{"id":4253,"date":"2019-09-16T18:09:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T18:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/?p=4253"},"modified":"2023-05-24T12:41:58","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T19:41:58","slug":"serving-up-a-new-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/2019\/09\/16\/serving-up-a-new-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Serving Up a New Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><br>I started playing tennis when I was 10 years old. I realized soon after starting that tennis was a big part of me and I just couldn\u2019t let it go. When I came to Oregon State, I looked around to see if there were any tennis clubs I could join. Thankfully, I found out that we had a tennis club at Rec Night. When I visited the booth I saw someone familiar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her name is Karissa \u2013 she\u2019s an honors Public\nHealth major with an option in Pre-Dental and minors in Chemistry and Business\nand Entrepreneurship. I knew her as a girl that played tennis and ran cross\ncountry in my league in high school. We started talking and found out that we were\nboth in the Honors College. We talked \u2013 not only about tennis, but also the\nHonors College. She suggested I go to practice to feel things out, so I did.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/1811\/files\/2019\/09\/Esther-Vega-Karissa.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4259\" width=\"630\" height=\"569\" srcset=\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/1811\/files\/2019\/09\/Esther-Vega-Karissa.jpg 576w, https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/1811\/files\/2019\/09\/Esther-Vega-Karissa-300x270.jpg 300w, https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/1811\/files\/2019\/09\/Esther-Vega-Karissa-400x360.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Karissa at a Tennis Club event<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Once practice started, I felt overwhelmed with\nnew faces. However, I could count on Karissa to make me feel included. Fast\nforward to a year later and Oregon State\u2019s tennis club has become a new\ncommunity for me. We all come from different majors but come together for\ntennis. I am always excited to go to practice, team bonding events, and to travel\nfor tournaments with the club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a time where I felt intimidated in a big\ncollege, Karissa was always there to help. We were also both working on our\ntheses, and it was a big help to have someone I could go to for advice about\nthe process. A year later, she is now the Club President and I am their Public\nRelations officer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I didn\u2019t know then the impact this recreational sport would have on me, but I know this now: I wouldn\u2019t have joined if I didn\u2019t show up to the booth and talk to a fellow honors student that made me feel like I belonged here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>By Esther Vega: Student Ambassador, Honors College<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I started playing tennis when I was 10 years old. I realized soon after starting that tennis was a big part of me and I just couldn\u2019t let it go. When I came to Oregon State, I looked around to see if there were any tennis clubs I could join. Thankfully, I found out that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9319,"featured_media":7438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1205,213021],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","category-hc-ambassador-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4253"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8733,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253\/revisions\/8733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}