By Shalhevet Cohen
It’s hard to believe that the school year is almost over. For some of us, it’s a bigger ending than others. This May, my fellow senior classmates and I will be graduating. As the year draws to a close, I have begun to reflect on my time at Yeshiva University, and my experience on student council in particular.
When I stepped into the role of Beren Campus Student Government (BCSG) President a year ago, I felt lost. My head was swirling with questions. How was I going to fulfill my responsibilities in this role? What even were those responsibilities? Now, I look back with a sense of accomplishment and pride. The road has certainly had its ups and downs, and has taught me no shortage of life lessons. Before I say goodbye to YU, I would like to share a few of those with you:
1. Imposter syndrome is real – but it doesn’t accurately reflect what you are capable of.
When I started my position as student council president, I felt way out of my league, that there was no way I was doing an adequate job. Perhaps that I was even letting down the student body.
Countless times, I have been asked what the role of president entails. I always answer, “Anything and everything.” It’s true. There are no clear guidelines for this role. Because of this, I had nothing to measure my actions against, no metric with which to determine whether I was doing a good job. For months, I experienced imposter syndrome. Yet, over time, I became more comfortable with my role and what was – implicitly – expected of me. Conversations with administrators and students who appreciated the work that I was doing helped to strengthen my belief in myself.
I even discovered that the lack of clarity surrounding my role was a blessing in disguise; it gave me leeway to define the position for myself, for what I believed necessary in order to represent the student body. So yes, “imposter syndrome” exists. But don’t forget that while the feelings are real, the fruits of your labor are a far more accurate testament to your strengths.
2. Make time for business. But when business hours end, put your work away.
Although smartphones are a very highly effective means of communication, they also make it hard to take much-needed breaks. WhatsApp should have been the app I was using to text my friends and call my sisters who live in Israel, but the app very quickly became a proxy for student council-related work. Even at late hours of the night, I knew I might receive a text with a request or question related to student council.
At first, I answered these texts whenever I could. However, even simply opening the app quickly became a stressful activity. At any moment, I could have dozens of school-related texts to answer, of which many required focus and time to adequately respond to. I barely responded to texts from friends because I wanted to spend as little time on WhatsApp as possible.
Finally, I came up with a solution: set aside time to answer the student council-related texts. Every day, I would spend ten to twenty minutes answering these texts. After that time passed, I did not feel pressured to answer incoming work texts (unless, of course, they were urgent). After some time concretizing this routine, I found myself answering friends’ texts more often and even responding to school related texts in a more timely fashion. Remember that business hours are real, and you have to set up a system that works for you and for the people you are working with.
3. Establish a connection with various departments before needing their help.
In the beginning of last summer, Sam Weinberg, Yeshiva Student Union President, and I met to discuss our student council goals for the year. We agreed that it was important for us to reach out then, in the summer, to the deans and department heads that we would potentially be working with in the coming year. In the past, tension had arisen between student council and a given department when the first interaction between the two was one requesting the other’s resources. By establishing a relationship preemptively, without an underlying request, we hoped to mitigate the likelihood of negative interactions.
That summer, we contacted and met individually with numerous administrators and department heads. Each appreciated our outreach and were extremely receptive to meeting with us. That one decision set off the year with a positive start, leading to a collaborative and dependable relationship between student council and various administrators. Remember that the administrators, faculty and staff at YU are our partners, not adversaries. With this understanding, there’s no telling how much we can accomplish as a community.
4. Prioritize. Not everything can be done at once.
In my first meeting with the Office of Student Life (OSL) this year, they advised that I choose one goal to accomplish over the course of the year. They wisely explained that, as great as many ideas are, each change can take a long time to implement. Instead of drowning as you try to accomplish ten goals at once, focus on a single, achievable change.
This piece of advice has remained with me, and I applied it to navigating my day-to-day life in general. Throughout my time at YU, and especially this year, I have had to balance numerous responsibilities. Between student council, the TAMID club, school work, planning for aliyah, family and friends, it constantly felt like I was being pulled in a million directions at once.
This year, I learned the power of setting priorities. Every moment, I had to decide which of my conflicting responsibilities reigned supreme in that instance. Much like setting “business hours” with WhatsApp, I designated times for focusing on school work and times for hanging out with friends. Thankfully, this system allowed me to fulfill each of my responsibilities in their own time.
5. “Good news” means no news at all. Keeping things running smoothly is highly underrated.
While running for and serving in my role as BCSG president, people often asked me what I hoped to accomplish as student council president. I always found the question a little funny. As president, I served for a year, no more and no less. That is a short timeframe within which to effect major changes, especially when navigating the bureaucracy of YU.
The year prior, I had had the privilege of serving as Speaker and Judaic Representative on the Beren Legislature. The experience taught me the importance of maintaining a smoothly-running system. My predecessor, Avygayl Zucker, did an outstanding job. Following in her footsteps, my goal – though a humble one – was to continue the amazing council she had created and led. The day-to-day operations of student council may not be riveting, but they are the core of a strong student body. My role was to solidify that core even more.
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And now I bid you farewell. It astonishes me to see how much I have learned and grown in such a short period of time. These five tips were just the beginning. Though I hope these tips will be useful to my successor as BCSG president, they are applicable to many situations in life, and I urge every YU student to implement them. College is an extremely transformative time in our lives, not only for education but in our personal growth as well.
Future graduates, I have one wish for you all: When it is your time to walk across the graduation stage, I hope you truly appreciate the incredible personal development that you accomplished during your time at YU.
Photo Caption: The Beren campus BCSG plaque
Photo Credit: Shalhevet Cohen