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Speaker: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast by the hosts and guests may or may not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of �������� University.

Speaker: Freshman year I came in undecided.

Speaker: I'm finance, entrepreneurship, anthropology.

Speaker: I'm a senior architecture student.

Speaker: I'm involved in the blockchain club here.

Speaker: I'm very passionate about studying abroad.

Speaker: Classes are going great.

Speaker: And then obviously very involved with my sorority.

Speaker: I'm thriving.

Meredith Aliff 

Hi, I'm Meredith Aliff. And this is major insight. This is the podcast where we talk college life with amazing students about how to find your place and purpose on campus.

During her time in college, Nyah Smith has gone from an uncertain first-year student to a true student leader as the University’s Student Body President – and it’s been remarkable journey that shows just how truly transformative college can be.

Nyah is also a Social Work and Public Health Major with an interest in health equity and social welfare. And she’s worked with hundreds of student organizations as a SEAL Ambassador, where she’s helped students from all across campus make college feel like home.

We’ll also talk about how to pivot and adapt to the unexpected, while still embracing the magic of living in the moment. Why student orgs are such a vital part of college life. And about why it’s so important to get out of your comfort zone, to get involved, and to just go for it.

Meredith Aliff 

And my first question for you is who are you?

Nyah Smith 

Yeah, so my name is Nyah. I currently have the honor of serving �������� as our student body president. And I have also been an intramural curler here, which I think is super fun.

Meredith Aliff 

Super cool. I love that. So what was the reasoning for your majors? Did you come in kind of knowing what you wanted?

Nyah Smith 

So I currently am double majoring in social work and public health. However, when I first came in, I was just social work. And how I came to that was because my mom became a foster parent when I was 14. And so I was introduced to social work at a very young age. And then I got to college. And one of my first classes my freshman year, there was a girl in my class who was a public health major. And I was like, oh, that sounds cool. And then I decided to add on a double major, because I want to go into health equity, and specifically birth equity -- working with black woman and infant and maternal mortality. And so that's kind of how I've combined the both.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah, very cool. So what are those classes look like for you? Like, what are you doing lectures? Is it hands on? What kind of stuff do you do like day to day in class?

Nyah Smith 

One thing that I'm very lucky about is that a lot of our social work classes are pretty small. So they're very intimate settings, a lot of learning about how you would interact with a client, a lot of talking about implicit biases that you may have, a lot of talking about your backgrounds and where you've come from, and how that has shown up in your everyday life and how you would interact with people. So it's a lot of conversation and discussions, which I love, because you get to hear other people's perspective. And you also get to hear how other people's backgrounds have shaped them into who they are today. And getting a better idea of like, okay, that person, we disagree, but I see why you feel that way. And it's also too prepared me for when I go out into the real world and work with clients, better understanding that we may not have the same values. However, that doesn't make us any better or worse of people. And we can come to a common ground, and also understanding when my values are my values, and not to pressure and put those on other people.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah absolutely. And I feel like kind of figuring out that where you aren't the same almost makes it easier to then work together. Because then you know, like, Okay, what can we focus on that we do have in common? What do we need to kind of compromise and work toward? So that's super cool. I love that. Are there any classes or teachers that you would like to give a shout out?

Nyah Smith 

Yeah, a professor at ��������, who I love and who has been my favorite is Dr. Barrios, she taught my culturally informed practice class within social work. And in that class, I learned so much about myself, and so much about how when working in social work, everyone often says like culturally informed, however you really need to be ...be in a stance of cultural humility. And recognizing that you don't understand everything about someone's life or their culture, you may have met someone who shares this particular identity, however, that one person doesn't represent the whole group, and recognizing that we have so much to learn when talking to people about their gender, their race, their ethnicity, where they've come from. And it was a lot of introspective work and understanding our background, and then how that prepares us to work with other people in the social work world.

Meredith Aliff 

That's so cool. I love that. So let's talk about the big one. You are our newly elected student body president

Nyah Smith 

I am.

Meredith Aliff 

What was that experience like running and doing all that? I don't even know how you express interest, how you get your name on that, like, I have no idea how any of it works. So give me a rundown.

Nyah Smith 

Yeah. So the student body president and vice president elections happen around the same time every year. The year before I ran, my junior year, I had a friend who was running, and I watched her journey very intently. And even after she won, like a week after I was like, "Okay, we need to talk about that, like, what do you do? How do you do it?" And she's like, talk to me later. I was like...

Meredith Aliff 

I am very busy.

Nyah Smith 

Right! Exactly. And being in her shoes now. I'm like, I understand. So around October or November, I really had to start getting serious about whether or not I wanted to do this and what it would look like and what it would mean. And I also needed a vice president because you have to run as a ticket. So I wanted someone who I trusted. I wanted someone who was involved on campus. I'm wanted someone who people loved and adored. And the person who immediately came to my mind was Jules Jefferson. And so I asked Jules, I said, "Hey, let's go catch up at skippers," which is a restaurant Oxford.

Meredith Aliff 

Love it. The best waffle fries in the world.

Nyah Smith 

I know. Exactly. So we were just catching up. And I was like, "would you want to run for student body president and vice president with me and be my VP?" She's like, "Yeah." So immediately after we started talking about our platform, what we would want to run on, what we would want to do, we then started talking to administrators, started talking to students about what they wanted to see on campus, what was going wrong, what were the gaps, and then there is a period of putting a petition through. So you have to tell the Associated Student Government your platform, and then you also have to get 150 signatures, which is crazy.

And then the campaign process was three and a half weeks, we ran on a slogan of "building the table." And it comes from a quote, may build longer tables, not higher fences. And we really wanted to create a �������� where all students felt prepared and equipped to have a seat at the table. So that whole three and a half week campaign process, we visited over 50 student organizations, we hung up posters everywhere, we ran a whole social media campaign, it was crazy and a lot of work. And I tell everyone, I will never run for anything again. However, like looking back on it, we looked at each other and told each other we were so proud of what we've been able to do. And to the representation that we've been able to bring to ��������.

We are the first all black ticket to be elected at ��������. And we're both black women. So it is exciting, it is cool. And it's powerful. But with making history comes a lot of responsibility. So that's been a lot of work. However, the support that we were able to get even during our campaign process from multicultural student organizations, and specifically black student focused student organizations was so meaningful and so impactful. And truly, it showed me the strength of community in college, and the importance of leaning on the people around you. So it was very cool. And something I will never forget. And we got to actually put up a real on our Instagram of people saying that they were going to go vote for us. And representation was something that was so important for us, so our reel, actually has representation from various different languages. I think we have around seven languages, we had sign language, French Spanish, Fulani, and being able to show that representation and show that we may be two black woman, but we're here to represent all students and their identities and their backgrounds. So being able to do that is something that I don't take for granted and something I ... it's truly an honor to be able to do.

Meredith Aliff 

Absolutely. Yeah. And it sounds like you guys did a really good job of involving people on campus that might not otherwise care that much. I remember I followed you guys on Instagram, obviously, I was like watching the whole time, just so impressed the whole time. I was like the resilience and like consistency, like, that is a long three and a half weeks. I cannot even imagine. But I was following along. Saw your faces all over the place. Loved it. But, yeah, I feel like you guys did something really special where you got groups of people super involved that might have otherwise been like, okay, like, maybe I'll go on to the hub and, like, vote. Like, maybe. But now you're getting people there and they're going and they're doing it. One thing I thought was super interesting is that you don't have any plans of doing like presidency or like Senate, anything in the future. So what was it in your brain that made you decide like, I want to be the president of the university?

Nyah Smith 

Yeah. The work that I want to do in my life may have a bit of policy work. My public health major, its focus is Health Policy and Administration. However, I really got into this work because I worked in �������� student activities office since my freshman year. In that role, I worked with over 600 plus student organizations on campus, and worked with our student leaders on campus. And being able to work with those over 600 orgs was so impactful for me and really... so when I came to ��������, my first semester, I started looking at transfer applications and didn't think that this place was for me. I came in the midst of a pandemic. There weren't many ways to get involved at that time, right. And I came to the realization that in order for me to succeed in college and to make this place feel like home, I had to get out of my comfort zone a bit, and to step out and get involved. And so I joined our Student Activities Office because I wanted to find my own home. But I also wanted to make sure that I helped other people find their home. Because student organizations are such an important part of college. They are the spaces in places where students are able to find their home, their safe space, they're best friends. And they're truly what I believe, is what keeps people in college. We often say people come because of the academics that they're going to get, however they stay because of the people they met, and the things that they've been able to do. And so the ability that I had to advocate for the student engagement and involvement experience at �������� is something that really what I'm most proud of while being in college, and so being able to be student body president and to advocate on a bit of a higher level, and to be in spaces in rooms, where I am the student representation, I get to bring in that perspective of the value of student life and the value of engagement and involvement experiences at ��������. And that's really why I ran for this role, and why I wanted it in the first place.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah, to go off of personal experience of, like, realizing that there needed to be kind of access to, like, get out of your comfort zone and like have somebody at the top saying like, hey, it's worth it. And you're gonna end up maybe being a student body president someday, like, get out there and do it. That is so cool. I love that.

Nyah Smith 

Yeah, the funniest question that I honestly didn't expect was: what do I need to do to get to be you in your position? I never know how to answer that question. Because honestly, my first two years of college, I would have never thought that I'd be in this position. I was involved as a seal ambassador. However, other than that, I was so nervous to get involved in other student organizations. And I had to, at the end of my sophomore year, really tell myself, you have to get outside of your comfort zone, you have to start going out and getting involved. And I was so nervous of how people were going to perceive me, or if I was going to be accepted by student orgs. However, I had to realize you have to give it a shot, and you have to give people a shot to even get to meet you. And so I tell people just have your own involvement experience. And if you end up here, you end up here. If you don't, that's okay. And I also tell people, often my position means nothing without students and their all's leadership roles as well. And so, there are things that you can do in my position that you don't have to be in my position to do, just do it in your respective spaces, and get outside of your comfort zone and get involved where you can and go for it.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think you've got the right answer for anybody who asks you that because I think it's important. You can't come in with any preconceived notions of what this process is going to be like, like, these next... or the four years of college, you seriously can't have a solid plan because you won't be able to stick to it.

Nyah Smith 

No, not at all. I thought that I had a whole idea of what my four years were gonna look like. It has looked nothing like what I expected it. In good ways and bad ways. You know, things happen. And you have to pivot, you have to navigate, you have to be willing to change, you have to be willing to adapt, you have to be willing to really work on your feet. And I think that that can probably be the most discouraging thing to students in college: is one things that they plan for, or some of the goals that they had, they don't meet. However, that's okay. And there are so many other things to do. There are so many other ways to get involved. There are so many other career paths. That would honestly be my biggest encouragement is to not get too stuck in what you think these four years are going to look like. Because I never thought that I was going to be an intramural curler. I never thought I was gonna be the student body president. I never even really thought that I was going to end up at ��������.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah, no, exactly. Kind of bouncing off of that. Were there any stereotypes about college that you came in with? And have they held up? Have they been kind of knocked down in your opinion, like, was there anything you came in and you were like, oh, gosh, like there's this stereotype or the stereotype and, you know, kind of how has that held up in your four years here?

Nyah Smith 

Oh, gosh, I remember being in high school and my teachers saying, college professors are not going to put up with you turning in late work. They're not going to put up with any nonsense, any craziness. And what I've learned while in college, especially from the Social Work Department is there are people here who want to help you, professors and faculty, staff, administrators, they want to support you, they want to see you accomplish your dreams. For most of them, that's why they're here. And so I have learned that it is okay to ask for help, and that professors aren't going to shun you and turn you away. They want to lean in and actually see how they can help you succeed and support you in any way that they can. And also have real conversations there is the reality that you can't just slack off on all your work and not turn any of it in. However, if you need an extension, make sure you ask.

Meredith Aliff 

Communication.

Nyah Smith 

Right. If something happens, communicate that to your professors, and nine times out of 10, they're going to be supportive of you. And they're going to ask if there's any way that they can help.

Meredith Aliff 

Totally, I 100% agree. And I think ...I came from a pretty small school in a small town in a small state and got told very similar things, these professors, like, you've got it easy with us, all this stuff. I saw the complete opposite. I think it was such a shift from like, authoritarian to, like, these professors want to work with you and collaborate with you and like, really, actually want you to succeed. And they don't want to be in charge of you. They want to almost like be standing beside you and like helping you with this. And obviously, I can only speak to ��������'s professors, but I'm sure all college professors are like that, like they just want to see you succeed, and they're gonna appreciate the students that come to them, and communicate with them and talk to them. So I always had to remind myself, I'm, like, Meredith, you're not being annoying by like messaging them all the time. Like, it's okay. Like, if you have a question, ask them, they're gonna appreciate it. So, yeah, that's some really great advice, and definitely a stereotype that I had as well.

Nyah Smith 

Yeah. Even to Dr. Barrios, had pulled me aside, and we talked about what it would even look like for me to get a PhD, which is not something I had ever dreamed about before, because I didn't even think getting an undergrad degree was going to be a full option for me. And so being able to have those conversations and to learn what that looks like. You can't just apply for a PhD, you have to have someone ... It's a confusing process. And I still don't fully understand it. However, I have her to lean on when I have questions. And I have other professors who want to see me succeed. And like you said, walk alongside you in the journey.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah. Absolutely. So you've taken on quite a big responsibility in your last year here, but it's your last year. So we're graduating. You're graduating in May?

Nyah Smith 

I am.

Meredith Aliff 

Okay. Me as well. Cannot believe it. It's flown by. What are your plans for afterwards? Do you have anything set in stone yet?

Meredith Aliff 

I know. Exactly.

Nyah Smith 

Nothing's set in stone. And it's funny, you ask that question. However, I hate when people are like, What are you doing next? I'm like, I have no idea.

Nyah Smith 

My options are open. I'm looking at grad schools that I'm going to apply. However, I'm also looking at jobs. And if I want to apply for a job, however, nothing is set in stone right now. And I'm okay with that. I think one of the things I've had to learn is that it's okay not to have everything figured out.

Meredith Aliff 

So normal too.

Nyah Smith 

Right. I hope that answers freeing for some people and knowing that they don't have to have it figured out and we'll see what's next.

Meredith Aliff 

And it's totally okay to not. I mean, I have no idea, right. But I think there's something so cool about college and that you really get to be in the moment. But it's just so important to take full advantage of the moment that you're in. Because you've just, you know, you've been doing these things since freshman year, organizations, you've met Jules through an organization, you've met all these friends through intermurals, and all this stuff. And next thing you know, you graduate college, you have an awesome resume, like sitting right there with just things that you decided to jump onto in college. And even if you don't have a solid plan in mind, you've got so much that you can like give to somebody and be like 'so this is what I've been doing for the past four years, like what do you think?" And it's so cool to just take full advantage because it will serve you well moving forward no matter what that next step is.

Nyah Smith 

Yeah. And even, too, my best friend and I have been having a lot of conversations about what are we going to do in May? And both of us are really working to live in the moment and embrace this last year that we have at �������� because it is such a special place and college in general is such a special time in your life. And I think that people get so caught up and "what's next?" and "what am I going to do after this?" that they don't fully embrace all that college has to offer them. And navigating those conversations with my best friend has been very helpful.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah, absolutely. It's so good to have people to lean on. Like, that's one of the best things you can do in college is just find people. Yeah. And everybody's like your future bridesmaids, but it's like so true. Like, these are your college people. I feel like it's the most intense and close connections that you make as a person are the people that you meet at this stage of your life.

Nyah Smith 

Yeah, me and my best friend Haley met the end of my freshman year, and she was a junior. And so we were at very... we weren't at completely different stages in our life, but a bit different. In our thought process and what we were thinking. However, we've been able to lean on each other. And she's really been my confidant in this stage of my life and in college, and being able to talk about that and being able to bounce ideas off of each other. And even, too, Jules was who I leaned on during the campaign. However, I like to joke that Haley was our campaign manager, because we stayed up till 3am making banners and posters that we would hang up in the student center. She's going to be in my life forever, whether she likes it or not.

Meredith Aliff 

Yeah, and just the support of having someone that is willing to help you expecting nothing in return. Like, it's just so great to find people like that. Well, you have given some fantastic advice all throughout the podcast. But if you could go back and talk to yourself or anybody in the position of summer before college, you have no idea what to expect. What would you say?

Nyah Smith 

If I could go back and tell my younger self something, I would tell her that there are no ceilings, there is no limit to what you can do. When people tell you "no," figure out how you can do it, figure out what you can do. And also, too, not to limit yourself. There have been many times where I have started to do something or thought about doing something and I've been my hardest critc. And learning that the worst you can do is fail. And that's not too bad. Because then you just get up and you try again or you pivot your path and you try something new, but really learning that there's no limit to what you can do. The possibilities are endless, even when they don't feel like it and even when you get turned away from an internship or a job or an opportunity. That's just leaving your time open for another thing.

Meredith Aliff 

Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. Okay, well, it has been such a pleasure meeting you and you are in such an amazing position on this campus. And I've loved watching you kind of build up to this moment. I was so excited to talk to you today. But I can't wait to see how the rest of this year plays out and I wish you the best of luck with everything.

Nyah Smith 

Thank you. I appreciate it. You have been incredible

Meredith Aliff 

And we out.

Nyah Smith is the current Student Body President at �������� University, where she also majors in Social Work and Public Health. After graduation, she hopes to pursue a career path in health equity and social welfare.