. If I had to choose one person it would be my professor, Dr. Terry Obee. He is not a conventional type of teacher because he lets all of his students get hands on experience in all aspects of his class. Dr. Obee was in the NFL and played for the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings. Because of this, he has a lot of connections within the sports arena which makes classes a lot more interesting. I have had him in class a total of three times because I enjoy learning about his life experiences and how he got to be where he is in teaching.

One of my favorite classes that I was able to be a part of was my Sport Event Management class. The whole semester we prepared for our final assignment which was to put on a golf tournament in Bowling Green for students at Western and members of the Bowling Green community. I absolutely thrived in this class because I used to play golf competitively, and the past summer I had an internship working with kids and putting on golf tournaments. Throughout the semester, he allowed us to work with the golf course, help with sponsors to pay for the tournament, come up with winning ticket items for the players, and overall let us run the tournament by ourselves. This is something very unique that I had never been a part of in any of my classes. Most of the time our final projects include a presentation or a test, but Dr. Obee pushed us further to where we get hands on experience of what it could be like if this was our job in the future.

Dr. Obee is my academic role model because he sees his students differently than other professors do. Other professors, in my opinion, go by the book and check off the different chapters that were supposed to be taught. Dr. Obee does it differently. He looks at his teaching by using real life experiences and showing us how life will actually be after college. He believes that it is easy for us to memorize definitions, but he wants to go deeper and teach us what it will be like when you are in the real world. He wants us to be prepared in all aspects of life. He achieves this with teaching us about money, internships, jobs, investments, and much more. He goes beyond the chapter and teaches us what real life is like, and how we can survive in the sports world.