When I was in high school I was our class president
and I knew that that kind of thing interested me.
I like to advocate and communicate the things that I'm passionate about,
which may just be a fancy way to say I like to talk a lot.
But when I first came to NC State I met a guy who was involved with student government
and I knew that I wanted to be a part of that organization. I went to see a student senate meeting and they were an engaged body,
they stayed up late, and they worked hard for something they believed in, which was that NC State could be the best
student experience campus in the country.
That was kind of their mantra when I first started, so I wanted to be a part of that.
Certainly in hindsight my ego probably was at play there.
I wanted to be seen on campus, 'cause thirty-four thousand students, you know, I wanted to do something that later I could say
well I did network a lot with my peers in a big way and that would help me with future jobs.
But later it became more and more about I just love this university
and I was not happy with some things, like transportation or the way x-y-z was working-
you know, the cafeteria, like I mentioned before-and student government provided an opportunity to effect some change,
if the student body supported it. I mean nobody in that organization has any type of power,
I guess you could say, but we had influence if the student body was behind us, and I really bought into that and believed it,
specially by the time I was a junior/senior, which is why I ran for student body president.
I wanted to believe that we could really change minds of the administrators through being a unified thirty-four-thousand-student body.