Matt, ’14, is an aerospace engineering and political science double major at UCF. For the past two and half years, he has been involved in SGA as a senator. The SGA senate allocates a budget of $19 million for student services, organizations, and even individual students. He said the SGA will get to help certain individual students go to special events like career conferences “in order to help them pursue their goals and facilitate their careers.” They also fund programs for students such as Knight Links, Safe Ride, All Knight Study, the 24-hour Union and also provide free scantrons.
Matt participated in running for the SGA senate again this term on the Dedicated and Willing Nation of Knights (DAWN) ticket. “We were out there early in the morning ‘til midnight and were out until the last few minutes of voting,” he said. “We felt like we were translating our points well and understanding students’ needs. It didn’t turn out the way we planned, but even with our limited campaign team, we still recognized those odds and pushed on.”
Matt Goodison-Orr (Center)
During his time with SGA, Matt has been on different committees, including the College Facilitations Committee, of which he became vice chair. Matt was also involved in roundtable discussions between senators and student organizations from the colleges they specifically worked with. After these meetings, senators could address the deans of these colleges with concerns directly from students that SGA was not equipped to handle, but the college could be.
“How senators perceive the UCF campus and how they feel they can make it better influences their decisions,” he said. “There are more than four or five student issues. Recognizing the dilemmas that are seen as well as not seen must be part of student government and to try and fix everything that we can. That’s what makes you successful as a senator.”
With his newly found spare time, Matt said he plans on finally catching up on sleep and reading. Although he is not involved in SGA anymore, he wants to become more involved in Phi Alpha Delta, the pre-law fraternity on campus, help the Anime Club plan their upcoming convention, and attend the Institute of Electronic and Electric Engineers meetings “where we sit around building cool technology.”
In the future, he plans on attending law school and studying space policy and international law or patent law, which could lead him to a position in the State Department or Department of Defense. “Anything that will help me understand different international perspectives.”