Interviewed by Anjeola Salami, photographed by Emma Jean

First off to introduce yourself, three facts about you.

I’m Bosnian, Polish and American. I have lived in Bosnia, where I was born, then I lived in Egypt, then India. Also I have been part of the executive council in my high school, which was basically a body of eight students that were elected by the high school to serve as student representatives. I was in that for eleventh and twelfth grade, the last two years.

Why would you like to be a Student Rep?

I would like to be student rep because I really enjoyed doing it in my old school and I think that as a campus we’re so diverse, we’re so international – you know, there are so many different viewpoints, so many different opinions, and I think we all really need a voice for that. I think there are things that we as a whole campus have recognised need to change and I really hope to be a representative for everyone and to try and bring about some changes.

Do you have previous similar experience?

Yes so I have two years in my old school at the high school wide level.

What would be your main aims and missions as a Student Rep?

Okay, well I have a bunch of different things, but I think the main things would be focusing on communication and transparency, as well as trying to help build more of a sense of community here because I know coming from a small international school, community was really important and I’d really love for us to have more of that here. So, of course more communication and representation. For example, having maybe one or two town hall-style meetings per semester with the student representatives, so that anyone can come, voice their concerns, their opinions, their questions, which we can then relay to the administration. So that there is more of an influence from the whole student body on communication with the administration. Also, having a big survey per year to really just question people about every aspect of student life and student services here on our campus to see what needs to improve, what we’re doing well. As well as just increasing transparency with the administration, between classes, getting our grades to be shown online, our attendance to be shown online, so that it’s easier for us to have access to things.

Why do you think you would be the most suitable for this position?

I think that I would be suitable to serve as a student representative for a few reasons. First of all I have experience working in my high school, where we were also student representatives to the board. So, I have experience working with administration. Secondly, I think that my diverse and international background helps me understand many different people, many different viewpoints, and I think that I would be good at representing as many people as I can and hearing out as many people as possible, bringing more of a voice to the student body

Miscellaneous question: If you were a famous political leader, who would you be and why?

Maybe Bernie Sanders because I think he really tried to bring about positive change, especially for the young people and given that we’re a university, we’re all composed of young people and I think there really does need to be some positive changes that happen here. From the small things like creating a sense of community, like getting grades online to bigger things like transparency in general with the administration, which is really important especially with the events that we’ve seen in the past week.  

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