By Gabriela Laracca

KU student Viviana Vidal is involved in student housing, th Keystone Newspaper and KUTV.

Vidal was a transfer student from Lehigh Carbon Community College in Schnecksville, PA, where she said there were no real activities she could get involved in aside from school work and hanging out with friends. The lack of prior involvement sparked her energy to become heavily involved at what will, this May, become her alma mater.

“When I transferred here, I was immediately really happy with the fact that there was a lot of student involvement, so I knew I wanted to get involved,” she said.

Before her current trio of extra-curricular activities, she was involved in many more- including an affiliation with ESA, a service sorority.

Over-extended, Vidal cut back on her involvement outside of class when it became too much. She explains that her second semester here is when she came to that realization.

“I felt like I was trying to play catch-up,” she said. “Before [KU,] I wasn’t involved [so] when I came here and got involved, I got a little ahead of myself.”

Post-graduation, she wants to become a broadcast journalist, so naturally, she remained with her journalistic organizations (KUTV and the Keystone,) she explained.

She also enjoys these particular activities due to the sense of tangible accomplishment. In these groups, “You’re creating something and it’s something that’s tangible that you can take with you,” she said. “Something that you can put in your portfolio right before you graduate to show employers.”

The third extra-curricular she decided to stick with was her job as a CA. Student Housing is one of the affiliations Vidal is most invested in.

She explained that she truly likes her job as a CA, her favorite part being the staff she works alongside.

“I don’t think I’ve met a group of people as amazing as the people that I work with,” she said.

Aside from her co-workers, Vidal also genuinely enjoys her duties as a CA, especially her community programs including her favorite- going from apartment to apartment playing Cards Against Humanity with her residents.

“[Community programs] give me a really good opportunity to get to know my residents,” she said.

She also said she enjoys her community programs because she feels it is important to be there for her residents.

“In a position where you’re helping people, you have to be present and visible.”

On top of knowing her residents personally, she likes to make sure her residents are happy. Aside from the door decorations she creates during her own spare-time for residents, her job requires her to ensure resident well-being.

“We have that responsibility on our hands to make sure everyone is safe, that everyone is comfortable and that nothing too terrible is happening,” said Vidal.

She also explained it is not simple to enforce rules.

“People that live in this community come from all walks of life, so you definitely have to be aware of what you say and how you handle situations because you don’t know what you’re going to deal with,” said Vidal.

Alongside these struggles, she still struggles with the same lack of free time she faced before cutting back.

“There are times where I wish I had more time to do everything that I wanted to do and there are times when things stack up to each other and deadlines come together,” she said.

Despite these struggles, she explained that she would never give it up. She feels the experience was a good one that she can take with her after she graduates this year.

“I think it’s made me better, to be honest,” said Vidal. “It has definitely given me the opportunity to grow.”