Meet this week’s Campus Celebrity—Emily Schonaerts! Emily is a sophomore at UT, majoring in Forensic Science and minoring in criminology and psychology. She is originally from St. Louis, Missouri, but recently moved to Minneloa, Florida, right outside of Orlando. She has a sister named Lauren, 16, and a brother named Alex, 18.
Being only 20-years old, Emily has already accomplished a lot! She has had previous jobs at Victoria’s Secret, Domino’s, Jimmy Johns, and currently works at UT as a campus safety desk assistant. Needless to say, Emily has a great work ethic.
Along with working on campus, Emily is an ELITE (Educating Leaders in Today’s Environment) mentor. After experiencing the outdoors leadership event as a mentee, she fell in love. The following year, Emily signed up to be a mentor on the indoor portion. She absolutely loves her mentee kids, and even refers to them as her “kids.” She goes above and beyond to make sure they are all doing okay, even after the retreat is over with.
Emily is also a sister of ***********! She loves her sorority, and does whatever she can to make sure she stays involved in the organization. She currently holds two positions in ********—*********** and*************. Emily created her own resource library, filled with notes from different classes, so that all of the sisters in her sorority can get help if they are ever struggling in a specific class. What a great sister! But Emily doesn’t limit her efforts to only her sorority—she loves to get involved with the other sororities and fraternities on campus as well. Emily attends all of the Greek theme weeks, as well as any other events the other organizations hold, to show her support.
Aside from her birthday, Halloween is Emily’s favorite holiday. This year she went as Little Red Riding Hood. She hung out with her friends and had a great night. “Halloween is the only day you have the freedom to be whatever you want. No one can judge you for it and you can just be a kid,” said Schonaerts.
When Emily is not being involved with the University of Tampa, you can catch her watching SpongeBob, eating deserts, crafting, volunteering, decorating her room, or giving back in any way she can.