Meet senior Jenna Persico! A native New Yorker, Jenna is studying History with a minor in International Studies at BC. This week’s Campus Cutie is super involved on campus, from teaching spin at the Plex (Wednesdays at 6 and Fridays at 3) to serving as the Director of Leadership Programs for UGBC. Keep reading to learn more about this hilarious cutie!
The Basics
Name: Jenna Persico
Hometown: Stony Point, New York in Rockland County…which is the unheard of place across the river from Westchester
School/Year: A&S ‘14…being a senior is sad
Major: History with a minor in International Studies
BC Life
Activities/Clubs: I have been in UGBC all four years at Boston College and am currently the Director of UGBC’s Leadership Program. My sophomore year I was a part of Jamaica Summer and taught 1st grade and Kindergarten in Jamaica which has been my favorite experience at BC thus far. I’ve done Appa and volunteered at the Italian Home for Children through the PULSE program. I also intern with Teach For America and teach Spin at the Plex.
Best Class: Hmmm, PULSE was life-changing and I am obsessed with Professor McCoy, but I am currently taking The History of the Death Penalty with Professor Rogers and am sort of in love with him, too. He has the greatest sense of humor at Boston College and tells every class like a story.
Worst Class: Hands down, the Historiography of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. After I emailed the professor over a weekend, I received the nastiest reply of all time. She told me it wasn’t her business to help me on weekends and that she has a life outside of the classroom. She told me that I was disrespectful for emailing her when the email literally just asked if I had a thesis for a paper that was due in TWO WEEKS. Here’s the kicker: the next semester, she was assigned to be my advisor. I still have to visit her twice a year.
Bapst or O’Neill: I have actually only studied in Bapst once. It’s too pretty, it distracts me. Plus, food is closer to O’Neill and the chairs are cozy.
Favorite Place to Eat: As a senior with a kitchen I don’t have a meal plan, so basically it is wherever anyone is willing to buy me food.
Love Life
Single or Taken: Taken! We have been dating for over a year now.
How did you meet? We actually have had a class together almost every semester at Boston College. Being obsessed with One Tree Hill and Nathan Scott being my dream guy, first semester in my first lit class the teacher called attendance and said Nathan. I had never met an actual Nathan before, so I turned around to see what he looked like and thought he was cute and that he looked familiar. After class, I boldly asked if we had met before and he shot me down. I continued to have a creepy crush on him for three years, consisting of awkward text messages and attempts at what I thought were study dates. It oddly worked and we finally started dating last fall. (Author’s note: As someone who had two classes with them freshmen year, it’s good news for everyone involved that their relationship has progressed since then!)
Ideal guy: I weirdly almost always fall for nice guys. I also really like guys that are tall and can take a joke. He has to be super goofy and opinionated, or life would just be boring.
Ideal date: Hmmm, food trucks fair.
Any funny date stories?: In high school, a guy I was sort of dating and I had birthdays two days apart from each other. His was first, so I got him this cute gift bag with all of his favorite things, homemade brownies, and a hilarious card. I thought it was the perfect, not serious gift, and then two days later on my birthday, he got in my car and handed me a Kit-Kat and told me he had made me cookies but ate them because he was nervous they were going to get stale. Needless to say, we did not last long.
Deal breakers: A guy who doesn’t get along with my best friends or family.
Favorites
Family vacation: When I was in the seventh grade, I visited one of my sisters in Florence while she was studying abroad. We randomly rented an apartment and it turned out to have these amazing high ceilings with Renaissance frescos. I spent the rest of the trip feeling like I actually lived there and it inspired me to study abroad in Italy last semester.
TV Show: Criminal Minds
Movie: Easy, Friday Night Lights. The greatest movie of all time.
Song: “Your Hand in Mine” by Explosions in the Sky. It genuinely never gets old. Or maybe “White Houses” by Vanessa Carlton…that’s a classic.
Musician/band: Lady Antebellum or Taylor Swift. She’s my girl.
BC sport: Definitely football because of the tailgates.
Hangout spot on campus: Ignacio with the best
Halloween costume: Sophomore year, my roommates and I dressed up as the 8-man of guys we always hung out with. The hilarious part is that throughout the week we slowly stole their stuff from their room and the night of Halloween showed up in their room. The moment they realized we were dressed up as them will go down as one of my favorite moments at BC.
Random
Best moment of senior year so far: So my direct roommate and I both applied to Teach for America for the same deadline. The day final decisions were coming out, the decision was over two hours late. We had both essentially given up and were lying on the floor of our room. I kept refreshing her webpage and saw she had been accepted. After freaking out for a minute I went to check my own and saw I had been accepted too. The TFA website meanly does not tell you your assignment until the third page so we both were flipping through at the same time. I had been assigned South Carolina, which was a whirlwind… but oddly enough she had also been assigned South Carolina! Neither of us had put it anywhere near the tops of our lists, and we just stared at the page for five minutes. It was this terrifying moment, but it was also incredible. The real world is a whole lot less scary when you get to do it with your best friend, and we get to go on the adventure of a lifetime together.
What you’re most excited about for the rest of the year: Not having classes on Fridays!! I scheduled poorly this past semester…work and three classes on Friday
Most embarrassing moment at BC: Hmmm, there are a lot of these. I fall A LOT. I would probably say freshman year I was walking through O’Neill plaza in the pouring rain. I slipped up the steps, and my knees hit the top step. Rather than stopping there, my knees starting sliding forward and I ended up penguin diving across O’Neill.
Biggest Pet Peeve: When people play with their gum. When you think about how dirty your hands are and then you are touching something sticky that is going to continue to be chewed in your mouth? It’s so unsanitary and disgusting…oh, and did I mention I’m a germaphobe? Whoops.
Fun Fact: I am partially deaf in my left ear, which I was either born with or is the result of my sister shoving a pebble in there when I was five. The mystery remains.
Celeb Crush: Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbor
Dream Job: Being a college History Professor
Advice to Freshmen: Never be ‘too cool’ to do anything. Go to culture club events, dance in the elevators, dress up hilariously for theme parties. We only have four years here, and those hilarious stories are going to be worth a lot more than the moments you were too scared to step outside of your comfort zone.