Meet Dana Carleton: This U3 student entered McGill undeclared, and soon realized Cultural Studies & Communications was what she needed to be studying. She’s been having a great time ever since, loving her classes on everything from musicals to 1980s cinema. This year, she’s been elected to the Department of English Students’ Association as their communications rep. If you recognize her, it’s because you’ve seen her running around campus organizing events, printing posters, or selling beer at McGill sporting events for her job with the athletics department. This week, Her Campus McGill was able to track down this busy lady in the DESA office for an interview.
Emily Campbell for Her Campus (HC McGill): What is DESA?
Dana Carleton (DC): We are the student association for all the three streams of the English department.
HC McGill: What do you do as communications rep?
DC: I’m in charge of managing the social media accounts, and I create the posters and advertising for events. I also organize the email inbox and assemble the weekly listerv. As a general executive, I organize social and academic events, keep in contact with professors and am available for peer advising.
HC McGill: What surprised you about working with the association?
DC: There is a lot of stuff that I didn’t know DESA execs were involved in. We have people on certain committees, like the hiring committee. One of our execs gets to contribute to hiring new profs within our department. We also get a couple of execs to go on the curriculum committee, which is where the profs go over the required curriculum for the English department and make changes if needed.
HC McGill: What are you guys currently working on?
DC: We just had an event on February 9thco-organized with EGSA, the English Graduate Student Association. We’ve put together a workshop to help students succeed in English courses at McGill. We also have our annual Poetry in Performance coming up on February 25th. Students submit poetry and then a group of performers adapt the poetry and put on a show.
HC McGill: What’s it like being on DESA?
DC: It’s a lot of fun! I’ve met a lot of cool people this year, and have become friends with a lot of execs. I’ve gotten to learn how things work with the bigger student associations like AUS and SSMU. It’s also been a great way to build relationships with profs because I’m in constant communication with them. Oh, and it has definitely taught me organizational skills.
HC McGill: When you graduate in April, do you plan on working in communications?
DC: I’m going to LaSalle college next year to do a year-and-a-half-long program in event planning.
HC McGill: And then do you want to work in media and culture?
DC: Yeah, or I’d love to expand on my job with the athletics department. Working in a university setting is really appealing to me.
Dana (far right) with her co-workers from the McGill Athletics Department
HC McGill: Would you recommend getting involved?
DC: DESA is a really great part of university life to get involved in. It’s made me feel important [laughs]. It’s cool to be someone who is looked up to in a big department. I encourage anyone to run in the elections, for any student association!
First photo taken by interviewer, second photo provided by interviewee.
For more info on DESA and their events, you can visit their Facebook page.