As a bright-eyed, bushy tail freshman, you look at the leader of organizations as heroes (at least I did). You see them networking with people from all over the world, running meetings, and making friends everywhere they go because they are great at talking to people. You see all the events that they get to plan and how fun it must be to put everything together like pieces of a puzzle. Now, you might not feel like that, but it is how I felt watching people run organizations as a freshman. I always wanted to be someone that people looked up to, asked questions, and wanted to get to know, although I never thought I would actually be in that position. Little did I know I would be rebuilding an organization.
Today, I am the President and Chapter Correspondent of Her Campus at LA Tech. When I joined this organization, there were only 4 other members and one was graduating. I wanted to practice my side hobbies of social media and marketing. I never thought I would be the president, I was just happy to be involved. After I joined, I learned that the organization had just been started that year, and they were trying to get the organization running but they could not accumulate members. The current president wanted to step down and everyone else was graduating within the next two quarters. I decided to step up and become the president.
Everything seemed fun at first. I got to run meetings and meet new people, but it got hard fast. Many people don’t realize everything that goes into running an organization. After the fifteenth time of running across campus to figure out how to get your organization finalized or to rent a room to have meetings, you get tired and feel defeated. I had to dive into the online documentation and figure out how to run a chapter from scratch. I was not prepared for the amount of work I had to put into the organization.
One of the best things that helped me was the people by my side through the process. I took on a senior editor, who is now my Editor in Chief. I got the organization approved on campus and then put together a plan for the next school year. More and more people joined which delegated some of my tasks and set the organization up for the school year in only three short months.
The organization took off in the Fall of this year for what I would like to call our “re-launch”! We got new members that were passionate about writing and marketing, and we were able to put on events and meet new people around the campus and community. Every day that I walk through campus, I always see one of our buttons on someone’s backpack. We have rebranded ourselves and gave ourselves a fighting chance on this campus.
From all of this, I learned that being a leader has far more to do with what you do for the people that you work with rather than for yourself. Every day, I am surrounded by the best people on campus working their butts off to make sure this organization thrives for quarters to come. I met one of my best friends who is now one of my bridesmaids. I wanted to be an inspiration to the people in my organization, but I am more humbled by them and everything they do every single day. They make this organization the beauty that it is today and I have learned so much from every last one of them. I am honored that I get to work with these people on a daily basis. If you ever think you might want to get involved in an executive board of an organization, please do! The amount that you learn and the friends that you make will never compare to anything else you could do in college!