WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.490 I was almost exclusively a student government guy. 2 00:00:04.490 --> 00:00:07.321 When I was here for orientation 3 00:00:07.321 --> 00:00:11.121 we lived in Bragaw Hall, my grandparents had a hotel room, 4 00:00:11.121 --> 00:00:16.561 and there was some kind of play that they did in Talley, 5 00:00:16.561 --> 00:00:20.860 talking about what life was like on campus. So we were walking from Bragaw to Talley 6 00:00:20.860 --> 00:00:24.281 and my grandparents were going regardless. I was determined to skip 7 00:00:24.281 --> 00:00:30.643 because there was this-. Before we had kind of the Cates Crawl all the people set up in the 8 00:00:30.643 --> 00:00:36.866 auditorium area of Witherspoon, so I snuck my way in and went to this little student organization area, 9 00:00:36.866 --> 00:00:40.484 thinking I was going to join College Republicans, because I was a political activist in high school, 10 00:00:40.484 --> 00:00:44.531 so that was my focus. Under no circumstances was I going to do student government. 11 00:00:44.531 --> 00:00:49.455 As I'm walking around actually I met Jenny Chang, who was the student body president at the time, 12 00:00:49.455 --> 00:00:55.952 and I'm picking up stuff from the different tables and she motions me over to the SG table 13 00:00:55.952 --> 00:00:59.433 and I'm like, okay, well what group are you? She goes, "I'm with student government," 14 00:00:59.433 --> 00:01:06.309 and I'm like [Noise of hesitation], "I'm not trying to be rude but I just really have no interest in what y'all are doing." 15 00:01:06.309 --> 00:01:10.484 She goes, "Well what do you think we do?" and I gave some kind of idiotic response that in hindsight was really dumb, 16 00:01:10.484 --> 00:01:16.788 but she goes, "Okay, well I'll cut you a deal. You don't have to join student government but take this pamphlet for our Wolf Aides program, 17 00:01:16.788 --> 00:01:20.008 apply and see what happens." So I'm like, okay, cool, thank you. 18 00:01:20.008 --> 00:01:26.012 End up leaving the room and someone makes it a point to me-. One of the other folks in the orientation group goes, 19 00:01:26.012 --> 00:01:31.279 "Oh, you realize that was the student body president?" I'm like, "No, I don't know who the student body president is or what they do." 20 00:01:31.279 --> 00:01:34.950 He was like, "Yeah, that's the president of the whole campus." I'm like, okay. I really sounded like an idiot. 21 00:01:34.950 --> 00:01:38.375 But what ended up happening-. So that was orientation. 22 00:01:38.375 --> 00:01:43.419 We move in, I apply to the Wolf Aides program and they end up accepting me as one of their members. 23 00:01:43.419 --> 00:01:52.601 Go to a meeting and after that meeting I come back and my RA, a guy named Brian Overington, was actually a student senator, 24 00:01:52.601 --> 00:01:58.127 and as I'm coming back from Wolf Aides he was coming back from senate and he was ranting and raving about something they had voted on that night, 25 00:01:58.127 --> 00:02:01.560 and I'm intrigued. I'm like, this is politics. This is what I did in high school. 26 00:02:01.560 --> 00:02:07.199 He explains to me what's going on and he goes, "You know, you really should think about trying to be one of the freshman senators." 27 00:02:07.199 --> 00:02:12.380 Back then we had gotten rid of freshman elections. 28 00:02:12.380 --> 00:02:18.887 They voted for freshmen for a time, I guess turn-out kind of fell off, and then for a long period of time they appointed them, 29 00:02:18.887 --> 00:02:27.710 so I ended up getting appointed and I was kind of hooked after that. I literally did student government just about every year I was at State. 30 00:02:27.710 --> 00:02:33.809 My freshman year I was a student senator, I ran for senate president as a freshman, which is idiotic in hindsight, 31 00:02:33.809 --> 00:02:38.952 definitely lost, came in third out of three. Worked for the media sophomore year, 32 00:02:38.952 --> 00:02:42.943 worked for the media when I came back in '05, I call that my second sophomore year, 33 00:02:42.943 --> 00:02:47.844 then was a student senator again and then spent my last two years as president of the student senate.