What’s your hometown?
I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY.
I know the list is extensive, but what are all of the activities you are involved in at F&M?
My campus jobs are being a New College House Adviser and a Student Supervisor in the Athletic Department’s Equipment Room. My list of activities on campus includes being a Senator and Consul Suffectus (Vice President) on the New College House Senate, a member of Club Council, a brother of IMPACT, a member and former Vice President of the Black Student Union, and a member of the Broadcasting Club.
How do you find enough time in the day to get everything done?
Luckily that isn’t much of an issue. My responsibilities are generally spread out over the week. If there are conflicts I prioritize so that I can either maximize my time by addressing the most pressing issue, or divide my time as evenly as possible between the activities that need to be attended to.
However, I do have a personal hierarchy. Academics come first, but I normally work best at night when my activities are over. Second comes my responsibilities as an HA because my HA partner and my kids need to know that I am always reachable if they need help. Third come my activities.
Granted there are times when I need a break from everything, and I do that by hopping in my car and either going to an area cafe for a few hours or going to a park I can just walk in aimlessly for a couple miles.
Everyone at Her Campus F&M is quite envious of your popularity in the Twitter world (especially your ongoing shout-outs from President Porterfield). What’s your secret?
Haha! The truth is my secret is luck. I just happened to be one of the students Dr. P met in the days before he started here as President. In addition to Mona Lotfipour ’12 and Sam Schmader ’12, both of whom he met because they were part of the search committee, Dr. P made a point of gathering contact information from the F&M students he met in the run up to joining F&M officially. He emailed us, told us to add him on Facebook and let us know when he joined Twitter. So, really it was just luck that I was someone he connected with on Twitter while he was exploring and getting comfortable with it.
With 540 followers and over 17,100 tweets, you are obviously a big supporter of social media. How do you think that Twitter and other social media platforms operate on college campuses?
I actually spent a good deal of my summer researching how other colleges and their leaders use Twitter and other social media platforms. I believe their biggest asset is the ability to connect and network with a vast and diverse range of people. It isn’t necessarily important for the leader of an institution to be actively engaged in that process, but it does help, and lend credibility, if they are at least aware of how social media is used on their behalf. It doesn’t hurt for them to use it themselves from time to time either. General social media profiles for institutions are also key because it offers another avenue for those institutions to broadcast messages that affect their immediate and extended audiences.
On a personal level though, social media shouldn’t replace one’s real social interactions. You cannot exist solely in a virtual world, but the virtual world can enhance and build upon the connections that one makes in real life.
What’s your favorite sport to announce?
My personal favorite is baseball because I know more about the intricacies of a baseball game than I do any other sport.
The one I have the most fun announcing is basketball because it’s so fast paced, and the atmosphere in Mayser is always electric.
How have all of your extracurriculars shaped your experience at F&M?
My extracurriculars have formed the backbone of my F&M experience. Yes, my classes are important, but classes aren’t what put me on the football sideline every other weekend, or afford me the chance to have a hand in how $30,000 gets allocated to student clubs, or allowed me the opportunity to help mentor 32 first years over the last 2 years. There is so much more to an F&M experience than the grades you receive: there are experiences to be had and lessons to be learned in the most unexpected places…one just has to stumble upon them.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at F and M chapter.