Abby loves sunflowers because they’re “the dopest,” but there’s more to this flowerchild than just a love of tall golden yellow blooms. A witty, awkward, sarcastic and thoughtful collegiate with a quirky sense of humor and perfect smile, Abby is extremely involved both on and off campus. She is vice president of accounts for AdLab this semester and soon to be president next semester, president of Chordially Yours, a key member of BU on Broadway and an intern at The Fantastical downtown. You could say she’s pretty busy between her love for advertising and love for the arts.
Abby became involved with BU on Broadway and auditioned for Chordially Yours her first semester freshman year, but her artistic inclination dates back to childhood. Growing up in the north suburbs of Chicago, Abby frequently ventured into the city to see theater and comedy shows. When Abby was eight, she started her musical and theatrical career in a production of Annie. She marched up to the director and told him, “I don’t want to be Annie. I want to be the mean orphan or the sassy girlfriend.” Abby made it clear she didn’t want to be the lead because it was the lead. She wanted a role that she could have fun with. She recalls with a laugh, “So I was the sassy girlfriend and it was great.”
Since then theater has been a big part of her life, and when she came to college, it was important for her to find something like On Broadway (OB). To Abby, OB is a unique experience because it is completely student run. There’s a mutual respect between all, even though some people have leadership positions like director and choreographer. Speaking from experience as a former OB choreographer, Abby admits it can be hard to manage a group of peers.
“It’s an interesting power dynamic, but it works. It’s a different experience each semester, but we’re all unified by our love to sing and dance on a stage.”
It’s a similar type of experience for Abby with Chordially Yours, one of BU’s all-female acappella groups. Abby describes it as a very eclectic group of girls who are kind and sassy and have a genuine appreciation for music at their core. She loves having it as a creative outlet, and it’s where she’s met the majority of her friends at BU. She admits rehearsal is hard work, but doing it with her friends makes it fun. The sassy ladies of Choridally Yours are always performing at cool gigs around BU and Boston, like Lena Dunham’s book signing last year.
Abby put it simply, “We’re all kind of a bunch of weirdos who like to sing.”
Abby has chosen to be a leader in so many of her activities like Chordially Yours and AdLab because when she first joined these groups, she was warmly welcomed by upperclassmen.
“I had such a good experience in these groups as an underclassman, mainly due to kindness of upperclassman who so genuinely cared about the groups. Their passion for the groups made me want to have a leadership role.”
As an upperclassman herself now, she strives to give freshmen the positive, welcoming experience she had when she first joined the group. Abby believes an open and non-judgmental environment is important for new college students and credits this type of creative space to her successes to date.
Though she dedicates so much of her time to the arts, Abby takes her academics just as seriously. As a senior in COM studying advertising, she’s discovered she loves advertising because of collaborations.
She explains, “It’s cool how you can see a commercial for thirty seconds, but a lot of people don’t realize the extensive amount of work and collaboration that goes into creating it. Basically, it’s creative problem solving. It’s exciting and never gets boring.”
Her dream job is any position that would allow her to travel. Within advertising, she wants to determine social media strategy or plan large experiential events for brands.
In her spare time (which if you can’t tell, is hard to come by), Abby loves journaling, playing pranks on her friends, pretending all of the dogs she meets are actually hers, having good conversations with her friends, watching It’s Complicated, obsessing over Joe Biden eating ice cream, drooling over Meryl Streep and Cher and Mark Ruffalo, thinking of what type of dog a person would be based on physical and personality attributes, and keeping a running list of random inappropriate band names. Two of her favorite “Her Campus appropriate” names are Muffin Incident and The Soviet Reunion. One particular prank she loves playing is Venmo-ing herself a dollar from her friends’ phones.
Funny things spill out of her mouth nonchalantly, so you should track her down and have a conversation with her over a hot cup of black coffee. She might just say at the end of your interview, “Make me sound funny, quirky and cute and not like an asshole.”