I participated in the Ignite food Pantry for all five of my hours. I participated in last Tuesday and Wednesday in the afternoon. I mostly watched over the food in the pantry and helped people determine how much food they need to collect. I also helped in organizing the pantry when the pantry is disorganized. I also met a lot of nice people in the food pantry who were volunteering as well. 

Ignite is a church that was started to provide humanity work to people in ODU and around Norfolk. Ignite provides tutoring, a food pantry, and a religious group. They address the needs of the community to provide services to those who need it. Their goal is to ignite people’s hearts to allow change into the city. 

Volunteering in Ignite has allowed me to see the beauty in humility. As people, we tend to take things such as food for granted, not appreciating the fact that it sustains us. Ignite taught me that I must be grateful for the things given to me and that I must be grateful for the little things that life has to offer to me. 

I have only had one health-related experience and that was in a blood drive at my school. I was in charge of distributing water, juice, and snacks to people that donated blood at my school. It impacted my desire to be a doctor because it made me fascinated with how the human body functions. I want to learn how the body functions and how it impacts diseases. 

Ignite’s relation to health is that having proper nutrition is important. Ignite bases their food pantry on nutritional needs. For example, all the foods are in specific categories and you can only take a certain limit the amount of food based on the size of a family. I can relate this to public health because public health typically encourages health based on a community. This could include nutrition because of certain areas not receiving the same level of nutrition as other areas. I do not think I would pursue Public Health because of the career I want. The career I want to goes specifically into disease and the immune system.  

I study occasionally now. However, I did study more during the beginning of the semester. I use Khan Academy more to study because it allows more insight in detail. Khan Academy works best for me, but for certain classes like history, it is better to learn from the professor because there is certain detail she emphasizes.

I expected there to be more pressure and less tolerance. High School emphasized that college does not have a lot of tolerance, however, that doesn’t seem to be the case at ODU. I find going to my professors and friends helpful for studying and reviewing because I see them more often and they are good at explaining things. I don’t find going to tutoring helpful because people have their own specific pace and sometimes the tutors go at a slower pace. I wish I knew that I should be confrontational to my professors. I had a lot of personal problems that came about in the beginning of November and it started to impact my mental health. I should have told my professors because my mental health inhibited my ability to do coursework. I am probably going to utilize the TAs more next semester because they know a lot of resources that are helpful.