“Ohio? Why?” “You want to be a lawyer?” These are some of the responses I get when I tell people that I study criminology at The Ohio State University (OSU).
Maybe I ought to introduce myself. I am a freshman at OSU (eighty-five percent in-state student body) majoring in criminology and sociology, with a minor in Hebrew. I’m also a Modern Orthodox Jew from Brookline, Massachusetts, and attended the Maimonides School, a private, Jewish day school from pre-kindergarten all the way through grade twelve.
Since you probably can’t locate it on a map, Ohio is a large Midwestern state near Indiana, Kentucky and the greatly despised rival (football) state “up north,” Michigan. Ohio was that state which caused a whole lot of confusion during this past year’s presidential election. I chose OSU because I am pursuing law enforcement, hence my study of criminal justice. For years I have been fascinated by unsolved homicides, shooting sprees, and other such criminal acts. I am not sure I can explain my fascination, but think of it this way: while you are watching movies about them on TV, I will be solving or at least investigating them.
For me, life in the Midwest, specifically Ohio, was a big change: people speak with ridiculous accents, they refer to soda as “pop,” there are towns and counties even Ohio natives have never heard of, and possibly most strikingly, an overwhelming obsession with the state’s only claim to fame, the OSU football team. Faster than I had anticipated, I began to grow accustomed to these differences, though I have no intention in assimilating.
Back to those earlier questions. Those not lucky enough to hail from Ohio tend to ask me why I chose to go to school here. My initial response is apathetic, “I have no idea.” If they persist, I half-heartedly try, “Well, I wanted to go to a large school, but not in Boston because I needed a change of environment, and someplace with criminology as a major.” That one usually shuts them up.
There are very few Modern Orthodox Jews in Columbus and even fewer who are like me: women who wear pants, enjoy partying, yet still keep kosher. Although I initially struggled with that schizophrenic identity, I have learned to cope.
To Jews back home, I am “weird” for moving to Ohio to study criminal justice, but to many in Ohio, a Jewish girl from Boston is “weird” to begin with. Despite its oddity though, my decision as a young Jewish woman to come to Ohio to study criminal justice was the right choice for me. I know that in the next three years I will have to continue to answer to, “A wha’, a Jew?” “Law school?” “Ohio?” but I am ready. Bring on the baffled. Cheers to those who kill two birds with one toss by trying something different and getting to confuse others in the process.
