The FIUTS Student Board Speech at the 2021 Blue Marble Bash

On April 24, FIUTS celebrated our fifth annual Blue Marble Bash! Even though we still couldn’t gather in person, we had an incredible virtual event to raise support for FIUTS programs.

The program included speeches from inspiring students who have been a part of our work during this past year, which we’ll be publishing on the blog this week. We hope you enjoy this inspiring (and funny) speech from three members of the 2020-2021 FIUTS Student Board: Emerson, Michelle, and Thena!

EMERSON: Hi I’m Emerson. I’m a 3rd year majoring in Bioengineering, minoring in Korean and Global Health. I’m on the FIUTS student board as the CulturalFest Expo cochair. Take it away, Thena!

THENA: My name is Thena, sophomore year student majoring in astronomy and physics, and planning to minor in data science and quantitative science. I’m from Malaysia. I’m a member of the FIUTS Student Board, holding the position of Global Gala Co-Chair. And I’m going to pass it to Michelle.

MICHELLE: I’m Michelle, a graduating senior double majoring in Art and International studies. I’m also serving as the secretary and outreach chair for FIUTS. And how did I get here? Before applying for the student board, I actually didn’t know much about FIUTS-- it was only after I was accepted into that i really started to get a feel for what this organization is. I mean--its huge! Even now I’m mostly familiar with the events & activities for UW students, but I know we also work with host families, run programs for visiting international groups, and have an impressive board of trustees, not to mention incredible staff that keeps FIUTS running. Emerson what brought you here?

EMERSON: Last year, especially at the start of the pandemic I had a really tough time with my academics and I had to drop a lot of classes and postpone my major curriculum. I didn’t want the year to go to waste, and my friend suggested we should apply to the FIUTS student board together. My response was: ok. So I applied. Beforehand I had facilitated some events but the board to be honest always seemed too professional and not very related with what I loved about FIUTS: making connections and finding community. Thena, you’re only a sophomore. What made you want to join the Student Board so early in your college career?

THENA: Prior to joining the Student Board, I only knew about FIUTS from Wednesday lunch and CulturalFest. Participating in CulturalFest and seeing the logistics behind it made me curious about how I can get more involved in these events. Ever since I came to UW, I’ve always focused on academics only and wanted to participate more in extracurricular activities, so FIUTS came into my mind. I applied and got accepted into the FIUTS Student Board.

This is when initially I thought I was in the wrong place. I thought I will be helping the FIUTS members to organize events, like as a committee member. But I never thought I would be given the responsibility to organize the Global Gala: an event that I never knew existed till I got the position. At the first student board retreat online, I had some kind of imposter syndrome, surrounded by people with a lot of experience, especially in working with FIUTS. Nevertheless, I took this as a personal challenge to build myself as a better person than I was before. 

MICHELLE: Thena that’s super impressive! I’m personally very glad that you found your way to this community. I think FIUTS has done a really good job of converting our in person activities online through things like Zoom meetings and Discord, where we can all chat, ask questions, and share things with each other virtually. The Discord was how I was able to virtually meet a ton of incredible people this year, such as the student board. In fact, I even joined an in-person running group that was founded on the FIUTS Discord - which then inspired me to buy a bike because the group got so big and there were too many people running! I’m sure Thena and Emerson can also testify about how this community has helped us through the pandemic:)

THENA: Ever since the pandemic has started and we are required to stay at home, I found myself not socializing with people properly. Staying home, especially for a long period of time, can be really exhausting. Most of the time I found myself either studying or play video games, and the only people I always meet or hangout with are my housemates. I’ve kind of had a hard time meeting with people when I came to UW for the first time, and it got even harder when the pandemic hit, where I’m unable to meet with new people.

EMERSON: It’s been difficult to hang out with people these days, so I’ve really looked forward to FIUTS events because oddly, doing things with semi-strangers is much more uplifting because we all came to FIUTS to find friends. Being on the student board has been a lot more interesting than I expected it to be, and I’ve had a blast working with the other members. FIUTS has become a much bigger part of my life, giving me something meaningful to work on over this year.

THENA: Definitely! Joining FIUTS has gave me the opportunity to meet new people. I had a rocky start when I got to know the people from Student Board, as I felt a bit awkward but I quickly overcame it when I joined various activities and events, and started collaborating with them. I also won’t miss any chance of hanging out in-person with them, for an example this one time during fall quarter when Alex, Emerson, Kedi and I had some socially-distant pizza at the Quad. It’s these small things that made me grateful to be a part of the FIUTS family.(stop here)

MICHELLE: Yes it's definitely like a FIUTS family! We’ve really gotten to know each other. There are a lot of inside jokes on the discord, such as creating digital images of our faces placed on random inanimate objects--especially our president Kedi’s face. Shoutout to Alex, the manager of student programs, for putting up with the student board for calling him old and immortal.

EMERSON: Oh yeah, calling Alex old is a student board favorite. But I guess my experience being on the student board could be best summed up one Saturday too early in the morning. In my first day joining that same exercise group that Michelle was talking about before, we ended the run at a cafe and chatted with each other. One of the students expressed how grateful he was that a place like FIUTS existed because he didn’t know anyone else at school. Being from Seattle and having 2 in person years of school here, I hadn’t realized how important it is to have a community. So in a funny cyclic manner, just like my friend had gotten me to join the student board, I told him to join!

MICHELLE: He definitely should! The student board is a fun place to be. We go hard with the ice breakers. And we all take care of each other and respect each other’s time when times are rough. Its times like these that really reinforce the importance of a strong community, and I’m really grateful I was able to find my way to FIUTS this year. Getting through these times with each other makes me really hopeful for the future--I can’t wait to finally meet some of these people in person so we can keep building community together.