The following is a feature story I wrote for a Journalism class.
‘Making the most of every opportunity’
Caroline Emerick does it all.
From working with the Dean’s Student Advisory Council, the Student Government Association, the Ball State Honors College and more, she has left her mark on Ball State University.
Emerick is a senior studying Human Resource Management and Leadership Studies at Ball State University. In previous years, she has been a Office of Student Life coordinator and mentor, editor-in-chief for News and Notes, the Honors College newspaper, Senator Representative for the Student Government Association and associate director and later vice president of the Dean’s Student Advisory Council.
In her senior year, she is making the most of every opportunity.
She has been promoted to president of the Dean’s Student Advisory Council.
“I work one-on-one with the Dean of the Miller College of Business as well as with her associates and faculty,” Emerick said. “We not only convey student feedback and concerns to upper leadership but also facilitate and plan multiple large college-wide events, including an event that happens on our admitted student day which receives over 1,000 admitted students and families.”
She took on the role of president of the Society for Human Resource Management student chapter at Ball State.
She works as treasurer for the Student Government Association.
She even voluntarily took on the role of Bartholomew County ambassador for the Governmental Relations and Industry Engagement Office. Growing up in Columbus, Ind., part of Bartholomew County, Emerick felt called to support her community.
“We support our counties by promoting why college graduates should look at staying in Indiana when they graduate!” Emerick said. “We highlight fun things about where we live, cool companies that are great to work for and attend a lot of events that involve networking with legislators, our representatives and managing relations with the statehouse.”
She took an internship with Lids earlier this year, working on best practice guides for human resource topics, planning the intern service project and running the corporate social media account, Lids Career.
“I have received a full-time job offer from Lids Corporate in Indianapolis,” Emerick said. “I will be going to work there after graduation as a human resources coordinator, but specifically working on the talent development team.”
Even with so much going on, Emerick still manages to find time for herself.
“In my free time I like to go antiquing, thrift furniture, do arts and crafts projects, bake, or hang out with friends,” Emerick said.
She even made it into Ball State’s top 100 students list.
“[That] was a huge moment of accomplishment,” Emerick said. “To make that list you have to not only exhibit true values of Beneficence but also have a very well-off academic standing, and then also exhibit very strong cross-campus engagement and involvement as well as showing initiative outside of campus.”
More recently, she was voted Homecoming Queen.
“When I was standing on the stage during royalty coronation for homecoming and I heard them list the top five winners, and realized that my name wasn’t mentioned. This made me think ‘oh so either I didn’t make it as far at all or I actually won the entire thing,’” Emerick said. “That realization was a huge moment for me and seeing how much impact I had actually had across the entire University.”
Emerick did not always plan on going to Ball State University, but she sure is glad she did.
“I’ve always felt wanted here,” Emerick said. “Ball State was one of the first schools that accepted my college application without submitting any test scores when I was a senior in high school. This made me feel like this was the right place to go because they were interested in me. When I got a scholarship that I was really hoping to get and I was admitted to the Honors College, I truly started to feel like this was a university that wanted me.”
All that she has done and accomplished throughout college has proven over and over again that she is “making the most of every opportunity.”