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That was probably the toughest thing that I had to do as a student here,

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and a student leader, because as I mentioned earlier I was the student leader that literally jumped in over my head, didn't look back

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and then literally treaded water until I graduated.

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To be honest my academics suffered because of my leadership involvement,

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but that's where people like Mike Giancola came in a pushed me, and Mindy Sopher, and my fraternity advisor as well,

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who was an alum, pushed me that you need to focus on your academics,

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and then my college advisor as well, to say, hey, sometimes you need to go to class.

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Because, you know, there'd be a meeting and it would be a tuition advisory committee meeting

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and it's something that's important but yet at the same time I might have a business class that was during that exact time,

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time, so you had to kind of pick and choose, and it was definitely one of my weak points. A lot of times student senate meetings,

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before I got involved, went to 3:00 am but still they were going to 1:00 sometimes.

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So part of it was planning your schedule, knowing that if you're at a student senate meeting until 1:00 am maybe an 8:00 am class on Thursday after a Wednesday student senate meeting's not the best idea.

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Balancing your course load; I think that was another thing I had to figure out,

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and that's why most semesters I took twelve hours.

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There were some semesters that I audited one class of those twelve hours, and I was considered a full time student but I was only really taking nine hours of class.

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So you can definitely see why I was here for the length of time that I was here. Now, working for the university, I've been on campus for the better part of a decade,

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starting in 2004 and it's now almost 2012.

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But it was a tough time and I'm not going to lie; my academics suffered.

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That's, looking back, probably one of the things that I would try and work on harder, is to really focus on my class and set aside time for my class.