A master's student in teaching and learning in the Department of Teaching and Learning, College of Education and Human Ecology from Indonesia, Aspri Jarlismi shares her “Your America in 250 Words” essay.
“Standing on a walkway inside NASA's Space Vehicle Mockup Facility in Houston, I looked down at the same spacecraft modules astronauts train on before they fly. Growing up in a small village in Indonesia, I had spent years teaching the physics behind space exploration. Seeing it up close, at this scale, was something else entirely. I was struck by the sheer scale of American ambition. It wasn't just metal and wiring. It was proof that human curiosity, given enough support and time, can turn the impossible into something ordinary.
Standing in that facility as a graduate student at The Ohio State University, I realized the physics I teach every day is the same physics that puts humans into space, proof that the ideas in my classroom were never as small as they felt.
Coming to Ohio State to study STEM education has meant closing that distance, one course and one realization at a time. My students in Indonesia may never stand where I stood that day, but I carry pieces of that place back into every lesson I plan, hoping it convinces even one of them that curiosity does not stop at a border, and neither does the possibility of reaching further than you thought you could."
The Office of International Affairs invites Ohio State’s international students to participate in the “Your America in 250 Words” essay and photo contest, a unique opportunity to share personal perspectives and experiences while studying and traveling in the United States.