Student Senate started the semester off with a question-and-answer session with Eastern students on Wednesday night at their new meeting space in the Arcola-Tuscola Room.

Lucy Ade, a junior interpersonal communications major, said that she would not have gotten where she is today without Student Government. 

Ade was a senator her freshman year, executive vice president her sophomore year, with her present role as student body president.

Ade originally thought she was going to be a high school math teacher, but is now looking to go into a completely different field because of her experience in Student Government.

“I was gonna be a math secondary education teacher,” Ade said. “My idea was to teach high school math. I am now currently looking at grad schools for student affairs and higher education.”

Ade said that even though she was unsure about joining student government, she still put herself out there. That is also her biggest piece of advice when joining organizations.

“Take that leap,” Ade said. “I have been in organizations that I’m no longer a part of, and that’s okay. You can join and after a semester say ‘hey, it’s not for me.’ That’s okay. Me applying to be a student senator, me putting in my application for that election was literally a midnight decision. It was almost midnight. And I was with one of my friends. I was like, ‘hey, what if I did this?’ And he was like, ‘you could.’ So I sent my application. Got the 50 signatures I needed to get, I ran to be a student senator. [My life] completely changed because of a midnight decision. But take that leap, take that step forward. It’s okay. You’re not going to do this all alone. You’ll always have people here and student government and throughout the university helping you.”

While some new students may be nervous to join the senate, Téa Wheat, a second year college student affairs graduate student and graduate assistant in the Student Activities Center, said that the environment is incredibly inclusive.

“I think just making sure that they know that it’s definitely an open and inclusive environment,” Wheat said. “Jasmine, who’s the speaker of the senate, is absolutely such an amazing human, and she’s really approachable. And so just come into the Student Activity Center or email one of us, and we’re able to get you involved here with Student Government. You can also stop by a meeting sometime and just be able to meet everybody.”

Wheat, who was not in Student Government as an undergraduate, said that she is impressed by how the Student Senate, which is made up entirely of undergraduate students at Eastern, pushes for the things that they believe in.

“For me, I think that it’s really interesting just to see a different perspective, to be able to learn more about the things of how universities function, especially how the undergraduates work so hard to really push through what they believe in,” Wheat said.

The next Student Government meeting is Sept. 7 in the Arcola-Tuscola Room of Martin Luther King Jr. University Union at 7 p.m. All are welcome to attend.

Katja Benz can be reached at 581-2812 or at kkbenz@eiu.edu.