Name: Joe Valley
Year: Senior
Hometown: Orlando, Florida (Fun Fact: Joe used to work at Studio Catering at Hollywood Studios, Disney!)
Age: 21
Majors: International Affairs, Spanish
Minors: Psychology, Biology
Photo By: Nicholas Kielbasa
Her Campus (HC): How are you involved on campus?
Joe Valley (JV): I’m really involved with Alpha Phi Omega. It’s a co-ed service fraternity which emphasizes leadership, friendship and service. I’m currently the president of the organization and I’ve been involved since freshman year. I’m also on the presidential counsel of the Professional Fraternity Council, which works to enhance professional, service and scholarly based organizations and fraternities at FSU. We’re trying to get other organizations involved to make us more recognized and official. I was receptionist at Wildwood for two orientations and then a school year, but I am not anymore.
HC: Wow, that’s very involved! What are your involvements off campus?
JV: I intern at the capitol, at the House of Representatives, with the Democrats. I intern for a representative there. I work with him and his legislative aid while the House is in session. I mostly do filing, scheduling and anything I can do to make the session easier for the representative. As I get more involved, I will be able to do more legislative research and look into topics that they talk about while in session. These topics include controversial bills such as the Conceal and Carry and fracking bills.
HC: Is that the path you want to go down for your career goals? What’s your next step?
JV: I will be graduating in December, so graduate school is a giant question mark for me right now. If anything, I’ll look into law school. I really do like working at the capitol. I’ve been through so many different majors, but it feels really nice to know that I’m headed towards the right path now. I like working for the representative and his aid. Being a legislative aid is looking more and more interesting the more I look at it.
HC: Where do you want to take your skills to?
JV: Right now I’ll stick with working in Florida. I’m such a Florida boy and I can’t handle the cold, so I don’t want to leave this state yet, but New York and the United Nations seem really interesting to me as well. I know that Miami has a huge international community as well, so that’s possible too. Spain or Jordan would be awesome to work at. I follow the Queen of Jordan on Instagram and she’s my inspiration! I also really like Spain and I’d like to end up in either Barcelona or Valencia at some point whether it’s for a week or for a month. Also maybe even Germany, Sweden, or the UK.
HC: It seems like you have big dreams! What inspired them?
JV: I’ve always been into talking to people and delegating them. It’s just something that I am good at. I’m good at coordinating and organizing and I’d like to do that with my career. Alpha Phi Omega has helped me figure out what I want to do. It’s definitely molded me into a leader and brought out skills I never knew I had.
HC: So we hear that you love pop culture. In both your personal and your professional life, what pop culture icon do you feel you most relate to?
JV: This is going to sound really typical since I am brown skinned, but the more I read about Aziz Ansari, the more I relate to him. As a brown person in the media, we don’t see too much of that. It’s very inspirational because he uses his media for good and brings attention to pertinent things. He’s not wasting his time with media and he’s bringing attention to important social issues. Also, he’s really funny too, so I look up to him for that as well. Mindy Kaling is also very inspirational. She’s not working with the system, she’s working around it and making a name for herself in the media. Zayn Malik also does this in a way. They’re awesome people and taking who they are and showing themselves as a great representation of brown people. Hopefully in a few more years there will be more than those three names I mentioned that are doing this.
HC: Anything else you’d like to add?
JV: The current music I listen to is anything that is on the teen party playlist on Spotify. That is my life blood right now.