S: Tell me a little bit about yourself, Gabi?

G: OK so I am recently 20 years old, just had my birthday. I am from Washburn, ND. I am a theater and English education major, mainly theater, that’s kind of what I focus a lot of my time on. [It’s] kind of one of my big passions. I am obsessed with reading and learning anything about theater, that’s kind of been what I do in most of my free time recently.

S: How long have you done theater for?

G: I have been doing theater officially since 7th grade so about six, seven years? So yeah, I started in the 7th grade, I was doing my [middle] school’s fall play which was a little murder mystery, and then I did the one after that year and I fell in love. And I did all of the one-acts and fall plays throughout high school, and then decided that sophomore year of high school when we made it to the state Class B tournament play festival, I was like, “yeah I can see myself doing this in college.”

S: What are some other activities in groups that you participate in on campus in addition to theater?

G: I participate in the Student Senate, I’m a senator, I am an event coordinator/leader in SET, and I am an intern at the café through Sodexo. Yeah, I think those are kind of my main ones.

S: And what do you do as an intern?

G: For the Sodexo intern it ends up being a lot of marketing. So the other intern is Sadie Meissner, and we work together to do little events and we do things like café decorating or like when there’s a national day like this coming Tuesday (February 28^th) there’s a National Strawberry Day, so we planned some different desserts, some special cereals, and stuff. We do a lot of those kinds of things, but we also are in charge of the screens in the café, so that’s kind of a really big portion of our time. We spend quite a few hours a week putting those things together. You wouldn’t think you would take that long, that’s kind of like the main thing we do, we’re little assistants. I know that Sadie did a little bit of the prep for Casino Night with some of the catering that they did, [like] cutting out some of the garnishes.

S: Could you say a little bit about the majority of the work you do for SET? What does that look like?

G: That also looks like a lot of event planning. With SET this year, changing a little bit from the former previous job we’ve been trying to kind of elevate our events make them a little bigger, make them more popular things students want to go to. And that ends up being a lot of times, and on my end, just planning. For example, I ended up planning the Trivia Night that happened a few months ago and that was just a lot of planning work, talking with people about what topic they were interested in, what kind of questions they want, even to the point of like, looking at food options, stuff like that. So, it ends up being a lot of overall planning, but it also is just a great, like, really satisfying job that I get to do. I get to not only like imagine these events because I came up with the idea and then do the event, but I also get to kind of see how people react to it, and that’s really what makes it this really rewarding thing. And I think me being a really organized person, it kind of helps me mentally to see the whole part of why I want to be a director as well. I love that, and I love being a part of it.

S: What would you say has been the most rewarding part of all the things you do on campus?

G: Honestly, I think that it’s just that community that I built. I love that I can go anywhere on campus and I can recognize people. Like I either see the people that I’ve done theater with, or who I’m a senator with, or I’ve met through SET. I just really like knowing people, and I like talking to people. I love having interactions and I feel like that’s been, like, growing the more and more that I’ve joined on campus and I really love that.

S: How well does what you do on campus reflect what you would like to do in the future for a career?

G: I think that it really, really reflects. So I am a theater and, English education major, so in the future I hope to teach, hopefully I teach theater, specifically. But I do love English as well and would love to do that. I feel like [majoring in] theater directly relates to teaching theater and doing theater, but I also think that a lot of the other extracurriculars I do help me with that communication side. And also, just building connections, and I think that that’s really helpful as a teacher and as a director. Like being able to connect to people on where they’re at, where I’m at, even just having small conversations with people who I wouldn’t consider a super close friend, but I know them. That can, feel like all the things I do really help me build connections and to build relationships with people on different levels and that’s kind of something that will help me out in my future as a teacher.

S: What about yourself and what you do on campus makes you a Jimmie?

G: I think that at least for me part of the reason I came to campus, and so many people say this, is that it is such a community here on campus. And I feel like the things I do; I always try to leave the UJ community a little bit better than I found it. I think that helping build SET has been a part of that as well, like, taking something, something that was real, that’s really good and really great for the Jimmie community and building upon it I just hope that at the end of however long I’m here that I can leave an impact. And I feel like that, that for me being a Jimmie is kind of seeing where we’re at now, and creating a place that’s better than when you found it; and creating and finding a community that you didn’t have before.

Want to see or hear more from Gabi? Catch her at SET events and this spring’s upcoming play A Midsummer Night’s Dream on April 13, 14, and 15 at 7:30 pm!