As an international student, my interactions with the Office of Campus Life (OCL) started four years ago, at the Welcome Week of Summer 2018 when I came to the campus for the first time to move in my dorm and attend the incoming student orientation sessions: SOAR.
Welcome Week events, including SOAR, are mostly held by OCL, to provide both incoming and returning students the most inclusive, informative and engaging environment on campus. During my freshman year, I got to experience the Welcome Week, Homecoming, Late Night Breakfasts before Midterm and Finals weeks and various holiday & important day celebrations organized by OCL.
Later on, during my sophomore year I started holding positions in student organizations and Greek Life on campus, which helped me understand the importance of OCL staff and their service to student body & leadership. When I started taking executive roles in the student organizations in my junior year that also happened to be the fully virtual year due COVID-19 Pandemic, I further recognized the remarkable influence of OCL’s welcoming attitude & constructive assistance in conflict management that helped the student body stay healthy, connected and active in very hectic times.
The more I got to realize the value of OCL and it’s assets throughout these three years of my college life at IIT, the more I started considering to participate in the Student Life Leader Assessment 21-22 to become a Campus Life Ambassador; further cultivate my leadership skills and play an integral role in shaping the student experience at IIT. Shortly after I received the offer letter to serve as a Campus Life Ambassador (CLA) from the Student Life Leader Selection Committee, we (the new cohort of CLAs) were given the chance of selecting our areas of interest to work with.
Considering the visual design skills I have been improving under the objectives of my Architecture education and experiences with student organizations and events, I was pretty interested in working for the marketing and social media branches of OCL. Once our Campus Life Coordinator announced that they were looking to appoint a CLA to work specifically in creating campus newsletter and social media campaigns for the 2021-2022 academic year amongst the CLAs who selected marketing/social media as an area of interest, without any hesitation I shared my experience and provided the work I created in marketing. I was lucky enough to get the Marketing Student Assistant role in this way.
My responsibilities and tasks as the Marketing Student Assistant role include:
1- Documenting and showcasing events held by OCL (Welcome Week, Student Organizations Fair, Greek Life-Taste of the Quad, Homecoming, Global Holidays, Community & Volunteering Initiatives etc.) on both social media and OCL Newsletters.
2- Preparing at least two regular update newsletters per week to promote events-opportunities and updates from OCL, student organizations and fellow community extensions of IIT.
3- Creating separate Newsletters and social media series on Instagram/Facebook with custom graphics/flyers and poster content I design to celebrate and highlight important days (Global Holidays, Thanksgiving, MLK etc.) and months (Hispanic Heritage, Native American Heritage, Black History, Pride etc.)
4- Joining training/meetings with the Senior Director of Campus Life and Student Engagement and fellow OCL Staff.
