Four years ago, I was gearing up to graduate high school — and was primed to attend Boston University in the Fall. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I ultimately decided to take a gap year to wait out remote classes and other needed restrictions.
Then, a year later, I re-prepared to start school. Coming onto campus was exciting, and I was eager to get involved. I immediately applied to be a sports writer for The Daily Free Press. I also heard about AdClub, BU’s pre-professional advertising agency, and applied to the club’s varsity team, which does real work for local and nonprofit organizations. I became an account executive for Follain, a Boston-based skincare company.
A semester later, I became an office assistant at COM Undergraduate Affairs — COM’s academic advising office — and a year after that, I joined the COM Ambassador program.
Each opportunity presented a new challenge, a new networking chance, a new place to learn what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
Three years — and four summer courses — later, I am getting ready to graduate from COM in August. I’m so grateful to have taken on major leadership roles in both of those inital organizations that I joined when I came to BU — Editor-in-Chief of the FreeP and President of AdClub.
Through these leadership roles, I developed immensely helpful skills for a career in communication: how to lead 150-person organizations, how to communicate effectively, how to be empathetic but assertive when needed. But most importantly, I learned a true passion for mentoring my peers. Helping students learn about the possibilities of COM, and learn about what they’re interested in has been at the forefront of my BU experience.
I’ll leave BU better than I was when I arrived from the faculty, the staff and the students constantly pushing me to be my best. But I hope I leave BU knowing I improved the experience of other students, whether personally or professionally.
